5 Killed: Michigan Collision with Wolverine (2009)

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AAARGH!

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Link here.

Amtrak Spokesman Devon Sayers said 170 passengers and crewmembers were onboard the Wolverine 353, which had just left the Dearborn train station and was heading west for Chicago.
It appears from the description that the collision occured at the intersection of Hannan Road and the track, where ther are lights and gates. Google Maps link here.
 
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This sort of stuff is just terrible. I really feel that states need to crack down on railroad crossing violations. If you drive around a lowered crossing gate, you should be facing a serious penalty, and cops should be enforcing it. Everyone knows that if you consistently and excessively speed, you're pretty much bound to get caught, because every police department in the nation enforces speed limits. There are routinely campaigns for wearings seatbelts ('Click it or ticket') and drunk driving. A similar campaign needs to be rolled out with regard to grade crossing accidents - and not just Operation Lifesaver stuff (which is a good program, no doubt) but something with some real enforcement behind it. I think that's the only way to attempt to prevent tragedies like this. What about red light cameras at grade crossings? That's an idea that would work.
 
This sort of stuff is just terrible. I really feel that states need to crack down on railroad crossing violations. If you drive around a lowered crossing gate, you should be facing a serious penalty, and cops should be enforcing it. Everyone knows that if you consistently and excessively speed, you're pretty much bound to get caught, because every police department in the nation enforces speed limits. There are routinely campaigns for wearings seatbelts ('Click it or ticket') and drunk driving. A similar campaign needs to be rolled out with regard to grade crossing accidents - and not just Operation Lifesaver stuff (which is a good program, no doubt) but something with some real enforcement behind it. I think that's the only way to attempt to prevent tragedies like this. What about red light cameras at grade crossings? That's an idea that would work.
I wish. Unfortunately they put cameras where they will make $$$, not save lives.

The 5 killed were all young adults. Perhaps driver's ed needs to have more 'train' curriculum. I don't know. I'm assuming they skipped past closed gates, but who knows.

From the pictures, the car was hit dead center, and was pushed in front of the train for some distance. The car did not bounce off to one side the other. The car was substantially compressed to where there could be no survivors. I'm guessing the train must have been going pretty fast at that point by the amount of time it took to stop.

What a WASTE! :angry:
 
This sort of stuff is just terrible. I really feel that states need to crack down on railroad crossing violations. If you drive around a lowered crossing gate, you should be facing a serious penalty, and cops should be enforcing it. Everyone knows that if you consistently and excessively speed, you're pretty much bound to get caught, because every police department in the nation enforces speed limits. There are routinely campaigns for wearings seatbelts ('Click it or ticket') and drunk driving. A similar campaign needs to be rolled out with regard to grade crossing accidents - and not just Operation Lifesaver stuff (which is a good program, no doubt) but something with some real enforcement behind it. I think that's the only way to attempt to prevent tragedies like this. What about red light cameras at grade crossings? That's an idea that would work.
I wish. Unfortunately they put cameras where they will make $$$, not save lives.
I would think the cameras would stand make just as much money at a grade crossing as at a traffic light, if placed on a street with similar traffic volume.
 
I wish. Unfortunately they put cameras where they will make $$$, not save lives.
I would think the cameras would stand make just as much money at a grade crossing as at a traffic light, if placed on a street with similar traffic volume.
I'd agree. From what I hear, this is a pretty common occurrence. Plus if you set the fine at $400 or $500, you'd pay back the cost of a camera pretty quickly. I can't imagine it would cost more than $10-$20k to have one installed.

At the same time, then you get into the argument that wouldn't that money be better spent on four-across gates that can't be driven around? But those costs are 1) primarily borne by the railroad, unless they get federal or state funds for the project and 2) I don't think that does anything to deter this type of behavior at unsignaled or less-signaled crossings. I think mounting a large enforcement campaign would bring much more awareness to this issue.

No one thinks they're going to get hit by a train if they do this. Just like most people who speed (including myself, who always sped until I picked up a ticket for 87 in a 65 last year and cut my speed for good) - they're more worried about tickets than the safety risk they are incurring. They probably figure that they are just very good at beating trains, so they continue to cut across grade crossings. But adding the variable of a cop, who may or may not be present and has nothing to do with how fast you can cut between the gates, may act as a better deterrent.
 
I wonder how cameras would work at a crossing. They look for motion after the light has changed, or in this case, the gate has gone down. But there will always be movement because the train goes through! I'm sure there is a technical solution for that though.

I agree that any amount of education will help as will the barrier gates.

Perhaps if you all are right about the amount of revenue one of these cameras generates, cities will be more likely to install them. It's a win/win. City makes money / lives would be saved.
 
I wonder how cameras would work at a crossing. They look for motion after the light has changed, or in this case, the gate has gone down. But there will always be movement because the train goes through! I'm sure there is a technical solution for that though.
I agree that any amount of education will help as will the barrier gates.

