2 Killed By Train in Lousville

I'd say the guy shooting the video was incredibly lucky he wasn't involved too.  Had the train struck that car at a bit of an angle, it could have knocked it right into him.

Curt

Maybe it's because I hang around here, but there seem to be a bunch of people killing themselves with trains. My condolences to the train crew.

 

Railfan Video

 

Gilly

I am familiar with Buechel, on Bardstown Rd.  I know there is train activity there but

not on that main road, so I can't picture the location.  May be close to Appliance Park,

a big GE plant.  Bardstown Rd. goes over the tracks on a viaduct.

woah that car was moving fast, sad

Looks like a typical case of the car trying to beat the train to the crossing and losing.  Reminds me of the incident a few years ago in Michigan with an Amtrak train.

 

Stuart

 

 

This happened less than 2 miles from our house.  This crossing is not on Bardstown Road.  It is a non-gated crossing that runs parallel to Bardstown Rd, on Buechel Avenue, which is where the old Southern RR Buechel Depot is located.

 

Just to clarify, Bardstown Road does not go over the tracks on the viaduct.  Bardstown Road, has a gated crossing, that is almost impossible to circumvent when the gates are lowered.  The road that goes over the tracks is Buechel Bypass.  Its a connector for Bardstown Road/ US 31-E, for those that wish to avoid the crossing.

 

Though its UP Locomotives on point, this happened on the NS Mainline.  NS is renting locos from everyone they can right now.  I've seen UP, KCS, CSX, BNSF, CN, CP, & BCRail on this mainline over the past several months. 

 

I created a little map to work as a guide for those that want to have a Birds-eye view of the area.  

 

#1 (Blue) Buechel Fire Station... Literally a stones throw to the Norfolk Southern Mainline.  This is a staffed 24/48 House.

#1 (Orange) Southern RR Buechel Depot/ Non-gated crossing where point of impact (POI) occurred.

#2 (Orange)  Stopping point of NS/ UP Consist.  Approximately 1/2 Mile from POI.

#3 (Orange)  General Electric Appliance Park (White Area is the perimeter boundary).  NS controls these tracks too.

#4 (Orange)  Point of Reference, Our House.

 

Click on attachment to see full size map.

 

Thanks for the map James. It's been years since being by that area of Buechel. I remember the grade crossing before it had lights much less gates. There had been a bunch of hits over the years, not including all of the near misses. Way, way back when my stepfather engineered the "Buechel Local" as the crews called it, as well as the "Lawrenceburg Turn" during Tobacco season. He made contact several times with vehicles, trying to beat the train. It really took a toll on his nerves, that in itself, will put a guy in an early grave......................................Brandy! 

Being in an engine that hits a car will stay with you a lifetime. I was involved with one and that was 9 years ago. I remember like it just happened. Two 5 year olds  were killed and I saw them in the car just before we hit them. I could not get to my two kids soon enough after that. 

 

I remember after we got stopped, the crew was shaken but OK for then. I started walking back with the conductor, and he was asking question after question, about what to do, what to look for. Local Authorities were there by the time we walked backed. There was nothing we could do at the time, except make sure the conductor was OK as it finally hit him. A few minutes later, the local Fire Dept arrived and they had to Pastors with them. They stayed with the Engineer and the Conductor to console them.

 

It is something I will never forget as it seems to be etched into my mind. I relived it every time I went over that crossing, wether it was on a train or in my truck.

 

My thoughts always go to the crews, as their hand are tied and most times no one thinks of them.  

Gentlemen,

   For the life of me, I can not understand why people want to play games with trains,

this is what happens when you loose the game.  My nephew is a Train Engineer and this kind of incident is one of his worries, he is one of the kind of young men, that might not recover mentally, from an incident like this, especially if he happened to be driving that big engine.

As Gilly said my heart goes out to the crew of that big train.  The car driver playing that game was more than just stupid, IMO he was a felony criminal, especially if he was texting or playing games on the phone as he drove at a high rate of speed.

PCRR/Dave

Given the point that this crossing has had several vehicle / train accidents and many more near misses, it is probably time to install some gates.

 

It is hard to imagine why the driver of the white car drove in front of the train.  I guess that people either don't see or don't register that a train is coming when the lights are flashing and the bell is ringing.

 

Joe

The title to this thread is incorrect.  It should read "Two killed by illegal driving."

These days, the odds are the driver was probably texting and didn't even know what hit them. Its probably the same scenario for the rest of the people in the car as well.

 

 

Unfortunately the train was moving faster. I can't imagine how the engineer and crew can mentally deal with that. Very sad. 

Chris,

    I know for a fact the crews of these trains take their jobs very very seriously and now these crews are given mandatory mental help after these incidents, and still many of them suffer greatly for many years.  These foolish drivers and people walking also,

cause great mental anguish to some really highly trained, train crews.  Some of these crew members never fully get over these incident.   It's more than sad, some of these incidents are definitely criminal.

PCRR/Dave

Precisely!

 

All of the recent train vs. vehicle incident reports claim that the "TRAIN HIT - - -" and makes it sound as though it is the big, bad train's fault, and entirely up to the railroad and municipality to fix the crossing, stopping speed, alerting system to the engineer, and so on.

 

The vehicle driver (car, truck SUV, bus...) is seldom mentioned as the entity at fault. Of course, the latter normally is deceased or in critical shape, so it may be best not to mention them?

