Topic: a preventable tragedy

[bucky katt]

the news story speaks for it'self, this nitwit woman tried to beat a train, she and her toddler in a stroller lost that gamble


DERRY, Pa. - A woman pushing a stroller across railroad tracks in western Pennsylvania was struck by a train and both she and her 2-year-old son were killed, police said.

The 37-year-old Derry mother and three of her children were returning from a shopping trip early Friday evening, authorities said. They said she was struggling to push the stroller across the tracks when she and her toddler son were hit by a Norfolk Southern train at about 5 p.m. Her two young daughters managed to dart across the tracks and were not injured.

The victims' names have not been released pending notification of relatives.
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A Norfolk Southern spokesman said the company is cooperating with the investigation but declined to comment further.

The crash happened less than 100 feet from where a 15-year-old was struck and killed by a train in July.

[BobbyR]

I work in the industry and at least one person a week is killed by a Train in the US. 50% of the Train and Subways operators will be involved in a fatality in their career.

In full emergency brake the fastest a Train can slow down is 2.5-3 Mph per second. The saying goes  "if you see it you hit it" is true.

[bucky katt]

i feel just awful for the family but that woman gets no sympathy from me. there is NO reason that you should try to beat a train. if it were just her i wouldnt feel as bad because she did it to herself but that poor little kid........... i just want to cry for the little guy.

[shacolaid]

Yeah, this happened locally. The police chief saw the accident happen and is pretty shaken up and would not talk to the media. I can certainly understand that! The stroller wheels got stuck and that is when it went bad. There was even an area to cross the tracks 100 feet away. Tragedy and certainly not an accident since it was completely preventable.

[Ecosse]

i feel just awful for the family but that woman gets no sympathy from me. there is NO reason that you should try to beat a train. if it were just her i wouldnt feel as bad because she did it to herself but that poor little kid........... i just want to cry for the little guy.

i'm so with you on that. it's one thing if you foolishly want to risk your own skin but to pull a helpless child into it is beyond unforgivable.

i just hope it happened quick. 

[bill440cars]

      Just makes you wonder what was going through her mind (such as it was)?

      I mean, like has been said, to put a child of ANY AGE in that situation, is TOTALLY unforgivable! What a TERRIBLE  waste. Some people must have MUSH for brains, TOTAL mush! I feel so sorry for that police chief as well, to have to witness that. He'll have nightmares for some time to come!

[bucky katt]

i imagine getting hit by tens of thousands of tons of freight train is a pretty quick way to die. i just keep on thinking about what a dingbat this woman was to endager her kids lives. her buying it doesnt bother me nearly as much as the little guy getting killed. with her it's just a case of darwinism, weeding out the sick and weak from the herd and strengthing the gene pool. yeah, i can be a coldhearted bastid when it comes to little kids getting hurt through no fault of their own.

[Raul CB750K1]

i imagine getting hit by tens of thousands of tons of freight train is a pretty quick way to die. i just keep on thinking about what a dingbat this woman was to endager her kids lives. her buying it doesnt bother me nearly as much as the little guy getting killed. with her it's just a case of darwinism, weeding out the sick and weak from the herd and strengthing the gene pool. yeah, i can be a coldhearted bastid when it comes to little kids getting hurt through no fault of their own.

Well, if you follow your own line of argument, and speaking just in "medical" terms and not considering the tragedy, the little kid had his mom' genes, and if he should perish for the benefit of survival, the sooner the better -it costs less to society in education, services etc-

Many people die of accidents every day and not all of them are sick or weak. It is just a wrong risk assessment. I agree that when you are putting the lives of others at risk, you should lower your risk taking. But again, it happens everyday when people drive their kids to work, for example.


Attached a picture I took while working on the high-speed train in Spain. Speed is about 180 mph. The whole railtrack is fenced. To come into the area you have to ask for permission first. People is not allowed to pass beyond the line formed by the concrete lids for the service cabling. Even while standing there, the feeling of such a hughe machine and the air bubble hitting you is impressing to say the least.

To cross the tracks you must call the supervisors first. They will let you cross as soon as they check there are no trains going to cross soon. The security window is about 10 minutes. You won't be let cross if a train is going through where you are in less than 10 minutes, even when it takes merely 10 seconds to cross. But sometimes people need to cross with tool boxes, ladders etc


Sometimes you are at a point where you can see straight more than a mile in either direction. You would think you have plenty of time to see the train and get out of the way.

You are in the middle of nowhere, just surrounded by silence. Suddenly, you notice a strange noise, some kind of vibration coming from the tracks and cabling.


