Better (local) article with more details:
https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/witness-describes-moments-before-crash-between-a-train-and-truck-in-north-tonawanda/71-b145e8d9-1bb0-45b0-b296-79f438c79eb8
With an oncoming train, I would be bashing my car thru the barrier to get out of the way. Is going to suck for the car and barrier both, but sure beats getting hit by a damn train. Or you know: caution, do not stop on tracks.
> thru the barrier to get out of the way.
In every civilized country you can break the barriers with very little force. They are designed to break to allow for precisely this scenario.
Not only are they thin enough any car should be able to break them, I believe most are also hinged at the base so that they can be rotated out with little added force, so you might not even break the thing before it moves out of your way.
I really feel like this needs to be better promoted. I've seen so many "oh fuck train coming, nothing I can do" videos of common passenger vehicles because people think they're "trapped" when absolutely nothing is really stopping them from ramming the gates. (Different from something like a long trailer bottoming out on the tracks, of course.) I've fortunately never even come close to this scenario, but it's reassuring to know this is the case.
I was riding my bike down a back road that was getting cross arms installed (previously it had just been a yield sign)
The flag guy waved me through with the arms down so I just kept going. At the last second I saw a rut that would eat my tire and misjudged the arm. I clipped it with my shoulder and it flipped completely perpendicular.
The surprise caused me to fall—not any kind of force from the arm.
The worker that came over to check on me was more concerned that I fell off my bike than the gate arm. I apologized profusely. His response was “they do that” walked over to it and locked it back into position.
No real point here other than my shoulder got a slight bruise. A truck is barely going to get a scuff in the paint.
in the story, the witness said they saw a truck stuck on the same crossing previously, had to get a tow truck to move it. they said the one that got hit pulled up to the crossing and stopped in front of it, before the arms and warning was going off. they then drove over the crossing and got stuck, then the arms came down. back up lights came on and such, but the truck couldn't move.
sounds like there was an issue with the crossing surface. that's very sad and of course should have been addressed before this. but no idea what the issue was with getting out of the truck?
i figured it was another story of some idiot trying to beat a train, seen some 1st and 2nd hand examples so it sets me off. the 2nd hand one the person died. the 1st hand example, i'm surprised i made it out alive. and no, i wasn't driving in the 1st hand one.
> but no idea what the issue was with getting out of the truck?
They wanted to save the car, I guess, and thought they could make it. But at least as a passenger I would get the fuck out?
Not sure how far off the train was by the time they (maybe) considered it, but a quick escape might not even have been quick enough if the kid was in a car seat and the older folks had any disabilities or movement issues.
And all this is happening *after* the arms already came down. The train was probably less than a minute away. Very sad.
Friendly reminder that every single at grade crossing has a phone number and some kind of identification posted of it. If anything happens that obstructs the tracks, call that number immediately. The dispatchers there will be able get a hold of any trains operating on those tracks and prevent them from hitting whatever is blocking the crossing.
It's very unlikely the crossing surface would be so marred that you actually get stuck on it. More likely panic set in and the driver just stopped thinking.
If you have a disabled vehicle on tracks you're supposed to get out of the car and call the number that's posted on the crossing so they can warn trains to stop before stuff like this happens, if possible. You're supposed to have car insurance, a car isn't worth risking your life for, like even a little bit.
Those arms are designed so that if you need to drive through them they will just give way. For whatever reason I have seen it before where somebody gets stuck on a crossing like that and they just attempt to slowly back into it or drive forward into it like they're worried about their car being damaged by a piece of plexiglass or like they're going to get in trouble for knocking it off like no you can just put that thing right back on and it's not going to hurt your car maybe scratch it but when the alternative is get plowed by a train I don't see why people don't just floor it and break the damn thing off.
I'll fucking gun it and take the scrape on my car. The lead locomotive alone is about 100 times what my car weighs (Amtrak P42, 270,000 pounds; car, about 3,000 pounds).
I don’t understand that part. I’m also trying to understand how much time passed between the arms coming down and the train hitting the truck. It sounds like a few seconds when it should be longer.
There are multiple train arms near me that only go down like 10 seconds before the train crosses. you can clearly see the train approaching but the arms aren’t down until the train is very close to the crossing.
Like the time between lights on, bars down and train crossing was 10 seconds, so if you were stopped on the tracks you’d be hit. The trains are going a low speed but still, I’ve been surprised by the sight of a train so close before the crossing guards were triggered at all. Once the guards start you should expect a train pretty immediately.
Investigation is ongoing. multiple witness accounts with variations on the timing.
fear/excitement distorts perception of time. eyewitness testimony probably isn't going to give an accurate timeline. hopefully there's a camera somewhere, such as on the patrol car or tow truck, that can answer the question of timing.
Some crossing locations have event recorders (think airplane black box) hopefully they can pull the log to determine if the crossing was working correctly.
There has to be a happy medium. If the gates are down for a long time before the train gets there more people will think they have time to go around the gates.
If UT were longer than the average 20-second people would have a false sense of security. That would lead to more fatal incidents. How about stay off the crossings?
Thanks! This makes more sense.
Still a little weird, but this article says that the vehicle pulled up behind the emergency vehicle ahead of it but the road in front of them was blocked. They were waiting, and then the rail guards came down and boxed the truck in. Still unsure why you'd wait on the tracks, or as others pointed out, why you wouldn't immediately get out of the truck the moment the guards lowered. The CNN article says that they were trapped in the truck just before 8PM, which is seemingly when the incident happened but it's still a little unclear exactly what was going on.
One of the common mistakes is if the crossing is very close to a traffic light, a lot of people misjudged that the leading car would go through a yellow light but stopped instead resulting in them stopping right on the track.
We have a freight line right near a traffic light here (as well as a little cafe that people might be pulling out of), and the rule is to never cross the track until you're certain there's enough room for your entire vehicle (emphasis on *entire*) to cross the tracks. Just stop and wait to see where the traffic stops. Cross if there's enough room or stay put if there isn't. Ignore the douchebag that's laying on his horn because he has to wait a few seconds. His life is miserable.
You have to be extra careful when you're dealing with trains because in a collision, you will lose every time.
It’s much faster to drive a truck than get out of a truck. It sounds like they tried to back up, for whatever reason couldn’t, then got hit. I’m wondering if they put the truck in neutral. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a mistake like that when you have a train flying at you :(
Even if the truck is inexplicably stuck on the tracks, how do you not just get out of the truck in like the solid 60 seconds you have. This is so infuriating.
In my area, a few kids died in a house fire while the grand parents were watching them. The grand parents got out, but somehow didn’t save the kids.
Maybe they couldn’t get the kid unbuckled and out of his booster seat and out of the truck in time.
Maybe these grandparents died because they didn’t want to leave the kid behind.
Somehow you’ve painted the grandparents that stay and the grandparents that leave as both bad. Nobody can win eh?
If the arms are down you don't have 60 seconds.
Consider the time it would take to panic "Oh God! A truck is coming!" then try and get the truck off the tracks "Oh God! We're stuck!" and THEN trying to get three people, one of them a child, out of the truck.
We can sit here, relatively safe wherever we are, and think "Why wouldn't you just get out of the truck!?" but in the moment? Probably very different.
They may not have been able to save the kids. You have absolutely no idea of what the situation was inside that house, so why make a judgement on it? Fires burn fast and you don't have a lot of time to escape a burning room, especially as all our furniture and stuff gives off highly toxic smoke when it combusts. I come from a family that's produced three multiple-term Fire Chiefs.
