About all that seems practical to do in a situation such as this
is make sure that you yourself are at a safe and reasonable distance.

Trying to prevent idiots from being idiots never works.

I have to disagree with that. UP is asking people to stand back 25 feet because it's generally considered (and often 30 feet is used) the 'minimum safe distance' from moving equipment. And it's not as patently apparent as something like 'hey dummy - hot coffee is hot'. 25 feet is usually enough to protect against things falling off of cars or being struck by loose banding, flapping packaging or a piece of lumber sticking out. These are all things that are not readily apparent to the general public but they do happen and will kill you just as easily as being struck head on by the train. A half inch wire rope load cable whipping from a centerbeam flat will rip a body to shreds quicker than you can say hamburger. I've see one tear the handrails off a passing locomotive in double track territory and catching a body with one wouldn't even be felt by a crew. Those ropes are over 15 feet long and from the side of the car that's a good 20 foot reach from the rail. Plastic banding will cut a body up pretty bad and steel banding will have the same effect as that half inch rope. Boxcar doors weigh well over a ton. Ever see one rolling toward you like a frisbee on its edge? Splat.

It's also been discussed in previous threads on here that the .5% can also be stupid enough not to realize the train is wider than the tracks, contributing to the problem, and those people are definitely not smart enough to think about anything like I just described. You may not like it, but then again these morons keep getting plugged by trains. It's not just ignorance, it really is downright stupidity. And lets not lay it all on the teakettles. There are plenty of instances of trespassers getting plugged by everyday trains. Want stupidity? One instance (out of hundreds) - on the Boston Line a couple decided a great place to practice their exhibitionism was in the middle of a very busy main track in commuter territory. Short story - they saw the train at the last second, one jumped off the track just in time, the other was hamburger. I understand the crew and the first responders needed extensive counseling afterward. Hundreds of commuters delayed. You can't explain that crap away as simple ignorance.

Maybe UP and others should add a video in with their 25 foot request to better educate the public as a broader reaching public service (not just for teakettles on single track). In the Navy we were all trained about mooring lines parting under tension and were shown videos of what it will do to a person - same idea for a very similar problem. If it were me I'd add actual pics/vids of the first responders hauling away the hamburger, for effect. It's not any more than you see on some movies or even TV nowadays and might drive home the real facts. People don't pay attention anymore unless it's in-their-face obvious.

The problem of people vs. trains is certainly prevalent enough to warrant some of the more prominent safety organizations (National Safety Council, American Automobile Association, Operation Lifesaver, Tourist Railway Association, etc.), and even the railroads themselves spending some time/money producing Public Service Announcements to educate the public on some of the not-so-obvious hazards that you mention. Such campaigns would be best directed not only to television, but to prominent social media platforms, as many younger people seem to be getting ALL of their information from such places. Just simply saying "stay back 25 feet" is not seeming to be effective by itself, as many folks unfortunately blunder through life without thinking through the what-ifs. I think that if the public were exposed to a few practical examples of what can happen, even if the examples have to be a tad graphic, the message might finally get through.

/Kevin Madore

One of the things I recall from basic training in the Army back in 63 and having to do pushups because some dumbass screwed up is just like the Sgt told us. 5% of the people will invariably screw things up for the other 95%. Don't be one of the five percenters.
I marvel at the stupidity of society these days.

I just happen to have to take the written test for drivers license renewal, and have been reading the "Rules of the Road" book to refresh my memory as to all the statutory distance numbers. One of the things that doesn't help is Illinois state law regarding RR crossings specifies cars must stop "more than 15' and less than 50' from the track", and I suspect by track they mean the near rail. I've always thought 15' is waaay too close, and always stop closer to the upper limit. Let some other guy catch the flying brake shoe in the teeth, not me.

Idiocy, this brings back bad memories of people that became greasy spots on the old B&O(or reading or PRR), I had terrible luck of either discovering bodies in my career or being at the scene of terrible accidents. Ten years, two employee fatalities, thiry odd accidental or suicide by train, one murderous mother, and two suicide by guns. It's not pretty and it's not something I'm find of thinking off, the first was a girl a few years older than me just after I pulled off my banana stripe who was walking on the field side of the rail on the tie ends, not too different from this, except the loco caved in her skull, I wish for the conductor and engineer who had to know what their train did perhaps someone would have yelled at her. I think of some college boys who pulled a woman who turned at a grade crossing and got stuck kicking and screaming as a train barreled down on her car. If you see something say something you might just save a life. I'm retired from railroading but I still yell at trespassers and call the bulls or the locals when justified.

Robert F. Kennedy Funeral Train

Elizabeth, New Jersey

The Admiral



https://www.steamlocomotive.com/GG1/funeral.php

It is not railfans, but just stupid people. Recently the Amtrak northbound I wanted to take home was delayed 2 hrs because someone in Old Town San Diego walked around the crossing arm and was hit by another train.

Did the train not go into emergency??? That’s my bigger concern.

