Some stranger tells you, "Your girlfriend is not going to see you anymore! Is there anything I can do for you?" (or maybe it is your sister, or your daughter!) She is pretty, about 17 or 18, just budding into a young woman, happy with plans for tonight. She approaches a private railroad crossing ahead, slows and comes to almost a dead stop, glances to her right, then to her left then...... ....... I need for you to understand, so let us think about this a bit. Before you read any farther, stand up where you have room to stretch both your arms straight out horizontally away from your body until you look like the capital letter "T". Now, place your arms down with your palms flat against your legs, then quickly raise your arms out to the "T" position and imediately swing them both down against your legs and stop. Now say, "One Chimpanze". Now spell O-N-E and as you start to pronounce the "O", turn your head quickly to your right 90 degrees, and the "N" as it is at 90 degrees and imediately back to look straight ahead as you finish pronouncing the "E" and stop. Do this as quickly as you can. Why? I am trying to give you some firm realization of how long ONE SECOND of time is. All THREE methods I describe above, require just one second to perform. I am traveling almost 60 feet EVERY SECOND! Think about this: When you turned your head to your right awhile ago, tell me what details you remember seeing when your head was at the 90 degree position! Don't look back, you have to make a life or death decision based upon what you saw in that 1/3 of a second you looked to see if anything was coming that might endanger your life! Don't cheat! It is your OWN life you are making this decision about. You are staking your own life that what you saw, or did not see, is enough information that you have just BET YOUR LIFE ON IT! Remember, you have just apporached a railroad crossing, so you expected to see tracks dwindling off into the distance, some trees, grass, maybe a few buildings, possibly a dog running out there, maybe a train. Was there a train? Yes, I'm there! It takes the human brain 2/10ths of a second to attain recognition, 4/10ths of a second for the brain to start muscles to react, and 4/10 of a second for the brain to make an emergency decision. You have just spent one full second of your life making a life or death decision based upon the data you fed your brain in that 1/3rd of a second! What are you going to do? We will start the next second of your life.... While you think it out! How far away was the train your memory tells you it "saw"? Did you even recognize it as a train? Maybe it was a bus, a building, just a blob? Was anything waiting, sitting still? Was anything moving? Which direction, away from you, or toward you, or sitting still, or nothing there? The human brain does not percieve motion in objects approaching directly at your eyes in the 1/3 of a second you allowed yourself to stare at the train to gather data suffecient to make a determination! Now what? You are already looking to your left and back, so another second has passed. Three of your last seconds of life have passed. I am getting closer! I travelled 58.6 feet closer to you during your first second, now three seconds later I am 175.8 feet closer than when you "saw" me, your time is running out at 40 miles an hour! She is at a position facing up hill on the grade from ground level up to the track level and you are sitting with her! It isn't much different on flat ground, let's see if you make it. Her car is fifteen feet long front bumper to rear bumper. The train is 11 feet wide over the fuel caps. That means the side of this train is hanging out toward her little car 7.5 feet from the center between the rails! She has stopped at the crossbucks which means her front bumper is now fifteen feet from the center of the rails. This means that if she decides to out run me, she has to carry you 37.5 feet to get across. Meanwhile, back at the engine, the engineer is looking ahead down the track. Because of his line of sight along the short hood he can only see the right hand rail some 90 feet in front of the hood. He can not see the left rail until it gets out some nearly 175 feet! That is on a short hood diesel! Long hood forward is even worse! The engineer must rely on his fireman or conductor to tell him if anything is happening on the left, and the engine IS a diesel! (If it were a steam engine you could easily double those distances!) The engineer is pulling 10,000 tons of train. Her little car weighs slightly over one ton. The odds are getting worse. Now lets compare what's happening, so you can tell your girlfriend, mother, sister, or daughter, how you died, before she does. The train is coming on at 211,200 feet every 60 minutes. That is 3,520 feet each minute, which is 58.6 feet every second! You just used up 175 feet of space you needed to save your life, and she just set down on the gas ...... in her little car to try to carry you and herself up hill from a standing start, and travel the 37.5 feet that is required to allow her rear bumper to miss the far side of the on coming train by the thickness of