Tragedy

A year ago an 18 year old girl was struck and killed by an Amtrak CA train just a few yards from her home at a crossing in San Leandro.  Her mother was the first to find her body.  The girl was listening to music with ear pieces and didn't notice the down crossing gates.  She was a week away from high school graduation was the first person in her family scheduled to go to college.

Her mother came to one of my club's Operation Life Saver presentations at her school and talked about what happened.  It was a powerful moment.  

Trains hit people about once a month somewhere in the SF Bay Area.   About half of the incidents are suicide by train.   I wish there was a way to prevent the other half but human nature seems to trump common sense and self preservation.

NH Joe

phillyreading posted:

pennytrains posted:

Back in the day street running trains in NYC had to be preceded by a rider on horseback.  Maybe modern trains need some kind of focused beam device that shuts down non railroad electronic devices on the rail 500 to 1000 feet ahead.

I never heard of that. So the street cars had to have a horse rider in front of the train, very interesting.

Down here in southeast Florida FEC is working on a new rail crossing design, one that would have some kind of net pop up from under the ground to keep traffic off the rails when a train comes through.

Lee Fritz

Freight trains running on street trackage during that time were preceded by a flagman on horseback.

Streetcars (i.e. trolleys) had a device called a "lifeguard" that consisted of a hinged bar hanging under the leading end (or ends on a double-ended car). Should a suitably-equipped trolley roll over a hapless pedestrian, their body would strike the bar and unlatch a steel-wire contraption that would drop down and scoop them up before they would have been crushed under the wheels or the low-hanging traction motors between them.

Not practical for freight/passenger trains though, even modern light-rail vehicles don't have them.

---PCJ

gmorlitz posted:

OGR Webmaster posted:

The other "sad" part about this is that her family will undoubtedly sue the railroad for millions and ...

Totally agree with you Rich, .....

Gerry

I sure don't agree.  A beautiful child has died.  That is the sad thing.

phillyreading posted:

pennytrains posted:

Back in the day street running trains in NYC had to be preceded by a rider on horseback. ....

I never heard of that. So the street cars had to have a horse rider in front of the train, very interesting....

Lee Fritz

Here you go .....

Back in the day, I went down to the Brownsville,Pa. area on business and while there I would cross the Mon River to West Brownsville.  There was a RR line that hauled coal north on the NS and a big yard there.  I have a video of a long NS coal drag heading north  crossing a street with autos trying to get across in front of the train plus school kids running in front of the engine to get across. This happened every day.  Never heard of any one getting hit there but it was scarey.  Then the train down the middle of the street to the yard.

Sooner or later one of two things will happen.  Either the politicians will say they have to do something because industry is not or, the railroads will work with the mobile device makers so that trains transmit a very narrow beam signal about a mile down the tracks that when received by any mobile device will stop whatever it is doing and repeat a verbal and text stating;  Warning - move clear of the tracks immediately, a train is coming.  The user will have to take a positive action to stop the warning.  And it cannot be configured off or silent.

A similar thing could be done with cars.  An active crossing could send out a similar signal that the autopilot or collision avoidance system uses to  stop a car from entering a crossing when the crossing is active for a period of 10 seconds or so before it can overridden.