Subway Deaths Haunt Those at Trains’ Controls

[FarCenter]

In the last month, the cases of two men who were pushed to their deaths on the tracks have focused attention on the subway system’s most harrowing outcome. But for the men and women who operate New York City’s trains, these episodes represent an occasion to induct two new people to a grim fraternity with hundreds of members. With dozens of people jumping and falling to their deaths on the tracks every year, any of the five million passengers who ride the city’s subway every day can reasonably expect to be driven by someone who has seen, heard or even felt someone perish right in front of them.

...

In 2012, 55 people died after being hit by subway trains in New York, an increase of eight deaths compared with 2011. This year has already begun on a grisly note. Around 5:20 a.m. on New Year’s Day, the police said, a woman believed to be in her 20s lay down on the tracks at West 34th Street and was killed by a northbound No. 2 train.

Train operators have come to learn certain rules of thumb. Expect about a death across the system per week, perhaps less in a good year. Prepare for more around the holidays. (Statistics do not support the idea that suicides go up at those times, but workers say they believe it to be true.) Operators who go five years without a “12-9” — transit code for a passenger under a train — should count themselves lucky. One operator, Kevin Harrington, 61, said he had recorded “10 or 11” since 1984, one fatal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/nyregion/subway-deaths-haunt-those-at-trains-controls.html

[NYC Liberal]

1. A couple of MTA guys I sat next to on the train the other day were talking about this

One of them said he was called in to one of these one time and as they were removing the body, they realized something was missing -- they had to walk up and down the tunnel looking for the man's head. He said you never want to get called to a jumping/pushing.

I couldn't imagine doing that job.

[Brickbat]

2. Mr. Brickbat is a locomotive engineer. When he started several years ago, the old-timers told him

that every crew member can expect to have at least one fatality -- suicide, dumbass walking the tracks, someone trying to cross against the signal -- in his career. This is on a freight system, not passenger.

He's had several close calls. Lots of stupid people out there.

I'll give my PSA here again and say that if you are around the tracks and there's someone on them and the train is approaching, the universal sign for "stop the goddamn train" is to wave both arms above your head while trying to make eye contact with someone in the cab. Locomotive engineers are trained to shoot the breaks if someone is giving them that signal.

Also, if you're considering suicide, please do it in such a way that other people aren't involved. Train suicides piss me right off.