Let's stop right after the train tracks!

[rageaholic]

Luckly, I wasn't one of the people held up on the tracks, nor was there any train coming, but it did infuriate me to see this truck stopped right after he crossed the track. Those behind him were stuck right on the track, between my car and his truck while he was waiting to make a turn. I assume he must have been working on the train tracks because he turned onto a layer of dirt right next to the track, but still, what the hell?! Couldn't he have parked in the lot a few yards away, or couldn't he have made the turn further up the road? There has to have been a better place to turn than right there in front of the track.

[Andara Bledin]

While it does suck to be behind someone who stops after crossing a set of train tracks, you should never let yourself be in a position where you can get caught on them.

Just like you shouldn't gridlock an intersection by entering it when you don't have a resonable expectation (the car ahead of you traveling at a speed that would mean a sudden stop would still leave more than enough room for your vehicle) of being able to cross it completely, you should never pass the stop line before a set of train tracks unless you have a reasonable expectation that you will be able to completely cross them without delay.

If the truck was going slow enough that it could come to a complete stop at the immediate other side of the tracks, then the person behind him should have waited behind them.

^-.-^

[greek_jester]

While it does suck to be behind someone who stops after crossing a set of train tracks, you should never let yourself be in a position where you can get caught on them.

Precisely. My daily commute takes me over a level crossing out & back, & there's been a few times that the lights have started going after traffic's come to a halt because the pedestrian crossing further up the road has changed. I've had a few angry drivers behind me when I've paused or slowed down just before the tracks until I was sure I could get past, but I have no intention of ending up like the Top Gear people carrier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekpD06P7kiI

Watch from about 2.5 minutes in. Unless you're driving a tank, you're pizza

[Andara Bledin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekpD06P7kiI

Watch from about 2.5 minutes in. Unless you're driving a tank, you're pizza

That... was glorious!

And just think, with only the engine, it still took about a mile to come to a stop.

^-.-^

[DGoddessChardonnay]

That... was glorious!

And just think, with only the engine, it still took about a mile to come to a stop.

^-.-^

Those trains can't stop on a dime . . . even here in the US we still hear of accidents involving trains and vehicles.

The video, OTOH, was hilarious . . . I'm sure the high visibility jackets aren't just for hunters anymore.

[Chromatix]

I believe the emergency stopping distance of a HST, from 125 mph, is about a mile and a quarter. That is of course on dry rails - wet rails will be a little bit more, damp rails a *lot* more. (Steel on steel friction is weird like that.)

The loco used for the film - an obsolete and nonfunctioning Class 31 IIRC - was propelled to about 75 mph by another loco which then stopped before the crossing (you can see it in a couple of shots if you look carefully). Presumably it was fitted with a remote-control brake valve, which was used to bring it to a halt after impact. The headlamp and brake compressors would have been running from the battery.

From 75mph, typical emergency stopping distance would be on the order of a quarter of a mile, or maybe a little more than that. It's hard to tell from a TV picture, but it looks plausibly close to that to me. The car would have added a bit more drag, since it was digging up the ballast.

Most remarkable is how the front of the loco isn't even visibly scratched. This doesn't *always* happen - it is possible for the car to be pushed under the loco, so that it lifts it off the rails. The results of that happening can be pretty nasty, which is why the loco was unmanned and nobody was pointing a camera from after the level crossing. Nevertheless, this is very clearly a 100:1 weight advantage in action.

[greek_jester]

The video, OTOH, was hilarious . . . I'm sure the high visibility jackets aren't just for hunters anymore.

Top Gear is a good giggle, if you can put up with Jeremy Clarkson's arrogance. They never really cover 'normal' cars any more - at least, not seriously. They tend to play around with supercars & run strange challenges, at which they sometimes surprise themselves by succeeding.

My current favourites are the time they managed to drive a car to the north pole (they actually set the record as the first people to do that, by the way), the indistructible pickup truck (that was vaguely creepy - it just wouldn't die, even when they dropped it off of a tower block!) & the time they had to modify cars so that they would drive on the road, drive into the water, operate as boats, then drive back out again. One of them actually made it across the Channel! *\o/*

[protege]

Most remarkable is how the front of the loco isn't even visibly scratched. This doesn't *always* happen - it is possible for the car to be pushed under the loco, so that it lifts it off the rails.

