I'll bet you've never looked at a train locomotive and noticed the hood ornament, have you?

For those of you who haven't been paying attention.... http://jalopnik.com/5144353/train-skewers-car-carrier-in-washington-gets-cadillac-dts-hood-ornament

Sue

Nice decoration.

I wonder if engineer got to keep it because 'it followed me home'.

Don't play 'chicken' with a freight train.

I bet this will be a big hit with model train affecionados this holiday season!

Ya'all may laugh at this, but I'll bet the train driver thinks it isn't that funny. Unless you've been there, you don't realize how scary it is knowing you're about to obliterate someone and there's nothing you can do about it.

You're probably right, but I've had the "pleasure" of having a train engineer come to a class in high school. He did have some interesting, if tragic, stories. Though I have seen the "after" effect once on the way to school.

Your probably right. But, in life there are always things you can't control. Things you have to accept and deal with as best, as creatively as, you can.

I asked an AF missleman what he would do if the missiles were inbound and he wasn't down in the silo. His answer, seeing as that he would be about 100' from ground zero and too close to do much running, was that he would break out the lawn chair, crack a beer, slip on his shades and enjoy the show.

Being a RR engineer and knowing your going to hit a truck on the tracks all you could do is hit the brakes, radio central about the accident, lean back, and ... 'embrace the horror'.

My RR crews have stories that would curl your hair.

One woman stalled at the crossing on a narrow road, and she got caught between both arms when they came down. She got the car started, but wouldn't move forward because she was afraid of breaking the barrier arm. The crew had seen her and were doing an emergency stop, but they knew they weren't going to be able to stop. When they got close enough, they saw the car seat in the back with a little head. One of the crew jumped out of the engine with a heavy tool in his hand and ran ahead of the train, the tool raised to smash the back window and try to release the child before the train hit.

The woman wouldn't move to get out of the way of the train, but she stepped on the gas when she saw this crazy guy running at her car with a 'weapon'. She hit the gas and the arm swung as it was designed to do. She pulled ahead and then stopped. The guy ran up to her and apologized for scaring her, explaining that he was going to try to release the kid.

He said she kept apologizing, saying she didn't want to break the barrier. So, she was trading her life and that of her child for a crossing arm.

Sue

Driver in a hurry hit by two trains

I don't get the rushing to beat a train. Maybe it's the little boy in me, but I enjoy getting stopped by a train. I'd be glad to sit there for the few minutes it takes the train to go by.

Is that an "obedience to authority" issue more than anything else? She decided to move when the RR guy charged her (imposed danger) but not before. Maybe she didn't want to break a couple of sticks, or maybe she didn't want to scratch her paint. I don't think either's likely. But she moved when threatened. She's a survivor (except for not moving for the train - big oops on that).

That sounds to me like someone who froze in a pressure situation.

It also sounds like everyone got really lucky.

Except in this case, the car was on a car carrier, so he knew it was empty - looks like the cab of the truck was missed (Thank the Deity of your choice)

The train drivers don't just worry about what they are going to hit. Engineers on the train can be seriously hurt in collisions with cars and trucks. I knew an engineer that was seriously hurt in a collision with a pick-up. The suicidal owner of the pick-up thought he would be the only one hurt but the engineer I met was in the hospital for weeks, required constant care for months and was eventually placed on full disability.

That doesn't mean one of the cars or part of the truck won't go through the cab of the train. I know I've said it before, that I used to date a woman who was a train driver. She said you have no idea what's going to happen. Will what you hit come up in the cab? Will the train derail and end up with all the railroad cars you were pulling now piling up on top of you? If the train is moving fast, there's still a lot of momentum left in it that will take some time to bleed off. Those can be some long seconds! It's not easy stopping a vehicle when its stopping distance is in miles, not feet. She once told me they're told to stay in the cab after a collision and radio it in. It isn't pleasant seeing what a few thousand tons of train can do to a minivan and the people inside of it.
I can pretty much guarantee the train will obliterate whatever it hits, but that doesn't mean it's indestructible, especially the crew compartment.
It's a job not unlike driving a heavy truck, which unfortunately requires you to rely on the diving skills of others - when most of them don't have those skills.

Oh, I'm NOT saying it's GOOD, I'm saying it's better than knowing your hitting a car with people in it.

One Engineer I knew said the only 2 things he was afraid to hit was a propane truck, because the exposion would probably kill him, and a school bus, because he would probably kill himself.

Unfortunately, if you do that job long enough, you WILL kill someone with your train. In fact, statistically, you will kill something like 2 people over the years. People are stupid, and don't realize what a train will do

In the case with the car carrier, the truck driver was outside the cab, looking at something. The crew said he saw them coming and ran like he<<. Not leaving the scene, just getting out of the way.

I was working with the BNSF utility guy in Centralia, WA, the September evening that a woman drove through the barrier in Bucoda to hit the side of a freight train engine. The train caught her Subaru and was dragging it along the tracks. She might have survived that, had not an Amtrak come along in the opposite direction.

I just recently had the engineer in my van that was driving the train that hit her. He said she just slowly kept coming, drove slowly through the barrier and the hit the engine right below his window. They had the whistle blowing the whole time. I asked if he could see if she was using a cell phone or anything, but he said he couldn't tell from his angle.

Since both of the mainline tracks were involved, all the trains going north or south had to be stopped. I could hear the Ft. Worth (TX) dispatcher getting a little frazzled, trying to tuck trains into sidings all along the route. The accident happened at 5 pm, no train moved until 10:30, and they weren't moving well until midnight.

Was she using her cell phone? Fell asleep? Heart attack? Stroke?

Sue

Never underestimate how stupid and unaware people can be.

I was sitting at a mom-n-pop burger stand having lunch and a full sized yellow school bus pulls up to a light at the adjoining side street. There was no traffic to speak of on the main drag and none at all, but for two vehicles, on this side street. It was daylight, lunchtime, and no fog, smoke or precipitation present. Visibility for miles.

The school buss, without kids, is sitting there motionless waiting for the light to change. Then a late model Oldsmobile, a real barge, comes down the street at maybe five miles an hour. And simply doesn't stop. There was no screech of brakes. No skid marks. The car hits the bus square in the back and the bumper takes out the windshield and half the roof.

After the police arrive the car owner, who luckily ducked under the dash at the last second to avoid being decapitated, backs the car out from under the bus and and pulls into the parking space beside me. The brakes were fine and there was nothing wrong with his vision.

I asked the guy what happened and he claimed that he "didn't see the bus". I smiled and drove off. Because, what can one say to a person who "didn't see" the eight-foot wide, ten foot tall, school bus yellow bus with a black and foot wide yellow safety-striped bumper on a bright, clear day.

If there is any possible way for people to screw up it is a sure thing that given time someone will screw up.

Could have just been old. My grandfather on my mothers side used to drive around all the time and hit parked cars and never see them. My mother had him sign over power of attorney and she would get the calls from the police and would give them his insurance to pay for the damage. It got to where if someone called and reported a hit and run they would call her and ask her to check his vehicle for new damage.

The "slowly rolling into the train" is an issue that has to do with the motion of the train.

Something about the train moving past laterally to the driver seems to make drivers ease off the brake without thinking about it. In the past, it was taught if you were first in line at the grade crossing to put your car in park (auto) or neutral and set the brake (standard). I had to teach both sons about this as it was not covered in driver education here in Texas.

I do not remember the facts around the cause, just some foggy memories from a LEO buddy who went to a car vs train accident school.