 

Alex

I don't know if my dad was involved in any crossing disputes when he was firing

Southern steamers, one run out of Louisville to Lawrenceburg..which makes me

curious about the comment above.  In that job, you have to have what I call "an

iron shield", the psychological fortitude to realize that stuff happens that you have

NO control over, and you cannot blame yourself.  You have to have that in auto

accidents (between autos) in which you are not at fault.  If some klutz runs a red

light, broadsides your car on the passenger side, launches himself through his

windshield, and is injured, it is not your fault.  This happens every day, hopefully

to somebody else, if it can't be stopped, and there is nothing anybody can do about

it, so you can't get ulcers over it.

So, I guess what I'm surmising from you hirailer, and that's for the crew involved to just "Suck it up, and Go"?

 

Well you have to factor in "Not everybody is the Same", what bothers you, don't bother me. I'll never forget my first kill in Nam, and all those emotions as a kid of 19 years old goes thru. It never gets easier, but after several more, you get a hide like a Crocodile, or Iron Shield as you called it. They are all there in the memory bank, and those are things that aren't factored in. Hmmmmm maybe just a sign of another  person without the Iron Shield!!!  

Too bad that they can't put a cop, railroad or municiple, at RR crossings, @ least the most popular ones; to issue "wreckless driving" citations for everyone that tries to cross against the signal's. Mandatory 6 month suspension.  That might wake some people up, but, then again, maybe not....

Joe,

 

This crossing is quite visible as you are driving down the road, and it leads into a neighborhood, where there are mountain size speed bumps to slow drivers down.  It is not what one what qauntify as a blind crossing. Heck you can see the locomotive as its approaching the crossing, for approximately 75 meters down track from the crossing. This driver was either not paying attention or just being plain stupid and playing chicken with the lives of the occupants in the Honda. 

 

Unfortunately if the driver is one of the two survivors, they will most likely be charged with vehicular manslaughter at the minimum, if not 2 counts of murder, and 1 count of attempted murder. So for whatever reason they felt the need to beat the train, they will get to ponder it for the rest of their lives.  

 

Anybody that resides in this area and is using these crossings, is vey much aware that this is a very heavily active train area. Being that its the NS Mainline, there is a train approximately evey 20 minutes.  That is 70+ Trains per day.

 

I empathize with the crew of the locomotive. As a 1st Responder, this type of incident is very traumatizing. Yes, one typically does grow thick skin and develop some sort of immunity to a tradgedy like this, but it still hurts. My Fire Dept responded to this incident, and everyone that was on-scene will talk with our Chaplain, and go to mandatory grief classes. I do not know if Chaplain Bishop responded, but if he did, he would have been one of the first points of contact for the train crew. Chaplain Bishop is a great gentleman, and does an awesome job as it relates to interacting with those that experience a traumatizing event such as this.

 

I just drove this area today, and there is trackside gravel flung across the pavement at the Bardstown Rd. crossing, and there are rubber tire marks burned into the asphalt in several locations, from where the car got drug. Not to mention the copious amounts of yellow tape spread over an area that is 1/2 mile long.  

Brandy,

 

Welcome Home.

 

Dick

Well, you can't walk in another man's moccasins.   I hated losing a parent, I hated

losing a large number of relatives, but I can't dissolve into a puddle and spend my

life in a rubber room over things beyond my control.  The loss of loved ones has happened to many of the posters on here, and, as a friend's grandmother would say, "You pull up your socks and go on".  While not even close to being in a position to get shot at, I had some tiny involvment in procuring chaff dispensers and other defensive measures to thwart missiles fired at A-10's (Warthogs)that were busy laying down ground fire to cover grunts on the ground during that unpleasantry.

Colorado,

   As I told my nephew that dives the trains, this is not a combat area, thank God you work in the civilian world, and never have to see the hell of war.  Each person however has to deal with his own mental stability in his own way, no matter the tragedy.  Some however are much larger than others.

PCRR/Dave

Hirailer, I noticed in your 1st post, that your Dad fired on Southern Steam Locomotives? I bet anything that he probably worked with my step dad some! He worked Passenger from Louisville to Huntingburg, Ind- East St. Louis, as well as, Louisville to Danville, until the end of Southern Passenger service sometime in the middle 50's. Then moved on to freight runs.

He got his Engineers Qualifications working on the old 1401 that's in the Smithsonian in DC. That was before WW2 when he worked in Va.

 

Now getting back to the postings, it all comes down to everybody perceives things that happen to them in life, different than the next guy does. They are no lesser of a person for how they do it either, that's life!..............................Brandy!

A co worker I have who is also a Lawyer and train nut mentioned the following after showing it to him. 

 

The train blew its horn the usual grade crossing series.  long- long- short and- long, however they were short burst and not very long.

 

No gate at a high speed line grade crossing.

 

He said the sharks will be circling. Shame.

That is the first thing I thought of also.

The amazing part is you have two train fans with good cameras filming it.

This reminds me of the infamous Downers Grove incident where a METRA E unit (in BN colors) clobbered a female pedestrian, who ironically was walking alongside her attorney on their way to a divorce proceeding, and the lawyer stepped back at the last split second. Her shattered body was thrown right into the tripod of the camera filming her horrible death, knocking the whole thing over.

I was on a rail fan trip a few years ago and got to ride in the engine.  It was a small switching line.  As we were crossing a road a car sped up to beat us through the intersection.  Now we were only going 10 or 15 miles an hour but the car would still have lost.  I asked the engineer if that happens much and he answered all the time.  Crazy. 

 

Chris