the paint on the fuel cap! You are in trouble! She came into the conductor's view just as the hood blocked the engineer's view, and the conductor saw that she was slowing to a stop as the horn was honking for the crossing. I never saw her at all! The next time you are in a car, think of the "One Chimpanze" and start out from a dead stop to cross the average residential intersection with no stop lights. That is usually 40 feet, so very close to the distance she must start, accelerate and travel to clear her REAR bumper, in order for you both to live for another day! When it is clear, set down on the gas as you start "One Chimpanze, Two chimpanze, Three Chimpanze, Four Chimpanze, Fiv.... well it doesn't matter any more. You didn't clear your rear bumper at the other curb. You really don't have two seconds to make it anyway. From the time the engineer lost any possible sight of her (and you with her), he was just two seconds from going over that crossing at 40 miles an hour, and she needed 6 "Chimpanzies" to get across any way. Here is what really happened: Yes it is a true story! Her car got to the center of the track before the engineer even saw her coming, and the conductor was so stunned to see her look directly at him, look away, then step on the gas to go across, that he only had time to yell, "WAIT"! All I could do was freeze hanging on the horn handle and duck! The coupler went right into the passenger side door shattering the glass into shards like bullets inside the car right into your ear! As the snow plow pressed against the door her car instantly changed direction to moving 40 miles an hour sideways carrying her hips with it, you are out of it now. The seat belt carried her hips along with the car as the coupler came inside the car crushing the car body until the coupler touched the stearingwheel. Her head was not restrained by anything, so it remained in motion going forward while her shoulders began to slip out of the seat belt causing her neck to stretch trying to keep her twenty pound head connected to her shoulders. As her car moved the four feet sideways, her head and face smashed into the coupler along with all the broken glass, which imediately started her head moving at 40 miles an hour sideways! Inside her little head, her brain smushed up against the broken skull inside bruising and tearing at the tissue, and she passed out. It took the 10,000 tons almost a mile to stop after the impact. To have dumped all air would have caused the heavy cars to run up on the empty cars derailing them and scattering railroad cars all over that side of the little town. You can stop counting now, its over. The Doctor said he does not think she will make it. She has massive damage to her head and face. They had to cut her out of the wadded up scrap that had been a car. I can not help but feel like "I" have killed this beautiful young girl. So does the conductor. Every one who nails a person, does, its natural I guess. That is what the counsellors say anyway. What could I have done differently that would make it all go away? Neither my conductor nor I saw her move in time to even blow the whistle again. You get into the habit of thefour honks of the crossing signal, and it becomes such a habit that you can't get another honk in the routine. You almost unconsciously blow the three and hold the fourth as you cross the road, but this time it was hard to let go. The whistle was probably still blowing when we were almost stopped! If you see her coming from the right, you feel like you want to climb down and push her out of the way, but you can't out run your engine at 40 miles per. The engineer can't see her coming from his left. You look at your conductor, he looks at you, we don't have to really say any words, we know! I am just trying to put it into words in such a way that you out there who have a sister, or your girlfriend, daughter, or even a mother who might not realize that when she just takes a quick glance in my direction, she has just made her last move if she steps on the gas to out run me! Most of the time I travel one full mile in one minute with the wallop of a 10,000 TON flyswatter! That is 60 miles an hour! Her parents want to know why didn't I stop! I would have if I could have, but that many tons will slide on ahead for a quarter of a mile laying on its side in the dirt! I tried to put you in the car along with her so you could get a taste of what her last few seconds of life were like. How do you feel now? You think maybe you better have a more serious talk with her, maybe some instruction, maybe park with her at a crossing and explain some of this? I sincerely hope for her sweet sake, she will listen, or read this and understand, engineers are not monsters. We hurt too. It is a gnawing ache in our guts we can't simply shake off. Yeah we are alive, but we don't sleep well for a long while, and even though we have to go out on runs again afterwards, we pray people watch out for us. I don't even care if they become afraid of us, just wait for us, and live a long happy life. I'm sorry, but this is serious! I am truly sorry if she was your girlfriend, we all are.
