WITNESS TO THE AFTERMATH

[Anonymous]

[xx(] How many of us were at or went to the scene of a car-train collision? I hope you will hear me out regarding my experience as best I remember.

It was late summer 1967 on a sweltering hot day in the hills of Southwestern Virginia. A well known family -- true "butter and egg" people -- were headed to Meadowview Methodist Church. Were they in a hurry? They didn't survive to answer the question.

Shortly before church service was to begin the family Chrysler with windows rolled up and a//c running, hit the crossbuck-only crossing between village and church at the exact same time as did a Norfolk & Western train going 55 mph (full speed back then). In the aftermath, everyone remembered that the engineer had laid on the horn good and proper.

It's one thing to make comparisons -- say, a good-sized hurricane has the force of an H-bomb -- but something else to realize the aftermath in person. The four family members, representing three generations, were killed instantly. Dad heard about it an hour or two after the incident. Although we lived several miles away and attended a different church, everyone knew this high-visibility family. Like many others, we went to the scene of the tragedy.

When we got there, the mangled car was still there evident but the bodies weren't. Just as well, as death was instantaneously and the bodies -- or so we were told -- were more mangled than the car.. Most astonishing to my father and me was finding the "rubble" of PPG glass from the car windshield fifty feet or more from the crossing. The impact with the train was more devastating than a Baghdad suicide bomb. Did they even know what hit them? There was a lot of discussion by friends and neighbors after the incident. They probably didn't even have the radio on, but were just chatting and focused (but not rushed) on getting to church.

Between 1965 and 1980 I can think of at least four other people who were killed within my high school's catchment area (and therefore bad-news-and-gossip zone), and I was no more than two degrees of separation from them all. Two other crossings were involved, both of them also crossbuck-only. This includes two college students at two different times attempting to cross the gateway into a Methodist-supported college. Even after the second death, in 1980, the N&W would not install a wigwag and gate at that main entry to campus, which eventually had to be relocated.

These people did not attempt to race the train. All of them were probably preoccupied with their daily doings. Those who have never witnessed such an accident ask how long it took the victim to die. How long? Instantaneously. The old canard of Stop. Look. and Listen. still applies. I just wonder how death-by-impact with a speeding locomotive would have ranked among causes of death in that area. Below other automotive accidents but above farm accidents and murders, would be my guess. Today's Norfolk Southern has more and better wigwags and gates along that line, but that doesn't relieve the driver from the duty to be careful, even suspicious.

Every time you approach a railroad crossing you are given the opportunity to save your own life and those of your passengers. I don't know any other way to say it.

Rural or urban, summer or winter, do you have stories to tell? I may be "preaching to the choir" here among railfans, but perhaps there are others who wi***o share.

Allen Smalling
[e-mail]

[dknelson]

When I was a boy there was a terrible crash at a protected crossing in my hometown of South Milwaukee. I assume the man went around the gates which makes it his own fault of course.
I did not go to see it but everyone who did remarked on one odd thing. The man who died had gone to get Christmas decorations and lights for his kids, and those Christmsa items were scattered everywhere around the crossing and for many yards beyond it.

The Operation Lifesaver program has a rather dramatic video that I have seen at train shows -- and even that does not show a train hitting a car at 55. I still do not understand why the New York Times has this seeming vendetta about Operation Lifesaver.
When you actually get a chance to see and touch a locomotive the sheer thickness of the steel that is used is impressive. And if you have ever backed your car into a solid object at about 5 miles per hour the flimsiness of the automobile's construction becomes obvious. When one thinks of all those tons of weight moving at 55 miles an hour and hitting a car, it is like a baseball bat hitting a water balloon.
Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Dave Nelson; your story and the facts you gave are both helpful and significant.

allen

[edbenton]

When I was in high scholl in 1991 we had a nasty one in the Streator area. Some one tried to beat the train across the tracks and a tofc hit it at track speed of 70 mph. all the occupants died the biggest intact piece of the Ecsort was the engine the rest just exploded . The only damage to the engine was a bent plow.

