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Insurance fraud? I don't have any more sensical explanations.
I hate to be an armchair detective and jump straight to the worst conclusion, but insurance fraud comes to mind.
He glides onto the track, stops, and immediately turns on his flashers and gets out. Just seems way too convenient to be a pure accident.
Edit: forgot to mention, accident or intentional, I'm glad he got as far away as he did from the crossing. The locomotive threw that car!
Oooo!...Good idea! Let's play "What's in the Thought Bubble?"...
I'll go first...
Nothing.
It certainly appeared intentional to me but, given the presence of three railcams at that location, I’m inclined to discount insurance fraud.
I wonder if the car was stolen and the “accident” staged simply to gain notoriety, similar to some of the other idiocy that is videoed and posted to social media.
Curt
I have to go with Curt's idea, hard to believe anyone would believe they were going to get insurance from this one.
Anyone find this in the news out there? I did a search and found nothing.
Curt writes: “I wonder if the car was stolen and the “accident” staged simply to gain notoriety, similar to some of the other idiocy that is videoed and posted to social media”
Certainly looks like deliberate criminal behavior. As far as social media goes, this degenerate doesn’t get his face plastered on facegram or any others. No notoriety achieved. He’s anonymous. Probably done for the thrill, like an arsonist.
I was on the Ashland camera this morning and the chat was trending toward an intentional act.
I watched the incident several times on live rewind and it certainly looked like an intentional act to me. The gates and lights had activated well before the car appeared. Other than brake failure, the driver could have stopped in time. The driver was way too calm as he (?) got out of the car and wandered away. He didn't even go over to look at the car after the crash from what I could see on the north cam.
Gotta feel for the train crew. They don't know who else may have been in the car. If this was intentional, they should press all the charges they can.
Bob
Maybe a bad relationship breakup, and it was ex's car perhaps? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Drunk?
It was a car thief leaving behind a stolen car
Hope to see you out rail-fanning: Gary 🚂
I saw this on Reddit a couple of hours ago before it was posted here. I came over to see if any of you had seen this video because after watching it two/three times I just didn't understand what I was watching. Like everyone said, it looked like he/she just drove on to the track, opened the door, got out and calmly just walked away. I was wondering if there was something more to this that I missed. Obviously not.
Probably some YouTuber doing something stupid to build their channel.
BTW if they catch the person maybe should extradite them to Riker's or Cook County Jail.
@superwarp1 posted:
While we discuss what the idiot in the car was doing, this is an engineer’s worst nightmare come true. I know I had a passenger car with children in it; one afternoon go around the gates. The mother was late and thought she could beat us, my GG-1 did not stop as fast as she thought it might, we dragged her car for a mile and a quarter. This was the most traumatic day of my life.
Just remember, there are always two victims and one of them has no choice.
Definitely looks like a carjacker dumping the car and nonchalantly walking away. He didn't look back, didn't film it with his camera , didn't care about how much damage he inflicted to the train, the car and the crossing gates. There aren't a lot of good intentioned people out at 3:15am.
He drove out there and it looked like on purpose as thinking this is a way I can get a new car. he could of gotten around the other gate. This appears a deliberate way to lose a car, like maybe one could call it insurance fraud
I think Penn-Pacifics comment is right. That looks like a woman getting out of the car, and running. My thought, she is thinking, "I'm gonna get even with that dirty cheating boyfriend/husband of mine."
@third rail posted:Definitely looks like a carjacker dumping the car and nonchalantly walking away. He didn't look back, didn't film it with his camera , didn't care about how much damage he inflicted to the train, the car and the crossing gates. There aren't a lot of good intentioned people out at 3:15am.
If you look closely on first view it does appear just as he gets out of view he is turning around to watch, he also deliberately went around the dropping gate at the beginning.
3:15 in the morning no witness is his thinking, probably had no idea of the cameras
@CALNNC posted:I think Penn-Pacifics comment is right. That looks like a woman getting out of the car, and running. My thought, she is thinking, "I'm gonna get even with that dirty cheating boyfriend/husband of mine."
Police have subsequently confirmed that it was a male.
Sure looks deliberate. However, maybe drunk/on drugs? People do really stupid things when high. Here it looks like they may have initially thought they could beat the gate but got caught between them. Then their foggy mind could only come up with leaving the car with the flashers on. Notice they didn't run away, and they did slow down and looked back. Watch the person's actions closely; just getting away from the crash.
Or a good act.
Yeh, and he/she knew exactly which track to stop the car on!!!