If they plugged the brakes every time someone looked like they might be too close or might get hit or ETC, they would spend all day waiting for the brakes to pump back up. You'd risk getting someone hurt when the brakes slammed on, the equipment would keep getting jarred, and maybe finally derail something.

One thing looking through the cab window impressed on me, is most of what you can see, you can't stop for. The gates aren't even coming down yet and it's already too late to stop. The amount of close calls train crew have to see on a daily or even hourly basis is appalling.

From personal experience I can tell you it's a daily thing. People truly have no idea how to behave around trains, and many seem to believe that flashing red lights mean 'floor it'. Unfortunately, this dark side of the job isn't going away anytime soon.

Crew members can be out of work for some time after being involved in a crossing accident, and some end up with PTSD.

Sometimes the crew is killed despite not being at fault.

http://caboosecoffee.blogspot.com/2012/ ... f-god.html

Here's the other problem I have with this "keep 25 feet away or else" mentality.

Nothing's going to be dangling off of a UP steam passenger special. Not even a lump of coal. The only thing to worry about is steam/hot water blowing off the sides of the loco, and I suspect most of that is actually the result of the crew trying to get people to step aside!

Meanwhile, if you are a railroad having to tell the public that they have to stay 25 feet or more away from your trains because something just MIGHT be dangling or falling off a passing freight, then you are tacitly admitting to the general public that your trains, even during normal operations, are exceedingly dangerous, with a WIDE "cone" of risk. Just the thing the NIMBYs need to lobby that you be detoured around town, lest you decapitate little Johnny, Emily, or Rover while passing through. Or blow up under the Capitol or whatever.

I know how to do inspections of passing trains, having been shown everything to look for by Conrail clerks at Newark, Del. in 1982. Since that time, in all my years of checking passing trains, I have seen exactly three instances of "danger" on moving trains--two instances of dragging brake gear and one semi-dangling strap, with the first two phoned in to local yardmasters on land lines from pay phones.

Airlines, despite their increasingly amazing safety record of late, still have to forcibly remind everyone at the start of every flight of the real possibility of a plane crashing. Instead of trying to scare everyone witless, some airlines have made the mandatory safety drill something of a comedy act.

Maybe UP needs to hire the Melbourne Metro and Tangerine Kitty, the makers of the "Dumb Ways To Die" viral-smash-hit safety video (183.9 million views and counting)?

The 25 foot (or 30 or whatever) is a pretty much universal RR safety rule. When I hired out we were taught about all this type of stuff and the 30 foot rule, and were told that if we didn't have to be there, don't. Stay away from equipment unless necessary for the performance of duty. And if it's that much of a concern for employes, does it seem acceptable that the woman at the heart of this thread was standing close enough to get her down jacket plucked, even if you take away the trespassing aspect of it?

That's true - for steam excursions alone. But my note on teakettles on single track was about the rest of the story. Much of the RR universe has double (or more) track. How many events/videos have you seen where the tourists are standing on the tracks - the second main, yard tracks, etc., even on the track the teakettle is approaching on until the last minute? They're looking at the main event, even though the other tracks that they're fouling are live. AFAIK UP and others rarely shut down operations anywhere for a steam excursion. If that woman had been standing on the tie ends of an adjacent track and a 70 MPH van train came drifting down behind her, we'd be talking about a fatality instead of goose down. There's a hell of a lot more to worry about than cylinder cocks.


I agree with the admission of guilt concept, but a reasonable society would see through that and prefer to be educated and warned of possible dangers. Too bad we don't live in one of those anymore.


I'd say count your blessings if it's really been only three. In my first five years of train service I saw plenty more than that. Had more than a couple of shirts and jackets torn from just that sort of thing. Guys got hit by lumber, a guy had a boxcar door fall on him. In thirteen years in the movement office I saw/heard enough incidents of all types to make your head spin. On a division with around 2000 route miles there was rarely a couple days in a row without multiple civilian incidents. You're lucky. Many aren't. If I were so inclined to go out and railfan near the tracks, which I'm not, you wouldn't catch me within 100 feet of live rail. Ever.


And if comedy helps get people interested in a lesson, that's great - so long as the lesson makes clear the message.

If you have only seen three incidents your lucky, or not just around the tracks much or just are unobservant.
In ten years I had:
Dozens of hobo riding equipment, including one poor individual who was the dragging equipment.
One plug door that ran off in the weeds
A telephone pole hanging out and trying to push pole cars on a siding.
Half a dozen plastic straps
One soft strap with a metal end that tried to take out my truck
A cable that cut into a hotbox detector bungalow
A UPS trailer half off the flat car

I had several good stops for stuck brakes, dragging rigging, broken wheel

You can see scrapes and scratches and dents in tunnels from everyday traffic. i spent a month in Howard St tunnel and saw several new scratches form.

I had an aei antenna sheered of from an unknown strike and dragged down the row a half a mile.

I'll echo the previous answers in that the unspoken rule of thumb is that most of the time, you don't apply the brakes until after you hit the person, since 99.9999% of the time, they step out of the way in the nick of time.

People with no situational awareness due to looking at the train through their phone is a growing problem.