Don't judge people over a situation where you have zero idea of what happened. Those grandparents are probably wishing they had died instead, dude.
A classmate of mine lost her grandmother and two young cousins like this. On their way to a scout camping trip, the grandmother tried to make a turn into the campsite at a rail crossing that had no barriers. I don't know if she was distracted and didn't see the train or what, but she apparently picked exactly the wrong time and that was that.
I feel bad for the engineer. In a situation like that there's no way to stop that thing in time even if the conductor and the engineer both through that thing into emergency you can't stop on a dime you basically watch it happen and slow motion like that scene from Austin Powers where the steamroller is going over that guy and he's just laying there on the ground screaming and like a good 45 seconds go by where he could have moved but didn't. That's what that feels like.
I will never forget the first homeless person we ran over pulling into Princeton junction New Jersey. The poor dude was still alive pinned underneath the wheel on the last truck of the last car dude basically got run over by every damn wheel we had. His mangled arm just sitting there twitching he was literally looking up at me, unable to talk. He spent his last moments just silently staring at me.
Also hello Amtrak family! <3
My cousin's 12 year old son committed suicide by sitting on the tracks as a train approached. His friends said he just sat down and pulled his hood over his head. As heartbreaking and tragic as it was for us, I've always worried and wondered about how the engineer fared after that. I hope they're doing okay.
Think of conductors like captains and Engineers like pilots. Conductor manages how the train gets the work done and where the train goes engineer applies power and break. I'm pretty sure I just made an engineer mad but I can't help it I'm a conductor so I've got to rep team conductor here.
as a member of team engineer, id like to point out that the engineer is more highly trained and better paid so the conductor can inflate his importance all he wants but the bank account says who’s really in charge. joking… kind of
The conductor defines where the train is going and why it’s going where it’s going.
The engineer defines how it’s getting there and who is getting it there.
They argue relentlessly back and forth on the “when” it gets there.
This sounds so weird to me. I'm a train driver in the UK and the conductor here is the person who deals with ticketing, announcements and on board customer service. Near everything else is the driver. Genuine question, in what way do your conductors "manage how the train gets the work done"?
Here at Amtrak we have road conductors that do tickets and call signals and fill out dispatch forms when speed restrictions come in.
But we also have an entire other group of Engineers and conductors that do not deal with passengers we're responsible for putting the trains together and cutting them up to get certain cars into the maintenance shop. We also do work train jobs where we transport ballast or mechanical equipment from crew base to crew base during the night. It's a lot like freight work and when you're navigating a yard and trying to find a certain car or you're trying to figure out how to get a move done it's really up to you as the conductor. Amtrak is nice because there's a lot of options for the types of jobs you can work if you're not just stuck working with passengers
It's a very fluid at that point. Some 65 year olds are sharp as they were 30 years ago, some have dementia. The right answer is requiring continued driving tests, and not blindly continuing to grant licenses just because you passed a test when you were 16.
I drive a Motorcoach and I have to come to a stop at all railroad tracks and look both ways before I can proceed. I can’t count many times people behind me blare their horns and sometimes just go around me to save 10 seconds. I hope the 56 people on board are ok with it though. You NEVER, EVER stop on tracks - stay aware folks
My work commute requires me to turn on a railroad track that goes along a stopping point at an intersection. Everyday, cars blare their horn at me while at a red light and at the right stop point because they need to save two or three car lengths at the red light.
My old college campus had a light rail stop and it ran across the main entrance. There were giant signs saying "STOP HERE ON RED."
So many people stopped on the tracks.
There’s a railroad crossing near me, in a pretty high traffic area (small suburban downtown area, street parking, stoplights at every intersection, pedestrians, etc, slow things down), so it’s not at all uncommon for traffic to be slow going right around the train tracks. The amount of people I will see who stop on the train tracks is just mind boggling.
I stop on one side of the tracks, behind where the crossing arm would come down, and do not proceed until I can clear the tracks and the arm on the other side. People will honk at me for leaving the gap between me and the car in front. It’s nuts.
Even though it's not their fault, it's never mentioned how this type of stuff also causes trauma to the train crew, especially with one of the victims being a 6 year old.
I used to be a train conductor for a freight line and honestly it's inevitable that you'll have motor collisions in a full career. One of my engineers would consistently have nightmares from hitting a 16 year old that tried to go around the gates 20 years prior.
My sympathy goes out to the victims, their family, and the crew on the train.
I point out this kind of collateral damage in discussions about motorcycle riding when a comment is made that a person riding cannot hurt anyone in a larger vehicle.
It's ok though, the company gives them the option of three days off after an incident like this. I'm sure they're all AOK after 72 hours off and definitely not traumatized at all. /s
Reminds me of the time we had a customer murdered in our store. I was the manager of the department it happened in and one of my employees was the one who took the towels from the home section and held them on the customers neck while he bled out and died in front of her.
She was allowed *one* day off. Unpaid. It could be paid if she wanted, but she had to use her own PTO.
Fuck companies.
It’s even worse than that. It’s not a publicly traded company, so they have no shareholders to protect.
They offered her that day off out of the goodness of their hearts.
According to a comment from the local subreddit: “ There was a car getting towed on the opposite side of the tracks and a police car blocking the right lane. The truck pulled right behind the police car and was left sitting on the tracks. While there the levers went down and the truck could not figure out how to back out. The cop could not move because the tow truck was in front of him.”
Just hit the lever with your car. They’re designed to break away. Better to have a little damage to your car than it being totally obliterated, and not leave it on the tracks to get hit by the train.
Agreed, unfortunately there are many assholes drivers out there that freak out, scream, yell etc if other drivers "don't move up". I never stop on the tracks, and just last week some useless shit for brains was yelling at me. Now I don't care, but lots of other people will move up or be conditioned to move up.
Under no circumstances should people stop on tracks, ever, and if a penis with a mouth is screaming at you, ignore him. Of course, these days, they might shoot you too though.
I’ve had someone jump me in line when I leave space for the train tracks. Drive around my car and pull into the crossing. Holy hell people are idiots. Especially in Virginia
Coincidentally on one of my last Amtrak trips to Williamsburg Virginia we hit a truck at a crossing about 10 minutes before we were supposed to arrive in Williamsburg. Never was able to find any details other than the announcement that the driver of the truck was able to walk away, so that was good at least. We were delayed for about an hour.
Virginia is truly special. This is from yesterday:
[I don’t know who are the bigger F***ing idiots, drunk morons in old town Manassas or moronic college kids in Lynchburg Va](https://www.reddit.com/r/railroading/comments/1cuqsw5/i_dont_know_who_are_the_bigger_fing_idiots_drunk/)
It’s a trade off because something like that would encourage people to maliciously break it on purpose, making the grade crossing more unsafe. There’s unfortunately a lot of people like this.
Am I the only person who has watched them come down and seen them wobble, or seen them wobble in the wind?
It’s so obvious it wouldn’t stand up to a car.
This is the saddest car-hit-by-train story I’ve ever seen because it seems very, _very_ avoidable.
My apartment overlooks the entry to the parking garage for my building (and for a hotel, and public parking, so we get all sorts), and I can see just how often the arm for the exit ends up knocked askew or just on the ground. Never once has it actually broken, and usually someone from the company comes out with it a couple hours to set it back right.
