In the "People Being Stupid" category we find this couple casually strolling across NS's Congaree River Bridge yesterday in Columbia, SC. This bridge is 40' above the river and is perhaps two football fields long. There appear to be few emergency places to stand. Later I saw a guy with two girls doing the same, but this time NS 191 was nearing. In my loudest voice I yelled, "YO! ON THE BRIDGE! A TRAIN IS COMING!" The two girls started to hot-foot it to the other side, but the guy yelled back, "WHAT?" I repeated my warning and he replied the same. Finally, I heard one of the girls yell back to him that, "A train is coming!". Even with that, the guy proceeded with no urgency. They made it off. 191 was on the bridge in less than ten minutes.
Colorful lashup on a westbound CN grain train west of Jesup, IA as the rainy skies start to break up. June 9, 2018 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
After a crew swap at Dyersville, M338 continues its eastbound journey to Chicagoland, passing by a grain elevator in the town of Farley, IA being led by BNSF ET44AC 3868. June 9, 2018 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
And then there are those folks who wait for one train to clear the crossing and jump out behind the train only to encounter another train going the other way on a second track. These folks were on foot so stopped in time before getting hit.
Someone successfully sued Conrail years ago when the same scenario set up a crash at a highway crossing. On a double track line, a CR freight had stopped a hundred yards from a highway crossing. The gates went down and looking only at the stopped freight, an idiot driver went around the gates and was hit by a train moving in the other direction. I guess if the right jury is assembled, flawed judgements can be nearly assured. There was a tragic death in Chicago suburban territory perhaps a decade ago when a woman commuter was killed on foot in the same way. I had no stomach to look at the video someone posted at the time.
So few people know or understand anything of today's railroading, or common sense, it should be extremely easy finding enough ignorance to impanel.
They've just started a PSA campaign up here on TV - trucks vs cars. They show a small car cutting off a big semi, then the front of the semi with some minor damage, with the caption: Truck, 40000 kg. Then they show a well-flattened car, caption: Car, 936 kg (a small pink knapsack falls out, and the caption rolls down to 935 kg). Basically, it's to remind people to keep their distances, because they're way out of their weight class against a truck (let alone a train). Something similar should be done with trains. A flatter car and some body bags for good measure. But I suspect that still won't sink in to those dense skulls. They seem to think it would never happen to them (after all, they've done it dozens of times, and nothing happened... would they play the same game with a revolver loaded with only one bullet?). And it would certainly be possible to find enough knuckleheads to fill a jury that would side with the idiot who got hit.
Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern traffic rests overnight in Rapid City, SD: Are these former MILW rails? If not, whose lineage are they?
Ex-DM&E; previous to that, C&NW. And probably earlier another predecessor of the C&NW. There was also some CMO trackage out there, in the mix.
This photo taken in 1905 on the El Paso & Northeastern shows a Chinese laborer sweeping out a kitchen car on a MOW work train.
Great shot BNSF FAN. Most of Alabama Southern's line is former GM&O and it once stretched southeast from Tuscaloosa to Maplesville, AL (where it crossed the SOU main) and on to Montgomery. The portion from Tuscaloosa to Maplesville was lifted in the latter 1980s. Interestingly, Watco also operates the Maplesville to Prattville (near Montgomery) portion as the Autuaga Northern. A large paper mill is located in Prattville.
