Hey, When I went thru our Choo-Choo U(almost 2 years of training) it wasn't a question of "IF" your going to hit some one,its "WHEN". I've been involved in 2 fatalites & countless close calls. Its the worst part of the job. Around the holidays is the espeically. Charlie,we get 3 days. 1 day off,1 day EAP,1 day police reports. Its a union thing. Doofus,you have no Idea the feeling that goes through you when someone plays chicken in front of you. On my 1st night back after my 2nd incident,I was expressing back to Hoboken. Trk speed was 60mph. As I approched a station,I saw kids(15-16 years old) walking on the platform. They should've been there,since theres no train stopping until the morning. It was about 1:30am. Fresh snow was on thr ground. Well 1 of the kids jumps into the gauge after I blew the horn & started making "jestures" at me. I layed on the horn & put the train in emergency. By now,he realizes I'm not stopping. He was scrambling to get out of the way,but he was slipping on the snow. One of the other guys grabbed him by the shoulders & yanked him out of my way. As I past him,his foot slammed into the corner of the cab car. Once the train stopped,I went to get up & beat this kid to a pulp. At the time,I was 5'10' tall & 170lbs. My conductor who was standing next to me pushed me back in the seat. Mind you,he's 6'8" & over 300 lbs,told me"its not worth it". I stuck my head out the the window & saw them all running away,1 had a very noticible limp. This was just what I needed on my 1st night back.
===================================================== Then he would have accomplished his purpose I guess. Our concern was not with the welfare of the offender, but rather that of the welfare of our passengers and the crew. Commuter trains can stop a lot quicker than a freight train and passengers have been injured due to an emergency brake application. This person was a validly perceived danger not only to himself but to others. We would not have pursued him for any distance, as I mentioned we were waiting and watching for him to come back to us. He turned back when he realized that we were waiting for him. The police also recognized his actions as possibly being criminal. We didn't make that decision, we were acting on behalf of the carrier and of METRA. CT
No kidding No kidding. It's awful. I only know of three people who got hit by trains. The woman I already mentioned who intentionally committed suicide; a friend of some friends who was out camping and (probably drunk) stumbled across the tracks at the WRONG time; and my great great grandfather, who contemporary reports speculated (I have a clipping from a newspaper in Ohio in about 1901) had actually suffered a heart attack and died on the tracks before the train had come. Don't worry... it doesn't come coded in the DNA. It's truly awful, and while we can go on all day about how selfish it is (and I agree) for those left in the aftermath it is just about the worst. Adam
We allegedly get time off Charlie, but I don't know of anyone who ever got compensated for it. I think it more typically goes like the experience of a buddy of mine who nailed a car stuck on the tracks a while ago and killed the driver. It hit him pretty hard and he wanted to take some time off to get himself together. The carrier says "Sure, no problem, take what you need." Two days later he realizes they're draining his personal time to cover it. Their compassion was somewhat less than overwhelming. I was never offered anything after my last bad one. In fact, I made a serious mistake and went to work the following day. I'll never do that again...I couldn't concentrate or stay focused on the job at hand. I kept replaying and rewinding the crash instead of paying 100% attention which as you know, is just asking for another one. As far as any kind of counseling or debriefing, again it's supposedly out there but I've never heard of anyone being able to use it or even how to activate it if you wanted to. The only advice I got was from one official who told me I had to "Get back in the saddle and get over it" because it goes with the job. The best part was when the claims agent told me they were pulling the plug on the guy I hit a couple of days later. This sorry excuse for a human being seemed to think that that was pretty a pretty cool idea (they didn't and the driver lived, by the way). I eventually went outside the system on my own to get through the flashbacks and nightmares, mainly to avoid entanglements with the medical dept. I'd pretty much guessed how much help I'd get anyway. They tell you up front that if you stick around long enough, sooner or later incidents will happen and you have to face that. True enough. What they don't say is that no matter what...you're never really ready for it when it does and unless you're as heartless and dead cold as that claims guy, it will affect you and that's the hardest part. You got that right Brother. It's a good thing I like what I do or I'd never put up with the madness.
When we "greased" that 24YO young woman in Naperville, we were relieved by a yard crew from Eola. They took the train to Eola and a new crew had been called to take the train the rest of the way to LaCrosse. At any rate the relieving official told us that the BNSF police and/or claims Dept and/or legal dept would be in touch with us. To this day,nobody but nobody from the company has ever questioned me OR the hogger about it.(I was the conductor at that time). The young lady had a history of attempted suicide, and of course, one success. The Chief Special Agent from Eola told me later that when they were investigating the incident, they had discovered where she was sitting. She had a bottle of wine and a glass. She had been trying to steady her nerves enough to take her life. Sad commentary. I got over it well enough cuz I knew we were not to blame and there was little, if anything we could do. She was hidden so well and showed herself at the last moment. Now you see her, now you dont! What disturbs me about the desparate people we have encountered is wondering just what sort of demons these folks have running in their minds. I was working an afternoon job on & off for a while(#1268) The conductor was a buddy of mine who was a "set-back" engineer. We had an incident where we had to put off a young man because he didn't have the fare and wasn't offering any excuse or reason why he needed to travel. We were to learn later that a WB "dinkie" had struck & killed a tresspasser, a suicide. The conductor was convinced that it was the same young man and that maybe we could have saved his life. We didn't know for a fact if it was the same person, nor did we learn if the victim was "impaired" by any substance. The conductor was so upset about it that he went to talk with a buddy of his who was a clergyman. There are some horribly deranged people who gravitate to the railroad and come out in the dark. Even the most "lily white" and affluent of the 'burbs suffer from having vagrants,homeless and drifters using the platforms and shelters after dark. Most,if not all, the 'burbs lock the station buildings up at night to keep the dregs of humankind from using them as a dormitory and/or lavatory. We get them riding the train, if they produce a ticket or can make the fare, especially during the winter. It's a jungle out there!!! CT
I'm lucky I guess...boxcars never give me anywhere near the uproar that passengers can and freight always has the fare as far as I'm concerned. It's hard enough having Joe Public fooling around near my train, much less paying to ride it. My hat's off to you people haulers.
Yes mental illness such as manic/depressive psychosis can also be equated amongst the many other forms of suffering. Personal problems like alcoholism, drug addiction, bad relationships, bad finances, terminal illness can cause suicidal tendencies. Some of these conditions are treatable but some may end up with a measure of insurmountabilty that can tax the coping skills of a person to irreversible finality. It's not always "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Sadly, many sufferers exist in our world.
I don't know that NS does anything for someone in this circumstance. Conrail had a CIRT (Critical Incident Response Team) who's rep. contacted me by phone the day following my eating up a tresspasser, offered me time off, counselling, or any assistance I needed, called back two or three times to see that I was OK, and treated me like a human. Unfortunately, this department and concern doesn't seem to have made the transition to NS. Bob C