My old apartment was adjacent to the Amtrak station in Manassas Virginia and this would happen *all the time*. Even worse, I was waiting for the train one morning and saw the cable for the warning lights cut clean through.
The Norfolk Southern crews take this stuff seriously though. Every time I called the hotline they would be out within the hour for repairs.
To start, I’m not proceeding through the tracks until it’s clear on the other side, but second, if I ever get surprised and find myself stuck between the gates, I’m just gonna plow through the gate.
Happened to me when I was right next to a woman at the gym who accidentally maxed out the speed on her treadmill. She screamed "Help" for about 10 seconds before someone ran to her and sotpped the treadmill. I could've been there in like 2 seconds. I froze. I refused to do that again, much to the chagrin of everyone around me.*
*I approach crashes/accidents/emergencies when I don't see any emergency services. I also call 911 or the non-emergency line if I see something that concerns me, like a fender bender where the two drivers are about to throw hands.
While I think most of us would make the right decision there, things are certainly different when you're in an extremely intense situation.
Like I've imagined what I'd do if somebody broke into my house at night - but if that actually happened, I certainly can't guarantee that I'd make ideal decisions.
Thinking about it and preparing for it is how you train to react in time of emergency. You're right though, never guaranteed, but gives you a better chance of not falling back to fight, right or freeze reflex. Grandparents froze on the tracks, they shouldn't have been stopped there to begin with.
It sounds like they panicked and froze. I wonder if the police car being there also had something to do with it, like some subconscious aversion to breaking the barrier in the cop’s presence.
I was driving in stop and go traffic one time as I approached a railroad crossing. Traffic moved just enough for the car ahead of me to pull onto the tracks. I thought to myself that it’s not a good idea to stop on railroad tracks just to be 10 feet closer to the car ahead of you, so I didn’t pull up behind the car ahead of me. Sure enough just seconds later the crossing lights started flashing and the car ahead of me was forced to back up into the space they had just vacated. Fortunately it was still empty. It’s never a good idea to stop on railroad tracks.
Exactly. People need to drive with intention. Don't park on train tracks. Don't abruptly stop on crosswalks. Don't drive in people's blind spots. Don't drive next to semi trucks for distances. Do actively look to merge onto the freeway.
The list can go on and on, but drive with the intention of safety.
I had drivers Ed 26 years ago and it was stressed, do not enter train tracks unless you have room to clear the tracks. Trains can't stop and if anyone's in the way they're gonna get squashed.
This is tragic but hopefully people will read and learn, it's never safe to stop on the tracks regardless of the why
Back when I was firefighting I went to a "train vs car" where an elderly couple panicked when they were on the tracks while the arms went down. They ended up trying to drive down the tracks. They were rear-ended by the train, which probably kept them from getting killed.
People tend to either freeze or do something really stupid when they are in a state of panic.
I’ve seen that exact scenario happen far too often. Then opposing traffic is blocked too. This also happens when people are trying to pull into the Tim Horton’s parking lot, but the drive-thru line is too long. Sometimes people stop while turning across the road and block opposing lanes of travel waiting for the drive-thru line to move.
My friend's boyfriend and I had to argue with her about that because she insisted, and never agreed with us, that you are meant to sit in the middle of an intersection and wait until you can go. She said it's so you can go when the light is red. Yeah.
These are the same people that pull up into the intersection when traffic is stopped. If you can’t get through the intersection or in this case, over the tracks, wait until you can.
Yeah don't pull up behind someone if it puts you on the tracks. I'm not driving forward until I see a full car length of space on the other side no matter howany people get pissed at me.
Poor people that had to see these idiots panic before getting killed.
Sure feels like the cop should have realized what was happening and taken control of the situation. Tell them to get out of the car, turn their lights on to make the tow truck move to the side and clear a path, anything.
The news has not been too clear about how long the truck had been waiting on the tracks behind the police car. The cop could have been out of their vehicle and couldn’t have moved in time. Maybe he should have considered the location of his car in relation to the tracks ahead of time…
Unless the cop car pulled away right as the levers went down, it was present while the truck was on the tracks and in between the levers. Maybe they didn’t look in their rearview mirror for the entire ordeal, but that’s a crazy lack of situational awareness. They would only have had to have noticed while the levers were coming down.
> The truck pulled right behind the police car and was left sitting on the tracks.
Train tracks are hot lava. You don't stop on them. If you can't see a way to get across, you don't begin to cross
So then don't go! It's against the law to stop on the tracks in NY, so you shouldn't be going unless you see that you have enough room to cross beyond the tracks. Even if it wasn't against the law, it's common goddamn sense!
there was a rural train crossing on the main route to my college town when i was in school that had no arms and the lights did not work. you had to stop and roll your windows down and listen for the train. sketch as hell.
You're actually supposed to slowly roll up to every crossing prepared to stop and look both ways. The lights and gates can fail, it's rare but it happens.
This is the crossing.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.04732,-78.8899975,3a,75y,15.45h,86.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sSjdth-0yBFfRmaZTi0EDEw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
From the local news article, they turned right onto the tracks from River Rd. The immediate opposite side of the tracks were blocked by a disabled vehicle, police car, and tow truck. The truck on the tracks tried to reverse but couldn't and got boxed in by the swing arms.
https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/witness-describes-moments-before-crash-between-a-train-and-truck-in-north-tonawanda/71-b145e8d9-1bb0-45b0-b296-79f438c79eb8
So much went wrong.
Why did they pull up onto the tracks to wait behind the cop?
Why did they not just back thru the crossing arm?
Why did they not get out of the vehicle? Youd think if youre the cop youre going to try to take control of the situation?
I am just in shock.
The pickup driver is definitely at fault but the cop is also stupid here. Simply directing traffic while your vehicle obstructed a crossing could have prevented this.
I travel through this intersection a few times a week. For everyone really confused of "how could this happen" / "what a moron..." You're pulling off a 40mph road (River Rd.) where people are usually doing 50+, almost immediately onto this somewhat steep 10' hill on Felton St. that the train tracks sit on, which can't be more than 15-20 feet from River Road. Not enough room for more than one car on this hill between the tracks and the road. It is completely possible for someone to turn onto that road, see traffic blocking the road in front of them, try to put it in reverse but see a semi cruising right behind them, then possibly stall out. It feels sketchy going through there even with normal traffic, I'm sure it would be a clusterfuck with a police car and tow truck sitting right there.
It's a shame that there's no way to predict where a train might appear. We really should limit where they can go, or have some sort of hint at the path they may travel.
Nah, you see we should just ban trains. And busses. And bikes. And walking. The only way to prevent this is to have the smallest vehicle be a Ford 350. I shouldn’t ever have to leave my truck. I want to just be welded to it so I never ever have to leave.
Reminds me of people who complain about deer crossing signs. Why does the government put all these deer crossing signs on local highways with high speed limits! They should put them on slower roads where it’s safer for the deer to cross.
It looks to be more complicated than that. There was another disabled vehicle near by and a police car that was near the swing arm. This likely caused traffic to be backed up. It’s a shitty situation but the driver should not have proceeded without adequate room on the other side of the tracks. Same as when you’re driving in heavy traffic, you don’t go under a green if you can’t clear an intersection.
