Quantcast
Channel: Comments on: FRA Guidance on Pedestrian Safety Still Misses the Real Problem
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 13

By: Davistrain

0
0

As a railfan and one-time railroad employee, this article caught my interest.  (I first learned about Streetsblog through a link from a rail-transit website).  The late George Carlin had this to say about pedestrian/trespasser vs. train situations:
“This item demonstrates how stupid the average American is.  Every ninety minutes someone in this country is hit by a train.  A train, okay?  Trains are on tracks; they can’t come and get you.  They can’t surprise you when you step off a curb.  You have to go to them.  Got that?”
In numerous instances, railroads or municipalities have constructed fences to discourage dangerous unauthorized pedestrian crossings of busy tracks, and, unless the fence is super-strong, the local yokels will cut holes in it at their favorite shortcuts.  An example was in the town of Davis CA, where a trailer park was literally “on the wrong side of the tracks”, and the financially challenged residents had to cross tracks with major Amtrak California and UP freight traffic to go to the store.  Needless to say, they weren’t crossing the rails to get to a Mensa meeting.  There is a tunnel, but it’s a considerable distance away, especially if you don’t have an operable car or pickup truck.
One veteran railroader said something like, “When I was a boy, it was my dream to become a locomotive engineer.  The dream turns into a nightmare after a few “trespasser fatality” incidents.”


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 13

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images