HAPPY STORY: During the years when I taught middle school (7th & 8th grades), I taught an extra class called an exploratory class. I chose railroading, which included real railroads as well as model trains. I also invited the "Operation Lifesaver" personnel to present their fine program, which also included a safety film, which showed the force of a highway vehicle/train collision. One year, one of my female students allowed that her railroad engineer dad was a presenter in the program, and that made the experience more personal. In addition to my railroad exploratory class, I would take a large group of my students on trips to Chattanooga, TN to ride the steam excursions then sponsored by the Southern and later NS railroads, in cooperation with TVRM. In preparation for these trips, I would spend a couple of periods on rail excursion trip safety and send printed rules' sheets home to parents for signatures before the students could sign up for the 200 mile-plus roundtrips. The result was NO accidents ever on any annual trip between the years 1972-1984! I believe I helped many hundreds of my students learn about rail safety, that would hopefully carry over to their adult years, when they became drivers themselves!
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