PLEASE!!!! Stay Off The Railroad Tracks

[Steel City Slim]

I work for a commuter railroad that services Philadelphia and the surrounding area. Last night two people were jogging on the railroad tracks when a train came. One got out of the way, but the other didn't.

Passenger trains travel at high rates of speed, they are heavy, they have steel wheels that run on steel rails. All this adds up to the fact that they can't stop quickly and they can't swerve to avoid someone on the tracks. Also trains that operate on electricity are very quiet, they can't be heard until they are right on top of you.

When a person is hit by a car they fly through the air, bounce on the ground and come to rest in a neat tidy pool of blood. When a person is hit by a train moving at speed, their body explodes. It comes apart at the joints. Hands, forearms, arms, feet, legs and thighs go flying in different directions. It is messy and ugly.

In addition to the death of the person hit and the pain that causes their family, it is highly traumatic to the engineer operating the train. It is deeply emotionally disturbing to those charged with picking up the body parts as well as to those who have to clean the equipment.

PLEASE!!!! Stay off the railroad tracks. If you have children, teach them to stay off the tracks. Don't just tell them, TEACH them. Talk to them about it. Impress it upon them.. Reinforce it.

The railroad tracks are the private property of the railroad, if you are on the tracks, you are trespassing on private property. The only way you can be hit by a train is to be on the tracks. PLEASE!!!! Stay off the tracks.

[RetroLounge]

1. Good Advice!

Do you have a link to this story? I'd like to pass it on to others in the Railfanning Community.

RL

[Steel City Slim]

12. Link

I'm sorry, I don't have a link for you. I was working when it happened, that's how I know about it.

[SnowGoose]

2. Question.

Not to detract *at all* from your excellent point about the undesirability of being hit by a train, but I was wondering about the "private property" thing.

Does the land on which train tracks are laid really belong to the rail road, or does the rail road simply have a "right of way" to put the tracks on other people's land?

I've wondered about this for a long time, but don't know anyone I can ask.

Thanks!

[Railroader]

3. In Canada at least,

Railways own the land. Even where it crosses a public road.

[tjwmason]

4. Same in England

Though I doubt about roads over here - as they're the Queen's Highways. Network Rail is one of the largest landowners in the country.

[skygazer]

5. As I've always understood it

the railroad owned it which is why companies were so rabid to built the trans-continental RR. Not only would the RR gain by providing transportation (and charging for it) but they would also gain in real estate.

But I could be wrong. It's happened before.

[Steel City Slim]

13. Right Of Way

There probably are some instances where the railroads lease a right of way, but for the most part it is owned. Even the road crossings.

[datasuspect]

6. emergency personnel slinging "meat" in plastic bags

on east avenue grade crossing of BNSF ROW (right of way) in berwyn, il.

saw this about 10 years ago.

an elderly couple went around the gate during rush hour (on a shared freight/commuter ROW with two outside and two inside tracks).

their car got sideswiped by an eastbound local and completely demolished by a westbound express.

the force of the impact threw the engine block about two blocks from the vehicle.

as far as the passengers: like the subject line says.

trains are NOTHING to fuck with.

[Historic NY]

7. RR's own the land, sometimes they do have ROW's but

for the most part they own it and do pay some hefty taxes, even with all their attempts at reductions. Trains do not stop like cars, why can't people get that into their heads.

[WMliberal]

8. how can you not hear them coming? Even high-speed passenger trains

are loud enough to be heard a mile away.

If some headphones are found near the site, I think we have a candidate for the Darwin awards... jogging on railroad tracks and playing music so loud, you couldn't hear a train coming.

[antigone382]

11. Strange as it sounds, it's actually pretty common not to hear a train.

I used to live just down the road from the railroad tracks, so I had to learn the facts about them as a little girl; it's relatively common that a train will sound much farther away than it actually is, or even not be heard at all until it is right up on you. I don't know why this is, maybe because of wind...all I know is a lot of people have died because of it.

edit: also, it is important to remember that trains bulge out on both sides beyond the train tracks. It's not enough to walk four or five feet away from the train tracks--you should stay well away from them.

I used to love the sound of trains coming around the bend, but one day I was playing hookie from school, and I heard an 8-year-old boy get hit by a train (I didn't know it until later that day, when the news reported it. Then, I realized why I had heard that prolonged whistle, the screeching brakes, and the helicopters that flew in later.) Needless to say, I can never hear a train whistle without thinking of that day.

[Steel City Slim]

16. Hear Them

Please don't think you'll be safe because you can hear them coming. An electric powered passenger train will be right on top of you before you hear it. Even a diesel will be much much closer than you think before you hear it. Please stay off the tracks.

[Patiod]

9. Train delayed b/c of "police activity"

Every so often, my SEPTA train is cancelled or late because of "police activity" upstream or down. I was told "police activity" usually translates to a suicide or other fatal train/person accident.

[bertha katzenengel]

10. Someone was hit in Maryland today -- pedestrian killed

MARC Restores Service on Camden Line
Updated: Thursday, Mar. 31, 2005 - 10:30 AM

WASHINGTON - Service should be back to normal on MARC Thursday afternoon, says spokesman Richard Scher.

Service had to be shut down for more than two hours after a commuter train struck and killed a woman in Beltsville, Md., Thursday morning.

The identity of the woman, who was walking along the train tracks when the accident occurred at 6:30 a.m., has not been released.

No one on the train was hurt.

(Copyright 2005 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

[Elidor]

14. I used to sit as close as I could bear

As the midnight train went by, when I was a teenager. That horrible pounding sound of mayhem-I loved it!

Nowadays, the train runs two blocks from my apartment, but I curse when the horn wakes me from my afternoon nap.

[Zuni]

15. They can suck you right into them even if you are not on the tracks

those things go fast.

They are no joke.