Edit topic

Updated your discussion topic below.

Subject
Enter a subject for your topic. Maximum 150 characters.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
[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 smalling_60626@yahoo.com
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
E-mail Subscribe
Check the box below if you want to receive e-mail notifications when replies are made to this thread.

Receive notifications