[Anonymous]

I seen a trailer home being moved get hit by a train[:I]

[Chris30]

I know the subject is car vs. train, so I hope that I'm not getting to far off of the subject with a person / train incident. I might have posted this, or part of this, a couple of years ago. It happened in early August 2001 (might have been '02). If you just ate... don't keep reading. Trust me, I'm gonna be very graphic.

It was a hot, lazy, early August summer day. I was traveling east through the town of Lombard, Illinois next to the UP Geneva Subdivison at @1735 hours. I had just spent the day at Rochelle and other locations along the Geneva Sub, so I had my scanner with me and I still had it on as I was driving. Metra scoot #58 was crossing Addison Road (just east of Lombard) at a restricted speed waiting for westbound Metra Express scoot #47 to clear the Villa Park depot before making it's stop. Metra #47 was a express train that did not stop at Villa Park and it was doing track speed - @60 mph. The engineer of #58 called the engineer of #47 to warn of a pedestrian waiting to cross the tracks at Addison Road from the north side. The engineer from #47 west politely thanked #58 and you could already hear the horn blaring in the background. The radio went silent for a couple of seconds. Then, all hell broke loose. The engineer of #47 screamed that METRA #47 WEST WAS IN EMERGENCY AT ADDISON RD, MP 18, PEDESTRIAN STRUCK!! You could barely hear the engineer at times with all of the background noise - the horn and the screaming brakes were very audible. UP Omaha dispatcher 11 replied immediately and read back the inforamtion to #47 and then asked how bad. I remember the reply from the engineer of #47 more for the tone in the voice, and not exactly word for word. The engineer of #47 sounded sad and mad at the same time. Also, it sounded like the horn was still blaring in the background. He let the dispatcher know that it was a big mess. The pedestrian had run around the back of #58, never saw #47 comming. He was hit at track speed (@60mph). The enginer of #47 also told the dispatcher that part of the remains were splattered accross his windshield. Since I was right there, I drove down a side street close to where #47 had stopped. I have a strong stomach, but the gruesome sight that was all over the front of #47's engine almost made me lose it.

I didn't see the body and I think that's a good thing after hearing what the on-scene investigators had to go through. They figured the pedestrian, a male of Mexican desent in his early 20's, was hit dead-on by the couple at 60mph. The coupler ripped through lower half of the body and both legs were dismembered. It took police dogs over two hours to find one leg in somebody's back yard @45 yards away. The force of the collision also dismembered the left arm from the shoulder down and caused the head to whiplash off the front the engine. Remember, investigators believed that the first impact was with the coupler. This caused a whiplash effect on the upper body and created a second impact that was so violent that it caused the skull to crack open and blood and brain matter to splatter over the front of the engine and the windshield as the head was decappatated.

The Lombard FD tried to clean the front of the engine off, but didn't have a whole lot of success. #47 had to be cancelled. A huge blue tarp had to be wrapped around the front of #47's engine and a switch engine from W. Chicago was called to drag #47 back to the yard.

I still think about this incident a lot and wonder what effects it had on the engineer. It's one thing to hit a car, or person. It's another thing to have a human beings remains splattered on your windshield.

CC

[edblysard]

I'm sorry,
But dont you guys have something better to do that discuss death in this manner?
Trust me, every railroader here can tell you gross out stories that will ruin the next week for you...
But they wont, because they live with the aftermath for the rest of their lives.
Enough...give it a rest.

Ed

[wctransfer]

Well, i have never seen anyone get hit. But, stupid people at CP's Humboldt yard in Minneapolis, 2 people went in front of the train. One guy actually got out and looked to see where it was then got into his car and sped across the tracks. I wish he would have been hit, no repect for anything these days.

Alec

[espeefoamer]

I was on the trolley in San Diego one night,when this guy stepped in front of our train.If he was trying to commit suicide,he succeded[:(][xx(].

[Anonymous]

Once upon a time, I had the responsibility of choosing PSAs to air on a station. (Yes, we did run PSAs late at night and on weekends.)

After a grade crossing accident, I called up Operation Lifesaver and got them to send a tape. I then ran their PSAs as much as I could get away with.

