TV Actor Killed By Train

I think that nearly every young person has done something stupid that could have resulted in death or serious injury at least once in his or her life.  I know that I did and that I was lucky several times.  I was also lucky during the years that I spent in Vietnam.  A Navy A-6 bomber pilot once told me that red hot luck beats planning and execution every time.  He had two planes blow up underneath him.  

 

This is just another tragic event.  It wasn't an accident because he shouldn't have been on the tracks and I believe that he knew it.  He took a risk and his luck ran out.  What a waste of a young life and talent.

 

Joe 

Intelligence and common sense are two different things.  I have known highly intelligent people who have had very little common sense.

 

As a teenager in the early 70s, I grew up in a small village of about 50 houses, near a Reading line.  Not much traffic, maybe a half-dozen trains per day.  From the road in front of our house, you could walk about two miles towards town on a wide gravel maintenace way along the tracks.  As a kid, I often road my small dirt bike on the gravel road.  In the other direction off the road, the maintenace road ran about 1/3 mile and crossed a small bridge.  Never walked across that bridge, just knew it was to dangerous if a train came.

 

Jim

Sad....but not unusual........Between dumb things and suicides rail delays in So Cal are common. 

Yeah, but you can't put that up because people will shred/electrocute themselves on the fence, then sue the railroad.

"Make something idiot-proof and someone will build a better idiot."

 

Rusty

As an alternative, could anything be done to make the trains themselves look scarier and more menacing?

The other side of this is the thousands....maybe millions of people that walk around trains daily without any incident. While in San Diego Old Town station last week......where Amtrak Surfliner, Coaster and multiple trolley lines intersect, folks walk in and around the trains.....and trains move very fast around platforms. Hand held devices need to be put down when you are there though. Simple paying attention cures 99.9% of issues.

Last Friday, in Burlington County NJ, a 56 year old man decided to go around the lowered warning gates and attempt to cross the tracks. His car got stuck and was hit by a NJ Transit train.

 

The man lived, but his passenger ... his 3 year old grandson ... died from his injuries.

 

I just don't understand people.

Worst punishment ever imaginable......

You are so right Dave.  I can't imagine how someone could live with themself after doing something so stupid.  What a tragic story 

 

Rich   

"scarier trains"?  The above comment about large trucks being cut off by somebody

oblivious to the fact that laws of kinetic energy are always enforced and cutting off

18 wheelers or driving around gates can equal SPLAT! also brings to mind that some 18 wheelers have toothy jaws in front of their grilles, like P-40 fighter planes, which, I guess, the drivers hope are reminders not to cut in front of that big rig with the long stopping distance, that is in your mirror.  If auto drivers can't see or ignore headlights, including those moving "Mars lights?", on trains, I don't see that putting toothy jaws on trains would help much.

I rad on "Military.com" last night that the LA actor was running in front of the train while his buddies videoed him. They have an in-train video of the accident.  Now that is seriously stupid. Evidently he did a lot of this stuff around trains, I imagine, because of the implied risk i shows. Guess what ??

Even older ones have done something stupid most likely. Standing on a chair to reach something rather than getting the ladder, etc. Or the famous "It doesn't look icy." There are those things you look back on and go "???"

An adult doing something stupid that puts them at risk is bad, kids doing stupid things that put them at risk is also bad but we've all done stupid things as kids and those of us who lived to tell about it either warn others not to but for an adult to put kids at risk is criminal. Just Google "Children on railroad tracks" and see how many of them are done by "professional" photographers. It's amazing how many view train tracks as a prop or a background.

Children

Do any of these people get visits from law enforcement to let them know this is dangerous and illegal?

 

Jerry

I was wondering if the cops look the other way in the big buck entertainment world of

Hollywood?  And, if not, why haven't both these cases, this one, and one on NS

tracks, gained the supervisors barred windows?

 

 

quote:

As an alternative, could anything be done to make the trains themselves look scarier and more menacing?

You're kidding, right?

I dunno.  This looks pretty scary to me:

 

Rusty

CSX, NS...megamergers, I was too lazy to look it up.  Yes, the one on the CSX bridge.

Glad to hear somebody is going to get stood in the corner for that.  That Kool-Aid

loco looks like it might ATTRACT kids.....?  What is that?  No billboard reefers, but

Canadian railroads are selling advertising space?

Credit MTH. I have the loco, it just doesn't look this menacing. It isn't a funny topic, but trains don't kill people. Bad decisions and sometimes personal problems kill people

 

Another fitness instructor killed along train tracks in Atlanta after misjudging the width of a train.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/w...-guru-killed-5368015

Naveen Rajan

I guess this is a problem that will never be solved.

 It's amazing how many view train tracks as a prop or a background.

Children

Do any of these people get visits from law enforcement to let them know this is dangerous and illegal?

 

Jerry

good question. Worse yet this issue hits close to home!

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1998-L...ilroad-/380297950685

 

I absolutely despised that cover. Worst example for a train catalog to be viewed by kids.

Here is the Ad agency to blame for the cover.

http://designarchives.aiga.org...sic-catalogue-1998/1

They seem proud of it, for some reason.

The worst was a movie showing the Long Island Railroad and having a child touch the third rail and the dialogue went "They shut it off at night..", which they don't.

Does any body rember dick clarks bloober show.They had a student film from southeast.Anyway ending of the film three teenagers walking down the track.From around the bend come 2 seaboard system sd40-2 pulling a hoopertrain.The blast the horn a few times.All teenagers take off runing toward the camera.The girl grabs the camera and one of the boy get to one side of the track.The other boy went to the other side.As if to say"I SEE YOU 2 ON THE FLIPSIDE!!"We see the train pass by.We hear some body say"LORD.LORD.LORDY!!"At the time I laughed at this.Trains can just come out of nowhere sometimes.People need to be more careful and to be very weary of the abandion tracks.I don,t put any stock in that.There have been storys of railroads not using tracks for years.And then a have a big time derailment on the mainline.And they reroute trains or a huge manufacting builds next to the tracks to get service.

Side Note......

ABC 20/20 had the follow up story of the film crew that was filming on the CSX owned bridge in GA. So much stupidity involved it was criminal.  And thus the films director got 2 years in prison and 8 years probation. Another sad story that was so easy to prevent.  ABC news crew found a bridge nearby owned by a local shortline that allows filming for a small fee for insurance.......and they hold trains during the 'permit'.

Gentlemen,

   I agree with Joe on this one, it's a problem that will never be solved, as long as there are rails some fool is going to play around on them, and sooner or late it all ends up in the same tragic way.  You are ultimately responsible for your own actions!

PCRR/Dave

 

The image of the hobo or group of friends wandering down the middle of the track is ingrained in pop culture, and seems to have translated into filmography with all these dumb, and I mean DUMB accidents.