I'm not sure where this would belong, forgive me if I don not know where to place it. Pick-up Truck Hits Moving Freight -Train Brockport man recounts crash with train - 13WHAM ABC Rochester NY - Featured Tom
"...when he crossed the railroad track and hit a moving freight train." More non-excellent reporting. I see a single track line. Therefore, how do you "cross" tracks, then hit a train? Was the train operating on the ground along the far side those tracks? The second link, what I read just comes across like some lame excuses from him.
What led to the crash?? The police are investigating “What led to the crash”? What the heck do they expect to find? That the train jumped the rails ran over the truck and then got back on the tracks. Those pesky trains and their hijinks. Technically what led to the crash was the road. Get it?
A couple years ago in Northern MN, a guy drove into the side of a parked train so hard he died. The news report showed a shot of the scene, the rr crossing signs had the stop signs on the post. This guys had apparently gotten in the habit of driving through the stop signs at 40+ mph. Not a smart idea.
Reading the accounts and looking at the picture, I'm going to take a guess that he simply wasn't paying attention. I don't think it's unusual for any of us to be less than 100% attentive when we're driving a very familiar route. On the reports themselves, I'm personally kind of glad that they got the point that the truck hit the train, and not the other way around as is so often phrased as if the train is to blame. And "under investigation" is normal in such a situation until the facts of the incident can be verified. Such things as taking statements from all involved, cross referencing, checks of the locomotive and trackside warning systems for proper operation and (given his statement) an independent observation of the route up to the crossing to determine the visibility of the crossing signal.
I was a stealth train. Only a tiny locomotive and a few cars. It was hiding behind a tree and jumped out when our hero attempted to cross the rails.
SOunds like an incident we had here in Muskogee a few weeks ago- a northbound empty coalie was stopped on the UP main, and a slightly inebriated young man decided he could not 1. wait, or 2. make a small detour, double back to a highway overpass, and cross over the tracks. Instead, he started crawling under the train. Well, said train started up again, and well............a southbounder coming up on the splat-spot noticed the carnage, and radioed the dispatcher, who then called local police. By this time, the northbound, its crew unaware of what happened, was already well out of town headed north. Local fishwraps state that the train "hit" him. No, it did not- it rolled over him, with the result being loss of life. Such gruesome results, coupled with other train-vehicle and train-pedestrian encounters (plus personally witnessing a local police force's car, along with the police chief and his lieutenant standing alongside, parked on the tracks in Wagoner in advance of UP844), have compelled me to apply for Operation Lifesaver presenter training. I may not be a railroader (and those guys would be the best presenters, since they witness this idiocy firsthand), but it doesn't take one to help out OLS. Like the slogan says, "See tracks- think train".
I used to live in that area and glad I got the hell out with that idiot driving around. I wonder what he got his Master's Degree in? Idiocracy? I know where he got hit and there would have been lights and sounds all over the place. He ignored those and thought that he could cross the tracks. He lost. Darwin's Finest.