Perhaps if you all are right about the amount of revenue one of these cameras generates, cities will be more likely to install them. It's a win/win. City makes money / lives would be saved.
Modern computers can tell the difference between a car and a train. It just looks for objects within certain perameters-- movement, and most likely size.
 
If you drive around a lowered crossing gate, you should be facing a serious penalty
You are facing a serious penalty........ The front end of a P42 in your face.
Amen! Punishment enough for stupidity. I have no sympathy for them. I do, however, for their families.
And the engineer.

I do have some sympathy for those killed. It's likely the driver was inexperienced and like many kids, thought they were invincible. We all know young drivers can and do make stupid mistakes, and hopefully learn a lesson when they do. But they didn't this time as they are now gone. This stupid mistake was the ultimate one.

AGAIN, I am supposing they tried crossing around a closed gate or were speeding and could not stop in time. If it turns out the gates were malfunctioning, then I have much more sympathy for the kids.
 
The Detroit Free Press is now reporting witnesses saw the car go around the lowered gates.

They also state the car was dragged almost a mile. Does it really take that long for 2-engine / 5 car train to stop, even from 79 MPH?

EDIT: Looking again at the map, it looks like it took about 1500 feet to stop, not 1 mile. Darned reporters..... :ph34r:
 
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The Detroit Free Press is now reporting witnesses saw the car go around the lowered gates.
They also state the car was dragged almost a mile. Does it really take that long for 2-engine / 5 car train to stop, even from 79 MPH?

Yes it does, I feel really sorry for the engineer, how would you like to kill five people at once? Some nerve for those kids to try to beat a train!

cpamtfan-Peter
 
The Detroit Free Press is now reporting witnesses saw the car go around the lowered gates.
They also state the car was dragged almost a mile. Does it really take that long for 2-engine / 5 car train to stop, even from 79 MPH?
It shouldn't unless the engineer didn't throw the brakes into emergency fearing that he'd derail the train at top speed which is entirely possible.

If I am not mistaken, parts of that route are rated for 105mph... I might be thinking of something else.

Also, depending on the grade it could also extend the distance required to stop. But remember, this is the media. To them, 3/5ths of a mile is "almost a mile".
 
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it says that the teens went around ANOTHER CAR in front of them just to go around the gates.

surveillance video from a nearby business shows that the teens' car, which was traveling northbound, was hit by the train when it went around a white SUV that had stopped at the crossing gate. According to the tape, the white SUV was stopped at the gate for 17 seconds before the teens' car swerved around it.
i feel sorry for those on board all those pax stuck on the train for 4 hours. did amtrak bus them to chicago after the train was towed back.

also the victims of the accident and the family's. but i don't feel sorry for the driver of the car who went around another car to get around the gates.

there happy alc_rail_writer
 
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i feel sorry for those on board all those pax stuck on the train for 4 hours.
Wow four hours... five people DIED today. You know, I can justify not having as much sympathy for the driver-- but what about his/her four passengers? Their families? The engineer and the train crew? You know-- compared to the suffering and loss of all those involved the pax are the last people to feel sorry for.

I do feel bad for the people in the car who weren't behind the wheel. We don't know who they were or what they were doing. Perhaps just along for the ride and didn't realize this was going to happen. You can't call them stupid for being hapless victims.
 
i feel sorry for those on board all those pax stuck on the train for 4 hours.
Wow four hours... five people DIED today. You know, I can justify not having as much sympathy for the driver-- but what about his/her four passengers? Their families? The engineer and the train crew? You know-- compared to the suffering and loss of all those involved the pax are the last people to feel sorry for.

I do feel bad for the people in the car who weren't behind the wheel. We don't know who they were or what they were doing. Perhaps just along for the ride and didn't realize this was going to happen. You can't call them stupid for being hapless victims.
Agreed. OK, I don't feel sorry for the driver of the car. All the others involved, including those in other cars who witnessed, I feel terribly sorry. I was on a train back in the 60's that hit a car at a crossing between London and Windsor, Ont. I was one of three witnesses. I'll never forget it and have a tremendous respect for crossings gates or no.
 
I was astonished to learn in a post above that it is possible to derail an Amtrak train by the engineer applying full emergency brakes. This seems like a major design flaw?

Ed :cool:
 
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yes i feel sorry for the pax stuck for 4 hours on train that didn't even get halfway to chicago. dearborn is the stop after detroit. all those pax missed there connection and if i was on the train going to the gathering it would have really messed things up. i would have to call the hotel and change the check in date to the 30th and take grey hound all the way to Boston as there no way i would make it to Chicago in time to catch the 448 to boston. i feel sorry for the victims on the senseless drivers act. the family's of the victims and the train crew.
 