DAMN Watash!!!!! What happen man???? I Read that so slow to get the gist of what you were trying to bring back .. If you want to talk e-mail me... Man that was like one nasty ride to hell with the way you put that into words!!!! I'm sorry to hear you had a nasty encounter at one time or another... The reason I say that is because the way you put that into words.. Only an engineer who actually lived a tale like that could only tell it... I'm truely sorry if you have. And from what you just wrote is sad. And every word of it is right if you other guys and girls think about it as you read.... Watash if something did happen and you want to talk to someone e-mail me! What are friends for...... ? [ 22 March 2002, 13:33: Message edited by: 7600EM_1 ]
The cold, analytical part of me read through the physics of the accident, taking in the data ofthe effects of 10,000 tons moving at 40 miles per hour striking a one-ton car sideways. The medical part of me saw a victim that by all rights was a DOA. The parental part of me shuddered. I have a 16-year-old daughter who's growing up fast (they all seem to), and I dread the call I'd get from my ex saying she was hit by a train, and died. I'd be so torn between my daughter's violent death and how the engineer is feeling, and the hell he's going through. I have friends who are railroaders, and to hear them talk about accidents like this makes me wonder why they all didn't go and blow their brains out. If that story doesn't get to Operation Lifesaver, it's wasted. This sad tale needs to be printed up and passed out to everyone you can find. Will it get everyone to think? No, but it might get a few to put down the cell phone, turn down the stereo, stop eating, and actually pay attention while driving.
I think what Watash is trying to convey here is that no matter how careful we operate our trains, (I always make a small brake application as I approach a crossing ... just in case) there is just so much an engineer can do. And when the unthinkable happens and a person loses their life ... it is something that we can never erase from our minds. Sometimes, we can even recall the look on the drivers or passengers face just before impact.
Watash (and all): That's a hell of a story. I've never worked on the rails, so I won't pretend to know what anyone involved would feel like, but in my years with the Army, I've watched as friends were killed in fairly stupid mishaps. Yeah, there's an unreasonable guilt that attaches, and it's scary to get "back in the saddle" again. I hope the survivors can get back to what they like doing again, and keep doing it to the best of their abilities. There really isn't anything else we can do, is there?
My effort in telling this story was to try to put you (the reader) in the car, as a passenger, so you are there. Give you some idea of bad it is going to be, then make it really a personal thing happening by changing from (some unknown engineer) to "I" AM GOING TO KILL YOU and here is how it will happen, and why it happened. Could you have prevented your death (hers)? YES! Could (I) the engineer, have prevented your death? NO! WE HAVE TO TELL OUR LOVED ONES, OR BURY THEM! See?
I work as a conductor and only know what a near miss feels like. However I was a volunteer firefighter and know what it feels like to see and handle recently killed people. I have timed people that have crossed in front of my engine. I wonder if they knew that they only made it by 5 seconds.
I'm sure you all ready did this bob but you should send this to your daughter. My Fiancee doesn't drive yet, but you can bet that I am going to be taking her down to the tracks and sshow her what Watash was discribing. My two uncles work for the UP and every time I see a crew I just think of them as well as all the crews that have to go through this and have gone through this. It's terrorible, I know I'll do my part in educating the young drivers lets hope others will do the same.