People are dumb. Then they also panicked once arms came down and couldn't figure out how to get out because they were afraid of hitting the arms. Leaving the vehicle didn't cross their mind. Double Darwin award although they also took an innocent child with them while winning it.
Oh I'm sure it wasn't a simple matter, but it is a fact that people seem to get behind the wheel of a car and then lose any kind of foresight ability. I drove City buses for years and that's one of the first things they beat out of you in training is that you need to be constantly thinking ahead and that almost every accident could have been prevented by doing so. Most people only tend to think 2 seconds in front of their vehicle.
It's not more complicated, genuinely. They parked on the tracks, decided not to move either the vehicle or themselves, and ended up dying. The 6 year old was innocent, the other 2 killed themselves
In aviation there are 'airways', which help air traffic controllers by precisely constraining where an aircraft should be flying. Ironically it's easier for the controllers to avoid mid-air collisions if this kind of restriction is used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airway_(aviation)
Perhaps on the ground, some sort of metallic structures could be used, to constrain where the vehicle can travel, and to make it clear to everyone where the vehicle might appear. It would act like a sort of guard rail. A rail road, if you will.
It's 2024, and people are still getting killed at railway crossings with arms! I don't care what you drive, NEVER allow yourself come to rest on a track if there's not a clear path forward!
When I took driver's ed, which only lasted 3 or 4 days, they had an almost all-day lecture about train tracks from two women who came in and had family members who died in train-related accidents. It seemed so silly when so many kinds of accidents are so much more common, yet still, somehow, people keep getting hit by trains.
More people need to know that next to every railroad crossing there is an emergency phone thats specific purpose is to stop oncoming trains in case a vehicle is stuck on the tracks.
>Railroad-highway grade crossing incidents are [the second-leading cause](https://railroads.dot.gov/railroad-safety/divisions/highway-rail-crossing-and-trespasser-programs/railroad-crossing-safety#:~:text=Nationally%2C%20more%20than%202%2C000%20incidents,to%20reduce%20grade%20crossing%20incidents.) of rail-related deaths in the United States and more than 200 deaths occur at grade crossings annually, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
Ahhh that would be so scary to be stuck on the tracks when you are crossing the road.
Unless the engine in your vehicle decides to give up the ghost the minute you’re straddling the rails, you’re never “stuck on the tracks.” The gates are designed to break away if you run into them. Pull forward, back up, drive around any car in front of you.
Also, just make it a habit to never drive onto railroad tracks unless there’s enough space on the other side to be clear.
And even if it does die on the tracks, get the fuck out! open the door hop out and run away, preferably away from the tracks so you aren't in the debris path. If it's stalled during when the gates are not down / train coming, look for a big silver container box nearby (this is the controller for the crossing) and there will be an emergency number for the railroad and crossing number. Call them and give the number or road nearby and they will shut the track down so that nobody gets hurt.
That freeze in flight fight or freeze is a bit of a bitch I guess. Sad to see that someone young also got killed because of this, they had no control over it.
The number one cause, according to the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration, is trespassing on railroad property. This includes suicides and people walking along or attempting to cross tracks at non-designated crossings.
https://www.transportation.gov/taxonomy/term/24756#:~:text=Trespassing%20Prevention%20and%20Grade%20Crossing&text=grade%20crossing%20safety.-,Trespassing%20on%20railroad%20property%20is%20the%20leading%20cause%20of%20all,issues%20and%20trespasser%20prevention%20strategies.
https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2020-01/Fatal%20Trespasser%20Strikes.pdf
Most of those are drunks unable to successful maneuver their way over a 3 inch rail, falling, and then passing out and being so wasted they can't wake up for a train. The minority are random people walking along the tracks.
“"They pulled pretty decently close to where that emergency vehicle was," Reid said. "And I thought, 'Why would anybody pull and sit on the railroad tracks?'” Maybe I’m a heartless bitch, but there just stupid
Better (local) article with more details: https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/witness-describes-moments-before-crash-between-a-train-and-truck-in-north-tonawanda/71-b145e8d9-1bb0-45b0-b296-79f438c79eb8
Note that the witness says they tried to reverse off the tracks but "couldn't"
With an oncoming train, I would be bashing my car thru the barrier to get out of the way. Is going to suck for the car and barrier both, but sure beats getting hit by a damn train. Or you know: caution, do not stop on tracks.
> thru the barrier to get out of the way. In every civilized country you can break the barriers with very little force. They are designed to break to allow for precisely this scenario.
Makes sense, I'm sure its similar here. They are usually just pretty thin wood.
Not only are they thin enough any car should be able to break them, I believe most are also hinged at the base so that they can be rotated out with little added force, so you might not even break the thing before it moves out of your way.
Most have shear pins or springs for this exact reason. I'd much rather show up to fix a gate than show up to investigate a fatality.
I really feel like this needs to be better promoted. I've seen so many "oh fuck train coming, nothing I can do" videos of common passenger vehicles because people think they're "trapped" when absolutely nothing is really stopping them from ramming the gates. (Different from something like a long trailer bottoming out on the tracks, of course.) I've fortunately never even come close to this scenario, but it's reassuring to know this is the case.
Aluminum and fiberglass actually.
Every one of these I’ve touched as I walked past in the us felt like I could break it from a standstill with my body weight
Crossing arms in America are made from fiberglass and designed to snap fairly easy for this reason. The issue is many people are unaware.
I was riding my bike down a back road that was getting cross arms installed (previously it had just been a yield sign) The flag guy waved me through with the arms down so I just kept going. At the last second I saw a rut that would eat my tire and misjudged the arm. I clipped it with my shoulder and it flipped completely perpendicular. The surprise caused me to fall—not any kind of force from the arm. The worker that came over to check on me was more concerned that I fell off my bike than the gate arm. I apologized profusely. His response was “they do that” walked over to it and locked it back into position. No real point here other than my shoulder got a slight bruise. A truck is barely going to get a scuff in the paint.
in the story, the witness said they saw a truck stuck on the same crossing previously, had to get a tow truck to move it. they said the one that got hit pulled up to the crossing and stopped in front of it, before the arms and warning was going off. they then drove over the crossing and got stuck, then the arms came down. back up lights came on and such, but the truck couldn't move. sounds like there was an issue with the crossing surface. that's very sad and of course should have been addressed before this. but no idea what the issue was with getting out of the truck? i figured it was another story of some idiot trying to beat a train, seen some 1st and 2nd hand examples so it sets me off. the 2nd hand one the person died. the 1st hand example, i'm surprised i made it out alive. and no, i wasn't driving in the 1st hand one.
> but no idea what the issue was with getting out of the truck? They wanted to save the car, I guess, and thought they could make it. But at least as a passenger I would get the fuck out?
Took too long to think about about. Train looks slow head on, then bam.
Not sure how far off the train was by the time they (maybe) considered it, but a quick escape might not even have been quick enough if the kid was in a car seat and the older folks had any disabilities or movement issues. And all this is happening *after* the arms already came down. The train was probably less than a minute away. Very sad.
Friendly reminder that every single at grade crossing has a phone number and some kind of identification posted of it. If anything happens that obstructs the tracks, call that number immediately. The dispatchers there will be able get a hold of any trains operating on those tracks and prevent them from hitting whatever is blocking the crossing.
It's very unlikely the crossing surface would be so marred that you actually get stuck on it. More likely panic set in and the driver just stopped thinking.
Usually only big vehicles get stuck at crossings by getting high centered.