It's been about six years since I left that job, but my area hasn't seen a grade crossing accident. Thank God.

[TimChgo9]

There was a particularly nasty crash on the then Illinois Central main through my town. A car, with a single male occupant, dashed across the tracks in front of a train. My father was fire chief at the time, and the car was hit by the Amtrak that came through the area at the time. According to my dad, the car literally exploded, as far as the victim, he spared me the details.

Another incident occured during dismissal from the high school that is the on the south side of those same tracks. A 14 year old girl was walking backwards talking shouting to some friends, meanwhile, behind her, the afternoon local was making it's rounds through the area industries, when this girl walked backwards into the side of the locomotive. The crossing lights were activated, but she simply didn't hear the train, or the horn. My brother was on the ambulance that took the girl to the hospital, where she died a short time later.

Another incident occurred on the BNSF main through Western Springs, I was a firefighter in town at the time, we were "paid on call". I woke up about 2 am to the sound of BNSF locomotives outside my townhouse (the tracks were right across the street), along with the squealing of brakes. I looked out my bedroom window, and noticed a crumpled mass in front of the locomotive, knowing what it was, I was out the door before the alert pager went off. Apparently an eastbound manifest struck a car at the Wolf Rd crossing, about 1/2 a mile to the west. Well, as I was on the first in engine, we walked up to the train, a visibly shaken engine crew sat in the cab, and the remains of a 4 door car was all over the front of the locomotive. My lieutenant was talking to the engine crew trying to get details, while myself and a fellow firefighter went to check the mess in the car..... After peering into the twisted metal, we found nothing. So, we commenced a search of the neighborhood from Wolf Rd east, looking for bodies, or body parts. This went on for nearly 35 minutes, all the while, we were coming up empty, no blood stains, no bodies, no body parts. Well, during all of this confusion, three individuals walked up to nearby police officers, and announced that they had been in the car, there was only the 3 of them, and no one else.

Apparently, they tried to beat the train, but as they did, the car died as they went around the gates. They bailed out of the car, and ran, before the train struck them. They were lucky. The reason they didn't stick around was because they had been drinking. As far as if they were charged with anything, I don't remember, this was about 10 years ago. But, because ot their tom foolery, the engineer on board the train, who had been involved in another grade crossing accident a few years ago, had a nervous breakdown, and had to be taken to the hospital.

My father, when he was fire chief, and for a few years after, worked tirelessly in the Operation Lifesaver program, when he wasn't at the fire house, he was in his train room, surrounded by the hobby he loved so much. As a photographer, and a public safety type person, I cringe every time I am near the tracks and someone either walks across, runs across, goes around the gates, I really don't want to be the witness to a horrible accident, nor do I want my children to witness it.

You are never going to reach everyone, I know for a fact that some people are beyond teaching, or using common sense. I work 911, and in all my experience as a fire fighter, EMT, and 911 Operator, there is a small segment of the population that is just stupid, and irredeemably so. Is that assessment mean? Yes, True? Definitely. That's just how it is. There are tragedies like the one described by smalling_60626 at the beginning of this thread, and then there is stupidity, like the kids who climbed on top of a west bound CNW freight leaving Proviso yard, and got taken for a ride, they weren't hurt, but they were nearly frozen to death, as it was only 40 degrees that night. What's really tragic is when other people have to suffer because someone wants to be, or can't help being stupid. I don't like when people die, and I like seeing it even less.... but you know what? It can't be helped.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

I'm sorry,
But dont you guys have something better to do that discuss death in this manner?
Trust me, every railroader here can tell you gross out stories that will ruin the next week for you...
But they wont, because they live with the aftermath for the rest of their lives.
Enough...give it a rest.

Ed

I do agree, because some of the engeeniers here probably don't want to be reminded if something happend to them.

But, I think Operation lifesaver should track down a video of a deadly car v.s. train accident and show it on TV. I think alot of people would decide its better to be late then risk attempting to beating a train.

Good to show on TV? No. Will it get the point across? Heck yea.