There are two lines, and he/she deliberately chose THAT track......the one the freight train was coming down on!!!
Something funny going on there!!!
Peter (Buco Australia)
@CAPPilot posted:Sure looks deliberate. However, maybe drunk/on drugs? People do really stupid things when high. Here it looks like they may have initially thought they could beat the gate but got caught between them. Then their foggy mind could only come up with leaving the car with the flashers on. Notice they didn't run away, and they did slow down and looked back. Watch the person's actions closely; just getting away from the crash.
Or a good act.
Interesting angle.
@Hot Water posted:Police have subsequently confirmed that it was a male.
Do you have a news story or link to a police report? I would like to see how this ends.
How did the person know a train was coming? Maybe the person was sitting there for hours waiting for a train.
Devils advocate here, people do weird things when in a panic... Think item falling off stove or oven, I am sure I am not the only one who has bear handed a oven hot item. But on the flip side, the flasher and not just pulling forward points to something else.
This was one crazy move by whoever that driver is, at least they got out of the car and lived. Thanks for showing this video, it’s not smart to try and out run a train. Happy Railroading Everyone
It happened at 3:16 AM. The driver probably had 1 too many at the local pub. Do railroads send bills to these idiots who cause damage to the locomotives, crossing gates, etc?
@ed davis posted:It happened at 3:16 AM. The driver probably had 1 too many at the local pub. Do railroads send bills to these idiots who cause damage to the locomotives, crossing gates, etc?
Maybe he had intoxicants on board, but it certainly looked like deliberate behavior, not drunken carelessness or stupidity. He even turned on his flashers!
@eddie g posted:How did the person know a train was coming? Maybe the person was sitting there for hours waiting for a train.
Eddie......the wait would not have been too long......it's a well know section of track, very busy and averages more a train per hour over a 24 hr period. That area is the setting for Ashland Rail Days a festival that we (the River City 3 Railers) participate in by bringing one of our modular layouts to display (next one is April 29th, the weekend after York).
Peter
Nothing new but the Police are investigating.....
@RSJB18 posted:Nothing new but the Police are investigating.....
Actually, there is a new data point. The guy left the scene. Was only speculation up till now.
Let’s Play Detective!
Gary: Hope to see you out rail-fanning. 🚂
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Well if the guy didn't know there was a camera pointed right at him. He will know soon if not already. Crazy.
@superwarp1 posted:Well if the guy didn't know there was a cam pointed right at him. He will know soon if not already. Crazy.
There is more than one camera pointed at him. There is a camera in the locomotive and all those near by stores have cameras, facing the street.
Gary: Has left the building to go rail-fanning. 🚂
I hit several vehicles when I was an engineer, and each time, I instinctively put the train in emergency, but thinking back, I have to ask my self.. why? The damage was done, why risk more damage or a derailment, all it did was save a little walking. Never was addressed in any training I ever recieved from the railroad. A normal stop or full service would have been sufficient, for the lawyers maybe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8X_cNwe-SY
Here is an update from ABC News 8, Ashland VA
A witness that owns a model train hobby shop is interviewed.
Hope to see you out rail-fanning: Gary 🚂
I wonder if we will ever hear the conclusion of this episode. The nightly news seems to always be headline news with rarely a follow up.
@RoyBoy posted:I wonder if we will ever hear the conclusion of this episode. The nightly news seems to always be headline news with rarely a follow up.
I hope we do - knowing that he left the scene, the insurance fraud idea doesn't seem as credible. A press release from the Police would probably be our best chance for a follow-up.
One thing to note is the crossing arms are only on the direction of traffic side of the road - I mean, there aren't gates completely blocking both lanes on both sides. It isn't like the person got stuck in the middle and panicked, the road ahead of them was clear. They get out and walked away; they don't even look back when the train hits the car.
I agree it seems unlikely it would be insurance fraud since they did it at such an open spot - even if it wasn't for the railfan cameras, it's a brightly lit mid-town crossing. I'm sure they could have found a remote spot a few miles (blocks?) away without flashers and gates where not seeing the train coming would have seemed more plausible.
BTW very surprised police think it was a man? To my eye seems more likely to be female. That also makes it more likely to have been a revenge thing than a teen doing a stunt. Stealing a car and getting it smashed or something like that would be more a 'guy thing' I think.
@wjstix posted:BTW very surprised police think it was a man? To my eye seems more likely to be female. That also makes it more likely to have been a revenge thing than a teen doing a stunt. Stealing a car and getting it smashed or something like that would be more a 'guy thing' I think.
That DEFINITELY looks like a woman.