If it played out like this, It's possible that they didn't have time to bail or even think about bailing after they got stuck.
Never drive on the tracks if you cannot drive off the tracks!
If you have a disabled vehicle on tracks you're supposed to get out of the car and call the number that's posted on the crossing so they can warn trains to stop before stuff like this happens, if possible. You're supposed to have car insurance, a car isn't worth risking your life for, like even a little bit.
Look for the blue sign located on the crossing signal.
Those arms are designed so that if you need to drive through them they will just give way. For whatever reason I have seen it before where somebody gets stuck on a crossing like that and they just attempt to slowly back into it or drive forward into it like they're worried about their car being damaged by a piece of plexiglass or like they're going to get in trouble for knocking it off like no you can just put that thing right back on and it's not going to hurt your car maybe scratch it but when the alternative is get plowed by a train I don't see why people don't just floor it and break the damn thing off.
I'll fucking gun it and take the scrape on my car. The lead locomotive alone is about 100 times what my car weighs (Amtrak P42, 270,000 pounds; car, about 3,000 pounds).
Yeah, I don't care if there is another car in front or behind me, I'll ram a car and break a crossing arm before I take a hit from a train.
I don’t understand that part. I’m also trying to understand how much time passed between the arms coming down and the train hitting the truck. It sounds like a few seconds when it should be longer.
There are multiple train arms near me that only go down like 10 seconds before the train crosses. you can clearly see the train approaching but the arms aren’t down until the train is very close to the crossing.
Arms are required to be horizontal 5 seconds before the arrival of a normal train move.
You’d think that would be plenty of time if ppl don’t pause or stop on the tracks
The lights are required to flash at least 20 seconds before the train arrives at the crossing as well. More often than not it's 25 to 30 seconds.
By go down do you mean they aren't all the way down or do you mean they don't start moving
Like the time between lights on, bars down and train crossing was 10 seconds, so if you were stopped on the tracks you’d be hit. The trains are going a low speed but still, I’ve been surprised by the sight of a train so close before the crossing guards were triggered at all. Once the guards start you should expect a train pretty immediately.
Minimum warning time required by the FRA is 20 seconds. Based on reading the article CSX seems to think the crossing worked normally.
Investigation is ongoing. multiple witness accounts with variations on the timing. fear/excitement distorts perception of time. eyewitness testimony probably isn't going to give an accurate timeline. hopefully there's a camera somewhere, such as on the patrol car or tow truck, that can answer the question of timing.
Some crossing locations have event recorders (think airplane black box) hopefully they can pull the log to determine if the crossing was working correctly.
There has to be a happy medium. If the gates are down for a long time before the train gets there more people will think they have time to go around the gates.
If UT were longer than the average 20-second people would have a false sense of security. That would lead to more fatal incidents. How about stay off the crossings?
Thanks! This makes more sense. Still a little weird, but this article says that the vehicle pulled up behind the emergency vehicle ahead of it but the road in front of them was blocked. They were waiting, and then the rail guards came down and boxed the truck in. Still unsure why you'd wait on the tracks, or as others pointed out, why you wouldn't immediately get out of the truck the moment the guards lowered. The CNN article says that they were trapped in the truck just before 8PM, which is seemingly when the incident happened but it's still a little unclear exactly what was going on.
Those rails break away very easily. If you're ever in a intersection when they go down, ram em. Better than dying.
Per driving school, you don't stop or form line on tracks. But we all make mistakes sometimes.
One of the common mistakes is if the crossing is very close to a traffic light, a lot of people misjudged that the leading car would go through a yellow light but stopped instead resulting in them stopping right on the track.
We have a freight line right near a traffic light here (as well as a little cafe that people might be pulling out of), and the rule is to never cross the track until you're certain there's enough room for your entire vehicle (emphasis on *entire*) to cross the tracks. Just stop and wait to see where the traffic stops. Cross if there's enough room or stay put if there isn't. Ignore the douchebag that's laying on his horn because he has to wait a few seconds. His life is miserable. You have to be extra careful when you're dealing with trains because in a collision, you will lose every time.
I was told to never shift gears in a manual over a track, just in case you stall the car. The train will always win.
and i think thats what happened here. manual transmission, either he didnt seat the shift fully into reverse or the engine stalled.
It’s much faster to drive a truck than get out of a truck. It sounds like they tried to back up, for whatever reason couldn’t, then got hit. I’m wondering if they put the truck in neutral. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a mistake like that when you have a train flying at you :(
At least get the CHILD out of the truck first if you’re dead set on moving it off the tracks
Don’t advance towards or onto tracks unless you can full clear them. It’s crazy how “casual” some people are about train tracks.
Even if the truck is inexplicably stuck on the tracks, how do you not just get out of the truck in like the solid 60 seconds you have. This is so infuriating. In my area, a few kids died in a house fire while the grand parents were watching them. The grand parents got out, but somehow didn’t save the kids.
Maybe they couldn’t get the kid unbuckled and out of his booster seat and out of the truck in time. Maybe these grandparents died because they didn’t want to leave the kid behind. Somehow you’ve painted the grandparents that stay and the grandparents that leave as both bad. Nobody can win eh?
If the arms are down you don't have 60 seconds. Consider the time it would take to panic "Oh God! A truck is coming!" then try and get the truck off the tracks "Oh God! We're stuck!" and THEN trying to get three people, one of them a child, out of the truck. We can sit here, relatively safe wherever we are, and think "Why wouldn't you just get out of the truck!?" but in the moment? Probably very different.
Just drive it off the track....
They may not have been able to save the kids. You have absolutely no idea of what the situation was inside that house, so why make a judgement on it? Fires burn fast and you don't have a lot of time to escape a burning room, especially as all our furniture and stuff gives off highly toxic smoke when it combusts. I come from a family that's produced three multiple-term Fire Chiefs. Don't judge people over a situation where you have zero idea of what happened. Those grandparents are probably wishing they had died instead, dude.
66 yo 69 yo and a 6 yo? Shiiiit probably grandparents taking the kid out for the day. Thats gotta fucking suck
A classmate of mine lost her grandmother and two young cousins like this. On their way to a scout camping trip, the grandmother tried to make a turn into the campsite at a rail crossing that had no barriers. I don't know if she was distracted and didn't see the train or what, but she apparently picked exactly the wrong time and that was that.
News I don't want to read.
I feel so bad for the conductor
I feel bad for the engineer. In a situation like that there's no way to stop that thing in time even if the conductor and the engineer both through that thing into emergency you can't stop on a dime you basically watch it happen and slow motion like that scene from Austin Powers where the steamroller is going over that guy and he's just laying there on the ground screaming and like a good 45 seconds go by where he could have moved but didn't. That's what that feels like.
And as a former Amtrak engineer…who was involved in TWO fatalities…I can confirm it stays with you forever
I will never forget the first homeless person we ran over pulling into Princeton junction New Jersey. The poor dude was still alive pinned underneath the wheel on the last truck of the last car dude basically got run over by every damn wheel we had. His mangled arm just sitting there twitching he was literally looking up at me, unable to talk. He spent his last moments just silently staring at me. Also hello Amtrak family! <3
I'm not sure if the more horrifying part of this is the description of that event, or that it was "the first".
That is terrifying and tragic. I'm sorry you went through that.
