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Guest_Gingee
Guest
Did anyone hear about the train wreck down south? I caught part of it on the news today. I think they said something about six cars going off the track. I didn't hear if anyone was hurt or killed. Anyone hear anything?
It sure did mess up travel in the corridor. We had to take Acela passengers on the "Meteor" to WAS which made for a crowded train from the start between them and our regular passengers. And by the way, in that portion of the NEC there are about 10 grade crossings left. OBS...railfangns said:Their are no grade crossings in the Northeast Corridor that i know of so it must have been an attempted suicide or the car left the highway at a high rate of speed and landed on the tracks.It messed up travel in the corridor most of the day.
OBS is correct that there are indeed several grade crossing left in CT. The count is a bit lower than 10 though. I know of 3 right in the town of New London, there is Miner Lane where the accident occured just south or RR west of New London.Guest_Amtrak OBS Employee said:And by the way, in that portion of the NEC there are about 10 grade crossings left. OBS...railfangns said:Their are no grade crossings in the Northeast Corridor that i know of so it must have been an attempted suicide or the car left the highway at a high rate of speed and landed on the tracks.
There are a total of eleven grade crossings on the NEC between New Haven and the Rhode Island border. Those are:AlanB said:OBS is correct that there are indeed several grade crossing left in CT. The count is a bit lower than 10 though.
Why?railfangns said:Amtrak needs to close all grade crossings in the NEC if they are going to run the high speed acella trains.
Here are the FRA regulations on train speeds through crossings:gswager said:For the grade crossings, are there a speed restriction for high speed trains to pass through?
Amtrak may have restrictions that are lower than FRA regs, depending on other track conditions and environmental factors.For 110 mph or less: Grade crossings are permitted. States and railroads cooperate to determine the needed warning devices, including passive crossbucks, flashing lights, two quadrant gates (close only 'entering' lanes of road), long gate arms, median barriers, and various combinations. Lights and/or gates are activated by circuits wired to the track (track circuits).
For 110-125 mph: FRA permits crossings only if an "impenetrable barrier" blocks highway traffic when train approaches. Above 125 mph, no crossings will be permitted.
Three comments:AmtrakWPK said:Change the scenario just slightly. Say she was coming up on a stop sign, blacked out, continued into the intersection, and a semi hit her at 60 mph, and turned the car into aluminum foil. Who are we going to blame now? Or maybe she would black out and run through a crowd of people and kill half of them. Again, who do we blame for that? Yes, it's a tragedy. But it's not one caused by the railroad. There is only so much you can do. Why was she driving? Was this the first time she blacked out? If it's happened before, what was she doing behind the wheel? We have LOTS of cases like that, people who shouldn't have been driving, but are. Should we equip every highway vehicle with a receiver that instantly sets the parking brake and locks the transmission if it is within 200 feet of an activated RR crossing? That would do it. It would also cause a lot of rear-end crashes, but it would solve the crossing problem. Or instead of crossing gates, have a reinforced steel guardrail barrier come up out of the ground when a crossing is activated. Anybody hitting it at more than 10 or 15 mph would likely be injured, but they wouldn't be hit by the train.
The woman and the older child died at the scene. Sadly, the child who survived the accident (4 years old) is on life support with massive brain damage.Guest_Gingee said:You mentioned about the one not technically dead? This is the first that I have heard what happened for sure.
PRR 60 said:[quote name=PRR 60
You say she should not have been driving. There is no evidence one way or another of that. No one knows what happened to her' date=' to her car, or what was going on inside the car. Regardless, that should not have been a death sentence for her and the kids.
Second is the highway intersection analogy. Not valid. You can drift onto a highway and still have a pretty good chance. Maybe you get hit by a 30 ton semi. Maybe by a 2 ton car. And maybe by nothing. Highway intersections, dangerous as they are, are not remotely like pulling in front of a 624 ton train moving at 70mph.
Last, "there is just so much you can do". That's true. My contention is that Amtrak and the FRA did do as much as they could do. They could and should have done better. Your last examples are the kind of thinking that should have taken place at the FRA and Amtrak. They should put a little imagination to work to come up with a solution.
[/QUOTE]AmtrakWPK said:PRR 60 said:[quote name=PRR 60
"&!#$ happens" is still operative' date=' and there will continue to be senseless deaths from all sorts of causes. I don't believe it is possible to make living a "death-proof" activity, and given the constraints it would require to achieve, I'm not sure the quality of such a life would be worth having.
I assume you misquoted yourself when you said you believed FRA and Amtrak had done all they could do but could and should have done better.
Could they do better? Could they make "vehicle-proof" crossings? SURE. But again, the cost would be astronomical, and while we don't like to think that we put a price tag on life, effectively we have to, until we all have the equivalent of Bill Gates' net worth.
If you drive onto a crossing when the gates are down, or if you run a stop sign or blow past a red light, you are subject to a violent death. As a driver, you know that.
Very well said! And as far as I am concerned, case closed! OBS...
The full story is here.4-year-old girl injured in Amtrak accident diesA 4-year-old girl died Friday from injuries she received when a train smashed into a car in Waterford last week, an accident that killed her grandmother and 8-year-old brother. Courtney Metzermacher of Waterford was pronounced dead at Connecticut Children's Medical Center at 11:20 a.m., hospital spokesman Chris Boyle said.
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