Parking on tracks

[Mottom24]

Living on the west side of philly I get the advantage of the trolley lines (green lines). they run both surface and ground, and I happen to live two block away from the surface half of one trolley that runs right to my work. pretty sweet... unless you happen to have the misfortune to be on the trolley that gets stuck behind an idiot.

it's not hard to tell where the trolley tracks are, but people double park on the street all the time, which lands half their car on the tracks. when this happens the trolleys can't go around, they just stop and lay on the horn. normally this gets shit through quickly... but there is another thing about where I live.

My street, as I said before, is 2 blocks from a trolley stop, but my street also happens to be the street the trolleys go in and out of to start/end their day at the trolley station down the street. they don't pick up on my street, they just move through it to get to their route. so you can guess that 95% of the day there is never a trolley on my street, so people double park... all. the. time. at the worst times.

Last night me and my friends were gunna do the ol' 20 die shuffle (D&D) when out of no where "WWWWAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRFFFF"..... "what was tha. "WAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRFFFFFFFF". I look out my window and some prick double parked in his mini cooper on the tracks. the trolley being right outside my house blaring his horn wasn't the worst part. the worst part was that this guy double parked when he didn't need to. he was right next to an empty spot twice the coopers size, but was too lazy to park it correctly and just stopped and turned the hazards on. the trolley blared for a good 20-30 minutes before the jerk moved his car so the trolley driver could go home.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

This reminds me of a story I've heard from my dad or my uncle. I don't remember who.

They are big fans of sprint car racing. Little cars with big wings on top that race mostly on dirt tracks. The biggest race of the sprint car circuit is held in mid-August at a racetrack in central Iowa, and my dad and my uncle have been there for that race. As have I. It used to be our summer vacation destination, until my mom, my sister and I decided we were sick of spending our summer getaway in buttfuck Iowa watching cars go around in a circle. There really isn't much to do in that part of Iowa at that time of year, or any other time of year.

The town the racetrack is in isn't very big, so all the motels for miles around get filled up and any and all surfaces that can be used to park a car are used to park a car. After all, people from all over the United States (heck, the entire world) come to this race. The population of the town rises exponentially for the week or so the races are being held.

There is also a set of train tracks not far from the racetrack. They're used fairly frequently and trains go pretty fast through the crossing.

So the story is one night, some people got sick of driving around looking for a decent place to park their vehicles, and decided to settle for the first open spot they could find.

Which turned out to be the train tracks.

And sometime during the races that evening, a train came blasting through the crossing.

You don't need a very vivid imagination to figure out what happened to the vehicles parked right on those train tracks.

[Chromatix]

It's fairly common for the trams over here to get blocked by a badly parked vehicle. Here, however, they tend to make *some* effort to park properly, and simply misjudge how much space the tram needs.

It's worth noting that the local rail network doesn't have any level crossings on it. The last ones were on the freight lines to the two ports that were just closed down, and the lines have now been removed - there's a new line to the new port that replaced them.

[Javarod]

This is the one thing i can say they did right on the light rail here in Phoenix, unless its at a switching point (the yard entrance) or an intersection, the tracks have curbs on either sides, so it isn't bloody likely that you're going to park on the tracks, at least not without getting a handful of tickets.

[ArcticChicken]

Uugh, I hate when people do that.

I once saw THREE trolleys get backed up on next to Clark Park because some douchenozzle decided to park on Chester Ave where it curves. Sir, there is a reason that that particular part of the street is painted with the bright yellow "do not park here" paint, and has signs. You would totally deserve to have the trolley plow through the rear corner of your car.

[Mottom24]

Uugh, I hate when people do that.

I once saw THREE trolleys get backed up on next to Clark Park because some douchenozzle decided to park on Chester Ave where it curves. Sir, there is a reason that that particular part of the street is painted with the bright yellow "do not park here" paint, and has signs. You would totally deserve to have the trolley plow through the rear corner of your car.

Hah, I live right by there, 49th and baltimore. 49th is where the trolleys turn to end/begin their day. some days I wish the trolleys had those big grates that olde timey trains had and just shuvel the cars out of the way. when they are empty of course.

[Magpie]

They should take a hint from the oil sands' dump trucks?

[ArcticChicken]

Hah, I live right by there, 49th and baltimore.

I used to live at 47th and Hazel, it got so bad that I eventually took to walking to 40th whenever I needed to get to Center City, so I could just take the first trolley that showed up, instead of counting on the 34 not to be blocked.

Now I live in Chestnut Hill, and I'm looking forward to the day when we actually get some trolleys on these shiny new tracks. Luckily there's ample parking on this section of gtown ave, almost no one double parks here.