I was astonished to learn in a post above that it is possible to derail an Amtrak train by the engineer applying full emergency brakes. This seems like a major design flaw?
Ed :cool:
Lock up the brakes on your car at 100mph and see what happens.
I think a more apt, though perhaps less relevant analogy is - lock up the brakes of a tractor-trailer at 100 MPH and see what happens. The risk of derailment stems from the fact that when the engineer dumps the brake pressure, the coaches slam forward into a declerating locomotive.

But wait, you say, the coaches have brakes too, and they are connected to the locomotive. Yes, but it takes a certain amount of time for the decreasing pressure to travel all the way back to the last coach. So the front cars start slowing before the back cars do. Now this all happens very quickly, but the resulting forces in the train can cause it to jump the tracks.

The solution to this is to use electrically controlled pneumatic brakes, in which the signal to brake travels via an electrical wire that spans the length of the train. Since the electrical signal transmits nearly instantly, all the brakes apply uniformly. But ECP brakes are very new technology and only a handful of trains in the US have them - each car needs to be equipped with ECP technology for the system to work. The Amfleets, and all of Amtrak's fleet, were created long before it.

Now it's worth noting that the above described effects are much more pronounced with freight trains, I'm not sure how much an Amtrak train would be affected by them.
 
I was astonished to learn in a post above that it is possible to derail an Amtrak train by the engineer applying full emergency brakes. This seems like a major design flaw?
Ed :cool:
Lock up the brakes on your car at 100mph and see what happens.
I think a more apt, though perhaps less relevant analogy is - lock up the brakes of a tractor-trailer at 100 MPH and see what happens. The risk of derailment stems from the fact that when the engineer dumps the brake pressure, the coaches slam forward into a declerating locomotive.

But wait, you say, the coaches have brakes too, and they are connected to the locomotive. Yes, but it takes a certain amount of time for the decreasing pressure to travel all the way back to the last coach. So the front cars start slowing before the back cars do. Now this all happens very quickly, but the resulting forces in the train can cause it to jump the tracks.

The solution to this is to use electrically controlled pneumatic brakes, in which the signal to brake travels via an electrical wire that spans the length of the train. Since the electrical signal transmits nearly instantly, all the brakes apply uniformly. But ECP brakes are very new technology and only a handful of trains in the US have them - each car needs to be equipped with ECP technology for the system to work. The Amfleets, and all of Amtrak's fleet, were created long before it.

Now it's worth noting that the above described effects are much more pronounced with freight trains, I'm not sure how much an Amtrak train would be affected by them.
Thanks, you put a lot of thought into that!
 
Well, I would not be surprised to lose control of a car if, while traveling around a curve at a high but controllable speed (i.e., safe as long as everything works), one or more wheels locked up, or a tire blew out. Even on a straight high-speed road, the same thing can happen.

Also, remember that the train brakes are effectively applied starting with the engine and working back towards the end of the train, not simultaneously, as the air pressure change works it's way toward the back of the train. So for a few seconds you may have one or more wheels locked up in the front part of the train while the balance of the train smacks into it. Also, you are going from couplers in tension to couplers in compression, almost explosively, throughout the train. That's why they call it "emergency" braking. After application of the emergency brake, I believe the conductor has to do a complete walk-around of the entire train, inspecting each wheel to make sure everything is ok, before the train can move again. Consider the sudden stress on the rails themselves and where they are fastened down, as the train, by emergency braking, applies hundreds or perhaps thousands of tons of force on those rails pushing them in the direction of travel. The forces involved have to be incredible. Especially if there is even a small rail discontinuity and you suddenly have a sideways force of inertia applied to them by emergency braking added to perhaps by a small shift in the rail itself. A train's mass is enormous, and trying to quickly decelerate that mass must exert incredible forces.
 
I always imagined that the flanges on the wheels would guide the train, as there is no element of steering within the engineers controls. Is it a fact that a full brake application causes the train wheels to all "lock".. My thought is that despite the efforts of the brakes to stop the wheels rotation, the weight and momentum of the train would keep all the wheels turning for some considerable time?

Ed :cool:
 
I always imagined that the flanges on the wheels would guide the train, as there is no element of steering within the engineers controls. Is it a fact that a full brake application causes the train wheels to all "lock".. My thought is that despite the efforts of the brakes to stop the wheels rotation, the weight and momentum of the train would keep all the wheels turning for some considerable time?
Ed :cool:
Actually, it's very common for the wheels to lock up. Keep in mind the surface that a wheel touches about a rail is about the size of a dime. When you combine very heavy braking pressure with high speeds and large amounts of weight, the wheels do many times (if not usually) lock up. This actually causes flat spots on the bottom of the wheels and if this is bad enough the cars need to be taken out of service till the flat spots can be machined out or the wheels changed.
 
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