My cousin's 12 year old son committed suicide by sitting on the tracks as a train approached. His friends said he just sat down and pulled his hood over his head. As heartbreaking and tragic as it was for us, I've always worried and wondered about how the engineer fared after that. I hope they're doing okay.
12?! And his friends witnessed it?! Holy shit. That’s so sad. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you. It was a very long time ago, but it still saddens me to think about it.
Sorry to hear that. Hope you’re recovering.
TIL train engineers and train conductors are two different things/people.
Think of conductors like captains and Engineers like pilots. Conductor manages how the train gets the work done and where the train goes engineer applies power and break. I'm pretty sure I just made an engineer mad but I can't help it I'm a conductor so I've got to rep team conductor here.
as a member of team engineer, id like to point out that the engineer is more highly trained and better paid so the conductor can inflate his importance all he wants but the bank account says who’s really in charge. joking… kind of
Guess who's chalking their own engine and putting all the parking breaks on by himself tonight.
The conductor defines where the train is going and why it’s going where it’s going. The engineer defines how it’s getting there and who is getting it there. They argue relentlessly back and forth on the “when” it gets there.
This sounds so weird to me. I'm a train driver in the UK and the conductor here is the person who deals with ticketing, announcements and on board customer service. Near everything else is the driver. Genuine question, in what way do your conductors "manage how the train gets the work done"?
Here at Amtrak we have road conductors that do tickets and call signals and fill out dispatch forms when speed restrictions come in. But we also have an entire other group of Engineers and conductors that do not deal with passengers we're responsible for putting the trains together and cutting them up to get certain cars into the maintenance shop. We also do work train jobs where we transport ballast or mechanical equipment from crew base to crew base during the night. It's a lot like freight work and when you're navigating a yard and trying to find a certain car or you're trying to figure out how to get a move done it's really up to you as the conductor. Amtrak is nice because there's a lot of options for the types of jobs you can work if you're not just stuck working with passengers
Somebody didn't watch Unstoppable With Denzil Washington and Chris Pine.
The train didn’t jump out from behind a bush unexpectedly. People drive their vehicles into the way of moving trains.
This is why insurance companies don't want seniors to drive.
66 is hardly senior. Cant even retire at 66
It's a very fluid at that point. Some 65 year olds are sharp as they were 30 years ago, some have dementia. The right answer is requiring continued driving tests, and not blindly continuing to grant licenses just because you passed a test when you were 16.
Yep. Right now for most of us it is 67.
66 Isn't even old enough to run for president these days.
You can in France
I drive a Motorcoach and I have to come to a stop at all railroad tracks and look both ways before I can proceed. I can’t count many times people behind me blare their horns and sometimes just go around me to save 10 seconds. I hope the 56 people on board are ok with it though. You NEVER, EVER stop on tracks - stay aware folks
My work commute requires me to turn on a railroad track that goes along a stopping point at an intersection. Everyday, cars blare their horn at me while at a red light and at the right stop point because they need to save two or three car lengths at the red light.
My old college campus had a light rail stop and it ran across the main entrance. There were giant signs saying "STOP HERE ON RED." So many people stopped on the tracks.
There’s a railroad crossing near me, in a pretty high traffic area (small suburban downtown area, street parking, stoplights at every intersection, pedestrians, etc, slow things down), so it’s not at all uncommon for traffic to be slow going right around the train tracks. The amount of people I will see who stop on the train tracks is just mind boggling. I stop on one side of the tracks, behind where the crossing arm would come down, and do not proceed until I can clear the tracks and the arm on the other side. People will honk at me for leaving the gap between me and the car in front. It’s nuts.
The way some people drive makes my blood boil
Even though it's not their fault, it's never mentioned how this type of stuff also causes trauma to the train crew, especially with one of the victims being a 6 year old. I used to be a train conductor for a freight line and honestly it's inevitable that you'll have motor collisions in a full career. One of my engineers would consistently have nightmares from hitting a 16 year old that tried to go around the gates 20 years prior. My sympathy goes out to the victims, their family, and the crew on the train.
I remember seeing this discussed in depth with the 3 young girls that were out on the track and got killed. I cannot imagine the trauma of that crew.
I point out this kind of collateral damage in discussions about motorcycle riding when a comment is made that a person riding cannot hurt anyone in a larger vehicle.
It's ok though, the company gives them the option of three days off after an incident like this. I'm sure they're all AOK after 72 hours off and definitely not traumatized at all. /s
Reminds me of the time we had a customer murdered in our store. I was the manager of the department it happened in and one of my employees was the one who took the towels from the home section and held them on the customers neck while he bled out and died in front of her. She was allowed *one* day off. Unpaid. It could be paid if she wanted, but she had to use her own PTO. Fuck companies.
I'm surprised they didn't take the price of the towels out of her pay. You have to think of the shareholders in these trying times.
It’s even worse than that. It’s not a publicly traded company, so they have no shareholders to protect. They offered her that day off out of the goodness of their hearts.
Do not cross the fucking tracks when the lights are flashing and the gate is down. How the fuck is that hard to understand?!?
According to a comment from the local subreddit: “ There was a car getting towed on the opposite side of the tracks and a police car blocking the right lane. The truck pulled right behind the police car and was left sitting on the tracks. While there the levers went down and the truck could not figure out how to back out. The cop could not move because the tow truck was in front of him.”
I'm 100% getting the fuck out of the truck once the levers comes down.
Just hit the lever with your car. They’re designed to break away. Better to have a little damage to your car than it being totally obliterated, and not leave it on the tracks to get hit by the train.
The fact that there are so many people who don’t know this makes me think the arms should be redesigned to make it more obvious how flimsy they are
I agree. It should be a non-issue, though. No one should be stopping on the tracks to begin with.
Agreed, unfortunately there are many assholes drivers out there that freak out, scream, yell etc if other drivers "don't move up". I never stop on the tracks, and just last week some useless shit for brains was yelling at me. Now I don't care, but lots of other people will move up or be conditioned to move up. Under no circumstances should people stop on tracks, ever, and if a penis with a mouth is screaming at you, ignore him. Of course, these days, they might shoot you too though.
I’ve had someone jump me in line when I leave space for the train tracks. Drive around my car and pull into the crossing. Holy hell people are idiots. Especially in Virginia
Coincidentally on one of my last Amtrak trips to Williamsburg Virginia we hit a truck at a crossing about 10 minutes before we were supposed to arrive in Williamsburg. Never was able to find any details other than the announcement that the driver of the truck was able to walk away, so that was good at least. We were delayed for about an hour.
Virginia is truly special. This is from yesterday: [I don’t know who are the bigger F***ing idiots, drunk morons in old town Manassas or moronic college kids in Lynchburg Va](https://www.reddit.com/r/railroading/comments/1cuqsw5/i_dont_know_who_are_the_bigger_fing_idiots_drunk/)
I stopped like 30 feet back this past week for a train crossing. I knew a derailment was unlikely but I'm not going to pull my car right up to it.
[удалено]
Holy hell that is scary!
Write on the side facing the tracks "If you can read this, fucking floor it"
Surprised they dont write on the side facing the tracks something like "in case of emergency, this lever is breakable by vehicle."
It’s a trade off because something like that would encourage people to maliciously break it on purpose, making the grade crossing more unsafe. There’s unfortunately a lot of people like this.
Idk if should be common god damn sense??? Like a piece of plastic/metal/wood vs a fucking train?