Yep, 99% of the time, the locomotive only suffers minimal damage. Back in 2001, when Amtrak was still running their F40s, I saw one that had an argument with a dump truck. The truck was totaled, but the F40 came through relatively OK. Well, the nose was bashed in, the snowplow torn off, etc. but it could be fixed. Probably wasn't though, since those engines were being retired.

[wolfie]

My brother told me about a container transfer terminal near Vancouver where the switch engine has a bunch of truck silhouettes painted under the side window on the cab. All of them are earned (like the swastikas/rising suns on the side of a P51 Mustang, under the canopy).

[Chromatix]

The trouble is that it isn't always a locomotive involved. Most passenger trains in Britain are now some kind of multiple-unit, the leading carriage of which normally weighs less than half as much as a locomotive, and is correspondingly easier to throw off the rails.

Even among trains that are nominally loco-hauled, the HST's power cars are unusually lightweight (75 tons, IIRC), and the IC225 rakes are led by a driving van half the time (the Class 91 electric loco being at the rear). And those are among the fastest trains on the network - fortunately there are fewer level crossings on the lines they frequent. That doesn't stop them from hitting cars that have literally fallen off the roads beside the railway and rolled down the cutting side.

After a multiple-fatality accident involving a cow several decades ago, rail vehicles in Britain with a driving cab that weigh less than a given amount now need to have "obstacle deflectors" that attempt to stop solid parts of a struck object from going under the train's wheels. These apparently work fairly well, but are not totally foolproof. A more recent event, in which a footbridge was accidentaly demolished and then struck by a DMU, caused the DMU to derail - but it was held approximately on the line by the large, centrally-mounted disc brake catching on the rail. The bridge parts had bent the obstacle deflectors completely out of the way.

It is true however that with a locomotive at the front and modern carriages behind it, passengers are respectably well-protected from all but the most severe of head-on accidents. A hundred tons of solid steel, backed up by several hundred more tons of carriages, makes a very effective battering ram - anything short of a brick wall nuclear flask will be pretty much shoved out of the way.

(NB: the carriages involved in the flask test were of a design already obsolete at the time, and apparently performed "better than expected". The video shows that the rear cab of the locomotive provided an extra crumple zone.)

[Pagan]

Those trains can't stop on a dime . . . even here in the US we still hear of accidents involving trains and vehicles.

Yeah, there's a penchant around here for sitting in your trucks, on the rural railroad crossings, chatting, getting hit by a train, and then suing the train company.

I wish I was kidding.

[Magpie]

Yeah, there's a penchant around here for sitting in your trucks, on the rural railroad crossings, chatting, getting hit by a train, and then suing the train company.

Is it at least stupidity rather than malice? (It's rather sad when I think that's a better option).

[Pagan]

Is it at least stupidity rather than malice? (It's rather sad when I think that's a better option).

It's gotta be stupidity. It's gotten worse lately between Los Lunas and Santa Fe because we have the RailRunner that adds more train traffic. I just don't get how in the hell you miss a train coming at you.

[Andara Bledin]

I just don't get how in the hell you miss a train coming at you.

When you're that wrapped up in yourself and everything really is all about you, little things line oncoming trains are beneath your notice.

Some people are just that self-absorbed.

And some are too stupid to do complex geometry in their head while driving too fast, and too stupid to realize they're that stupid, and when you get stupid^2 like that, well... you do the math.

^-.-^

[protege]

I just don't get how in the hell you miss a train coming at you.

I've had trains "sneak up on me," when I've been down by the tracks taking photos. Many new locomotives are pretty quiet compared to older models, and even some areas have forbidden them to blow their horns at crossings. (Of course these same area residents then bitch if someone gets hit because there's "no warning," but that's another rant entirely )

For example, I usually do head down to the tracks during my lunch hour. Those of you who are on my Facebook list know which line I work near. If I'm lucky, I can catch a long coal drag, or a local doing switching work. At that hour, most of the trains are heading East. But, since I'm familiar with the line....I also know that if the eastbound train is stopped, there's usually another one heading the other way. And no, the westbound train does *not* blow its horns.