No, it doesn't sound like that. We don't know enough to say whether or not the trooper tried to alert the railroad, or how much
Oh, I don't really think so. Only reason I did the Richmond to Jacksonville look-see was because I kind of enjoy taking trips along the tracks with my "Google Earth ultralight airplane". But the question posed above was just a rhetorical one. That's because to figure out a definite answer, I think all possibilities would have to be explored. And with about 880 stations spread out over all the different routes that task would be huge gargantuan! Perhaps only suitable for someone who's young and serving a life sentence - with keen vision.
Track opened about 2:30 am, so 53 would have been one of (if not the first) southbound through. Doesn't surprise me that 91 and 97 were annulled. By that time every stretch of second track between Collier Yard and accident site would have had a freight sitting in it. I suppose all three trains could have closed together just north of the accident site but that would have been risky if the track took longer to reopen than forecasted.
How big of a solid object? The size of a person? Car? House? A bird? A Plane? ...
Actually, that is the direction I was talking about. Thinking about it a little more analytically, 2500 crossings in 600+ miles would mean a crossing every 1/4 mile, which is obviously way too high.Ahh - but Ryan didn't state in which direction he was off by an order of magnitude. He COULD have meant there were 2,500 crossings!
Looks like that'll buff right out.
Looks like it bounced around a bit on soft ground and did not hit any immovable solid object while at it.
Your assumption is based on whether or not the train can completely stop in time to avoid an accident. But given that there is a detector that senses a large object (vehicle) inside the gates once the gates begin to come down, would not an immediate signal to the train to initiate a non-emergency stop at least reduce the effects of the impending crash? It may not save the idiot blocking or running the gates but could mitigate engine, engineer and passenger damage.
Or get route data and write a database query program to examine the extensive FRA database on road-rail grade crossings and compare it to the route to determine how many public and private grade crossings are on the route. The FRA's Office of Saferty Analysis provide very detailed information and statistics on grade crossings, accidents, injuires, going back many years on this webpage. Or ask Amtrak, but I suspect they won't be inclined to provide detailed stats on grade crossings on their routes, because they rather not play aspect that up.
I counted every place along the tracks that looked like a place where a wheeled vehicle could get across without too much difficulty - even the crude ones allowing farm machinery to get across from one field to another or a dirt road that just leads to a farm house. I suspect things like dirt bikes and ATV's don't need anything fancy to get across as long as it's not in the middle of a bridge, for instance. But there's probably a million different places along the route where they could. There are a fair number of paces on Google Earth that appear to be some sort of grade crossing at first glance, but a closer look reveals many of them to be merely a place where two roads approach each other on opposite sides of the track but don't connect. Maybe there had been a grade crossing at some of these locations in the past, but zooming in reveals nothing but fresh ballast, ties and rails.
Or buy a ticket and listen very, very carefully to the whistle patterns!
nanavc, you are correct. 92(9) was delayed behind the freight train involved in the pedestrian incident, not directly involved in the incident. Thanks for catching my oversight.
52(10) ETD SFA 1100p (7 hr L)
If we did put a sensor on the tracks, and the word got out, the amount of time before yahoos began parking on the tracks and daring the train to stop could probably be most conveniently measured in minutes.