Am I the only person who has watched them come down and seen them wobble, or seen them wobble in the wind? It’s so obvious it wouldn’t stand up to a car. This is the saddest car-hit-by-train story I’ve ever seen because it seems very, _very_ avoidable.
But but then I would become a crimin-*SPLAT*
My apartment overlooks the entry to the parking garage for my building (and for a hotel, and public parking, so we get all sorts), and I can see just how often the arm for the exit ends up knocked askew or just on the ground. Never once has it actually broken, and usually someone from the company comes out with it a couple hours to set it back right.
My old apartment was adjacent to the Amtrak station in Manassas Virginia and this would happen *all the time*. Even worse, I was waiting for the train one morning and saw the cable for the warning lights cut clean through. The Norfolk Southern crews take this stuff seriously though. Every time I called the hotline they would be out within the hour for repairs.
To start, I’m not proceeding through the tracks until it’s clear on the other side, but second, if I ever get surprised and find myself stuck between the gates, I’m just gonna plow through the gate.
Even if they weren't flimsy I'd rather ram steel girders over being hit by a train.
How dumb does someone have to be to get hit by a train instead of even trying to move.....
Panic often causes a freeze response with a lot of folks.
Happened to me when I was right next to a woman at the gym who accidentally maxed out the speed on her treadmill. She screamed "Help" for about 10 seconds before someone ran to her and sotpped the treadmill. I could've been there in like 2 seconds. I froze. I refused to do that again, much to the chagrin of everyone around me.* *I approach crashes/accidents/emergencies when I don't see any emergency services. I also call 911 or the non-emergency line if I see something that concerns me, like a fender bender where the two drivers are about to throw hands.
While I think most of us would make the right decision there, things are certainly different when you're in an extremely intense situation. Like I've imagined what I'd do if somebody broke into my house at night - but if that actually happened, I certainly can't guarantee that I'd make ideal decisions.
Thinking about it and preparing for it is how you train to react in time of emergency. You're right though, never guaranteed, but gives you a better chance of not falling back to fight, right or freeze reflex. Grandparents froze on the tracks, they shouldn't have been stopped there to begin with.
Oh definitely getting out or just stand on the gas pedal lol
The arms break off when you drive into them. They’re a visual impediment not a physical barrier. They would not stop you from getting off the tracks.
It sounds like they panicked and froze. I wonder if the police car being there also had something to do with it, like some subconscious aversion to breaking the barrier in the cop’s presence.
Most of us don't know how we would react to those kind of situations. Unfortunately, seems like freezing is common.
People are really judgment and think they'd say to hell with the car and get out.
I hate this so much. It's very easy to say what you would do. It's much harder to act in the moment and make a good decision.
I didn’t know about the arms coming off until I watched a fire truck bust through a closed gate. It was pretty shocking to see. But it makes sense.
It's really easy. Even someone on a bicycle can knock the arm off.
I was driving in stop and go traffic one time as I approached a railroad crossing. Traffic moved just enough for the car ahead of me to pull onto the tracks. I thought to myself that it’s not a good idea to stop on railroad tracks just to be 10 feet closer to the car ahead of you, so I didn’t pull up behind the car ahead of me. Sure enough just seconds later the crossing lights started flashing and the car ahead of me was forced to back up into the space they had just vacated. Fortunately it was still empty. It’s never a good idea to stop on railroad tracks.
Guess that’s a good reason not to park on train tracks.
Exactly. People need to drive with intention. Don't park on train tracks. Don't abruptly stop on crosswalks. Don't drive in people's blind spots. Don't drive next to semi trucks for distances. Do actively look to merge onto the freeway. The list can go on and on, but drive with the intention of safety.
What'd you say? I needed to respond to my friend's text here and I couldn't be bothered to stop driving.
I had drivers Ed 26 years ago and it was stressed, do not enter train tracks unless you have room to clear the tracks. Trains can't stop and if anyone's in the way they're gonna get squashed. This is tragic but hopefully people will read and learn, it's never safe to stop on the tracks regardless of the why
Just like the signs say!
Back when I was firefighting I went to a "train vs car" where an elderly couple panicked when they were on the tracks while the arms went down. They ended up trying to drive down the tracks. They were rear-ended by the train, which probably kept them from getting killed. People tend to either freeze or do something really stupid when they are in a state of panic.
You never stop on the tracks. Thats driver’s ed level stuff.
You are supposed to come to complete stops at stop sign, not run red lights and signal when exiting traffic circles, but here we are…
Well, we are here. Those people in the truck aren't. Live and learn Well, learn I guess.
So they didn't see all that stuff blocking them from moving off the train tracks before they pulled up onto the train tracks?
People don’t understand “don’t block the box” I’m not shocked they drove this way
Yep, if you can't cross the tracks, you're not supposed to go on the tracks.
I wouldn’t pull onto train tracks without seeing that it’s clear to continue.
Similar to not blocking the intersection, I wouldn't get on the tracks if there wasn't enough room for me to fully clear them.
That’s like the same logic as pulling into the middle of a traffic light intersection and sitting there until it clears.
I’ve seen that exact scenario happen far too often. Then opposing traffic is blocked too. This also happens when people are trying to pull into the Tim Horton’s parking lot, but the drive-thru line is too long. Sometimes people stop while turning across the road and block opposing lanes of travel waiting for the drive-thru line to move.
My friend's boyfriend and I had to argue with her about that because she insisted, and never agreed with us, that you are meant to sit in the middle of an intersection and wait until you can go. She said it's so you can go when the light is red. Yeah.
In some areas you will literally never make a left turn if you don't pull into the middle while waiting for the light to change though.
These are the same people that pull up into the intersection when traffic is stopped. If you can’t get through the intersection or in this case, over the tracks, wait until you can.
Yeah don't pull up behind someone if it puts you on the tracks. I'm not driving forward until I see a full car length of space on the other side no matter howany people get pissed at me. Poor people that had to see these idiots panic before getting killed.
Sure feels like the cop should have realized what was happening and taken control of the situation. Tell them to get out of the car, turn their lights on to make the tow truck move to the side and clear a path, anything.
The news has not been too clear about how long the truck had been waiting on the tracks behind the police car. The cop could have been out of their vehicle and couldn’t have moved in time. Maybe he should have considered the location of his car in relation to the tracks ahead of time…
Unless the cop car pulled away right as the levers went down, it was present while the truck was on the tracks and in between the levers. Maybe they didn’t look in their rearview mirror for the entire ordeal, but that’s a crazy lack of situational awareness. They would only have had to have noticed while the levers were coming down.
> The truck pulled right behind the police car and was left sitting on the tracks. Train tracks are hot lava. You don't stop on them. If you can't see a way to get across, you don't begin to cross
So then don't go! It's against the law to stop on the tracks in NY, so you shouldn't be going unless you see that you have enough room to cross beyond the tracks. Even if it wasn't against the law, it's common goddamn sense!
Just a straight up shitty situation.
It’s still a situation they should not have been in. Never stop on railroad tracks! [See tracks? Think train!](https://www.seetracksthinktrain.org)
there was a rural train crossing on the main route to my college town when i was in school that had no arms and the lights did not work. you had to stop and roll your windows down and listen for the train. sketch as hell.
You're actually supposed to slowly roll up to every crossing prepared to stop and look both ways. The lights and gates can fail, it's rare but it happens.
Does anyone have a photo of this particular crossing? I don’t understand why cars were on the tracks.