Five seconds later, the train is going past where you are. If you work in the area, somebody with safety training must go with you. Those people are trained to do the "hand stop" to trains, in case the communication is broken and you need to stop a train. It is useless, because to stop a high-speed train you should go at least 5 km away to give it time to brake.

[bucky katt]

i imagine getting hit by tens of thousands of tons of freight train is a pretty quick way to die. i just keep on thinking about what a dingbat this woman was to endager her kids lives. her buying it doesnt bother me nearly as much as the little guy getting killed. with her it's just a case of darwinism, weeding out the sick and weak from the herd and strengthing the gene pool. yeah, i can be a coldhearted bastid when it comes to little kids getting hurt through no fault of their own.

Well, if you follow your own line of argument, and speaking just in "medical" terms and not considering the tragedy, the little kid had his mom' genes, and if he should perish for the benefit of survival, the sooner the better -it costs less to society in education, services etc-

Many people die of accidents every day and not all of them are sick or weak. It is just a wrong risk assessment. I agree that when you are putting the lives of others at risk, you should lower your risk taking. But again, it happens everyday when people drive their kids to work, for example.

?

[Raul CB750K1]

Bucky, you said that you don't mind for the woman being killed, from a "darwinist" point of view, because it means that the "sick and weak" get wiped out, but you car for the little kid being killed by his mom' little care.

My point was that the kid must have his mom genes. Anybody who see fit the death of the mother from a "darwinist" point of view, must see fit the death of the kid too, as they have the same genes. And, if the kid is destinied to perish at an adult age, what is wrong if he perish as a kid?


Now, what do you think about this? Yesterday afternoon I returned from a ride with the CB750 and saw some police cars in the front of my appartment building. It is a very quiet neighborhood but I thought it would probably be some domestic quarrel or small drug dealing.

A couple hours later I knew what happened. One of my neighbours, who live in the attic, was holding her 2-year-old girl while in the terrace. Nobody know how, but the little ger jumped from his arms and into the air. It is a 6-story building.

She fell straight into the kids playground. Yesterday night, the sand was still stained with blood. Today it has been cleaned, don't know whether it has been the police or some of our neighbours.


How would that mother feel? Tell you what, I would rather die than be under her skin right now.


Sometimes, accidents just happen. It has nothing to do with darwinism.

[BobbyR]

It is common for people to try to race trains in rural areas since there are a lot of slow freights moving through. I myself thought of it in Florida when you get stuck on the road as a 2 mile long set of orange haulers goes by at 5 mph.

With the coming of high speed rail you cannot have grade crossings. The cars either go over the tracks or under them. In Japan that is how they designed their rail system.  I have to be trained yearly by several Railroads on safety. You learn quickly that you really cannot hear a Train coming from any distance and with multiple tracks you may not be able to tell which track it is on. If you find yourself in that situation, you stay between the tracks and find something old like a signal pole or sign and stand in front of it. If the pole has not been knocked down in 50 years you will not be.

Subway tunnels are the worst. You have to get into this little niche in the wall or between columns in the center. You share those spaces with rats who have learned that via Darwinism.

[Raul CB750K1]

It is absolutely forbidden to get into the high-speed train tunnels while there are circulations. Only at nightime it is allowed to get into them. The longest one in Spain have is 18 miles long. There are GSM repeaters all along the way. If you need to fix something, you need a service train to get you and your tools into the tunnel. Walking 10 miles with tools, both ways, is not a great plan.

There are two tunnels, parallel, one per each direction. When the train goes into the tunnel, it creates a high-pressure wave -and a low-pressure wave in the back of the train- that can literally "suck" anybody inside the tunnel, regardless of where he holds onto.

If you live in rural USA, like in rural Spain, there are some freight trains around. When the road is not much circulated, it usually have a railroad crossing because the cost of either above-or-below tracks is too much for the traffic involved. So, you get the same road everyday, and as Bobby said, sometimes you get stuck for a long time, waiting for a slow-moving train to clear the road. Many times you will try to get ahead. But it doesn't happen with trains only. Many times you put the pedal to the metal before the light turns red. Many times you put the pedal to the metal after waiting in a stop sign, trying to get into the main road in that tiny space that car has left. Many times you cross running before the pedestrian light turns red. As I said, we take risks every day, accident happens many times, and many times you make a wrong risk assesment. It doesn't have to do with darwinism.

[tramp]

too late to ask why
sorry it happened
hopefully others will learn from it and live

[754]

I feel a bit sorry for Mom and tot..

 Way more sorry for the other 2 kids... Hope someone held them after it happened, so they didnt have to see their mom and brother after they got hit..