Train hits car carrier at full speed.
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The Liberty coming off the back didn't even look like it was strapped down. Broke those straps like nothing.
There are toll free phone numbers posted at each railroad crossing in the United States. The driver should have called that number as soon as he became stuck.
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/rail-crossing/railroads-emergency-phone-numbers
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/safety/rail-crossing/railroads-emergency-phone-numbers
I was there for an Amtrak taking out a hog fuel truck at the Winlock (WA) crossing in late 1986. The truck driver was white as a sheet half an hour after the collision. The locomotive and a couple more cars derailed, but stayed upright at the tracks. The tracks were torn up. It was amazing how fast they put everything together again. Later that crossing was modified so it was not so steep. They had known there was a problem there for years before it happened. Oh yeah, no fatalities and not even any serious injuries.
Dumb question, but what does the conductor do in these situations in regards to impending impact? Is their "cab" reinforced; are they able to duck down into a more secure area?
manicrodder
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Looks to me like the train wasn't slowed a bit. I don' think conductor felt much.
The person making the video - or standing near-by - sounded pretty distraught.
Suicide by train was / is very common in Palo Alto. I heard Gunn high school was very competitive and many teenagers couldn't take it when they "failed", and committed suicide at the train crossing. Wife happened to be on the train when that happens quite often and it was quite traumatizing the first several times you hear the train ran over "something" while you are inside.
The city later kept officers at the crossing on a regular basis and it reduced that. I hope the parents finally come to sense that just because not everything is perfect or you couldn't get into Stanford / Harvard, it is not the end of the world.
I'm sure the biggest concern is flying object pierce through the windshield of the cab.
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Is there a reason railroad tracks are so high up? They're always like 10ft above the ground.
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I know someone that attempted suicide for the same kind of reason. They gave their son a hard time because he wasn't perfect like his sister. Mom came home from work just in time and they life flighted him out of a parking lot in my neighborhood. He lived. He does his own thing now and seems happy. I would suspect the parents laid off after that.
manicrodder
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That would be bad. Maybe like a Subaru.
The inclination of tracks is limited due to traction issues, you also don't want them flooded, so you even the tracks out to a high point.
A conductor doesn't operate passenger trains. It's the engineer. A freight train conductor may be in the cab with the engineer though. However, whenever there's a collision (they call these "trespasser incidents") it's the job of the conductor (freight or passenger) to come out and assess the situation. It can be brutal when there's someone injured or dead.
I don't think there's too much physical danger to the occupants of the locomotive unless it derails. That thing is really heavy and the glass must be laminated safety glass. There's really just a fairing on of the body for aerodymamics. If it's a cab car in push configuration (locomotive pushes from the rear while controlled remotely from controls at the end of the cab car), that's far different since a passenger car is not as heavy as a locomotive.
The locomotive in this crash is a General Electric Genesis, which has been out of production for maybe 20 years. More recently Amtrak has been replacing these with new Siemens Chargers. I think it can be rebuilt, but I'm not sure how they're going to get the parts to do it. The engine and the electric drive are easy enough to fix, as Wabtec (bought out GE Transportation) still services them because the internals are pretty much the same as several freight locomotives. But no American company is interested in passenger rail any more. I don't know if maybe they just retire it since they're getting new Siemens Chargers anyways.
I never even remotely contemplated suicide, but not being perfect like your sister is pretty hard.
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It happens a lot. My dad died of suicide.
I love the idiot standing on the tracks trying to get the attention of the train, lol...
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