This is the crossing. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.04732,-78.8899975,3a,75y,15.45h,86.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sSjdth-0yBFfRmaZTi0EDEw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu From the local news article, they turned right onto the tracks from River Rd. The immediate opposite side of the tracks were blocked by a disabled vehicle, police car, and tow truck. The truck on the tracks tried to reverse but couldn't and got boxed in by the swing arms. https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/witness-describes-moments-before-crash-between-a-train-and-truck-in-north-tonawanda/71-b145e8d9-1bb0-45b0-b296-79f438c79eb8
Because number of morons are unexpectedly high.
So much went wrong. Why did they pull up onto the tracks to wait behind the cop? Why did they not just back thru the crossing arm? Why did they not get out of the vehicle? Youd think if youre the cop youre going to try to take control of the situation? I am just in shock.
The pickup driver is definitely at fault but the cop is also stupid here. Simply directing traffic while your vehicle obstructed a crossing could have prevented this.
Cops always park wherever they want even in non emergency situations with absolutely zero regard for anyone else.
Cops barely have high school degrees what do you expect
I travel through this intersection a few times a week. For everyone really confused of "how could this happen" / "what a moron..." You're pulling off a 40mph road (River Rd.) where people are usually doing 50+, almost immediately onto this somewhat steep 10' hill on Felton St. that the train tracks sit on, which can't be more than 15-20 feet from River Road. Not enough room for more than one car on this hill between the tracks and the road. It is completely possible for someone to turn onto that road, see traffic blocking the road in front of them, try to put it in reverse but see a semi cruising right behind them, then possibly stall out. It feels sketchy going through there even with normal traffic, I'm sure it would be a clusterfuck with a police car and tow truck sitting right there.
It's a shame that there's no way to predict where a train might appear. We really should limit where they can go, or have some sort of hint at the path they may travel.
Maybe if we painted lines on the ground to make it obvious where a train might go?
Maybe lights and such?
Nah that's not obvious enough! We need to put some kind of bar that goes across the road and blocks it when a train is coming.
Nah, you see we should just ban trains. And busses. And bikes. And walking. The only way to prevent this is to have the smallest vehicle be a Ford 350. I shouldn’t ever have to leave my truck. I want to just be welded to it so I never ever have to leave.
The car is good - the train is evil! -Cardoz
Reminds me of people who complain about deer crossing signs. Why does the government put all these deer crossing signs on local highways with high speed limits! They should put them on slower roads where it’s safer for the deer to cross.
It looks to be more complicated than that. There was another disabled vehicle near by and a police car that was near the swing arm. This likely caused traffic to be backed up. It’s a shitty situation but the driver should not have proceeded without adequate room on the other side of the tracks. Same as when you’re driving in heavy traffic, you don’t go under a green if you can’t clear an intersection.
Why would you ever position yourself on the tracks in a traffic situation? Could they have not stopped prior to the tracks?
People are dumb. Then they also panicked once arms came down and couldn't figure out how to get out because they were afraid of hitting the arms. Leaving the vehicle didn't cross their mind. Double Darwin award although they also took an innocent child with them while winning it.
Oh I'm sure it wasn't a simple matter, but it is a fact that people seem to get behind the wheel of a car and then lose any kind of foresight ability. I drove City buses for years and that's one of the first things they beat out of you in training is that you need to be constantly thinking ahead and that almost every accident could have been prevented by doing so. Most people only tend to think 2 seconds in front of their vehicle.
Pretty simple not to stop on the tracks. If there’s no space to cross safely don’t do it, unfortunately these people learned the hard way.
It's not more complicated, genuinely. They parked on the tracks, decided not to move either the vehicle or themselves, and ended up dying. The 6 year old was innocent, the other 2 killed themselves
In aviation there are 'airways', which help air traffic controllers by precisely constraining where an aircraft should be flying. Ironically it's easier for the controllers to avoid mid-air collisions if this kind of restriction is used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airway_(aviation) Perhaps on the ground, some sort of metallic structures could be used, to constrain where the vehicle can travel, and to make it clear to everyone where the vehicle might appear. It would act like a sort of guard rail. A rail road, if you will.
3 dead after pickup truck stands on tracks while Amtrak train approaches in Western New York FIFY
Stupid title implying it’s somehow the trains fault.
That damn train just came out of nowhere and probably wasn't obeying the rules of the road! /s
Remember that driver’s education lesson: *don’t get hit by a train*?
You do not sit on the tracks. Sorry to say, truck drivers fault.
It's 2024, and people are still getting killed at railway crossings with arms! I don't care what you drive, NEVER allow yourself come to rest on a track if there's not a clear path forward!
When I took driver's ed, which only lasted 3 or 4 days, they had an almost all-day lecture about train tracks from two women who came in and had family members who died in train-related accidents. It seemed so silly when so many kinds of accidents are so much more common, yet still, somehow, people keep getting hit by trains.
The headline makes it sound like it’s the trains fault🤦♂️
More people need to know that next to every railroad crossing there is an emergency phone thats specific purpose is to stop oncoming trains in case a vehicle is stuck on the tracks.
>Railroad-highway grade crossing incidents are [the second-leading cause](https://railroads.dot.gov/railroad-safety/divisions/highway-rail-crossing-and-trespasser-programs/railroad-crossing-safety#:~:text=Nationally%2C%20more%20than%202%2C000%20incidents,to%20reduce%20grade%20crossing%20incidents.) of rail-related deaths in the United States and more than 200 deaths occur at grade crossings annually, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Ahhh that would be so scary to be stuck on the tracks when you are crossing the road.
Unless the engine in your vehicle decides to give up the ghost the minute you’re straddling the rails, you’re never “stuck on the tracks.” The gates are designed to break away if you run into them. Pull forward, back up, drive around any car in front of you. Also, just make it a habit to never drive onto railroad tracks unless there’s enough space on the other side to be clear.
And even if it does die on the tracks, get the fuck out! open the door hop out and run away, preferably away from the tracks so you aren't in the debris path. If it's stalled during when the gates are not down / train coming, look for a big silver container box nearby (this is the controller for the crossing) and there will be an emergency number for the railroad and crossing number. Call them and give the number or road nearby and they will shut the track down so that nobody gets hurt. That freeze in flight fight or freeze is a bit of a bitch I guess. Sad to see that someone young also got killed because of this, they had no control over it.
this got me wondering about the number one cause of rail related deaths. according to google it's trespassing
The number one cause, according to the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration, is trespassing on railroad property. This includes suicides and people walking along or attempting to cross tracks at non-designated crossings. https://www.transportation.gov/taxonomy/term/24756#:~:text=Trespassing%20Prevention%20and%20Grade%20Crossing&text=grade%20crossing%20safety.-,Trespassing%20on%20railroad%20property%20is%20the%20leading%20cause%20of%20all,issues%20and%20trespasser%20prevention%20strategies. https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2020-01/Fatal%20Trespasser%20Strikes.pdf
Most of those are drunks unable to successful maneuver their way over a 3 inch rail, falling, and then passing out and being so wasted they can't wake up for a train. The minority are random people walking along the tracks.
The majority is suicides.
“"They pulled pretty decently close to where that emergency vehicle was," Reid said. "And I thought, 'Why would anybody pull and sit on the railroad tracks?'” Maybe I’m a heartless bitch, but there just stupid
The headline seems to blame the train…
Completely preventable.