Dave, There are several friends and fellows I have talked with that have had many near misses, some collisions, some wrecks, some are no longer with us. There must be some way we could get people to respect, or even fear the railroad like back when I was growing up. Right now I have a very close buddy that got his first one just now. He is going through all the soul searching all engineers, airline pilots, sea captians, bus drivers, truck drivers, fire fighters, and Police do when they experience that first unexpected surprise accident! The thing that makes the difference, is that it is "not intended" to have happened! It is NOT the engineer's fault. Like Tort Law says: "But for the fact that....." then the list of....at this time...under these conditions....you were driving....they did not remain a safe distance... signals were given...other signals were working....etc." We are performing our job to the best of our ability, it is an accident that involved us! Back in steam days, we had a boiler that stuck out 30 to 80 feet in front of us. No way to see someone come up on our left side unless they were way down the track in front. If we were at road speed, there was still not time for us to stop if they decided to try to out run us! I know the cold chill that washes over you when it becomes appearent they are going to try for it! There is the anger and relief when they make it! Life goes on, everything is alright, still like it was! OK it was a dumb stunt "somebody unknown" pulled, but no harm was done. We can live with that! It gets hard when it becomes personal, they look at you, their eyes get wide, you look at them, there isn't even time to say goodbye, or I'm sorry, or you dumb....whatever....just not time, its all over! Bang! Done! It is the sudden unexpected surprise that is the stab in our gut when we realize the eyes looking at us belong to another human being. I am going to be the last thing that person is going to see at the end of their life! I did not want that place in history. I feel sorry for the circumstances that made it so. What should I do? Can I help them to go back, or hurry up? Can I stop, or even slow down? What on earth were they thinking? Help them, help me, what can I do?!!! In a big old 400 ton articulated steamer you don't even feel any impact with a little old two ton Cadillac! You sense it rather than actually feel it. I doubt if today's diesels would be distressed enough to feel an impact with today's cars either. It figures out roughly that her little one ton car distressed the engine about 14.6 ft lbs to accellerate to 40 miles an hour. Take a 14 pound bowling ball and slap the coupler and see if you feel it inside the engine. But you diesel engineers are sitting right up there on the front and you see it closer than we did. Still I think you sense it. I believe it would take a loaded truck, bus, or another train to feel it jolt the engine. Some of the members here as young as 13 have asked questions about running trains, what was it like, etc. There are others who wont even set up to run their layouts unless they can run realistically with time tables etc. How many of you ever planned a collision where someone got killed? That's real! It happens! We don't "plan" for it to happen either! Don't blame the engineer, or the railroad company, just try to understand what the situation is. After we have been trained to kill by the Military, and go out to perform our duty for a purpose, we expect, "intend", to look an "enemy" in the eye, and pull our trigger, or set off our bomb. That is hard enough to over come, the first time. (If we do not over come it, we wont be around to talk about it.) Back during WWII there were a number of old hoggers that got so fed up with "the public" that they lost sympathy when someone failed to stay put! I can understand if it is a brash show off teenager, or an adult driver; it is the kids that would still be hard, the passengers. Maybe we should change the warning to: STOP, STAY PUT, AND LIVE! or die.....
BN9900, if you can take her somewhere safe, where she can walk up to a box car, or engine, have her pound her fist hard against the coupler! When she sees the size of an engine that close to her, and how absolutely solid that engine is, then your explaination and words of caution will sink in. Whatever it takes, she just has to understand that we can NOT stop for her no matter how much of a hurry she is in, or how important her getting across is. We really do not wish to smash her to mush, but we will if she doen't stay put! Tell her to jump out and run away if she has to! We don't mind hitting her car, we just don't want her in it when we do.
Good idea- I haven't yet, but I darn sure will. Watash, would you have a problem if I forwarded this to my family, friends, and model RR buddies? I won't broadcast this unless you say yes. Last year we had two fatal RR crossing accidents. The first was out at Fruita, CO, west of Grand Junction, and involved a tractor-trailer and a westbound BNSF trackage rights train (rolling at 50 MPH at the time). The driver of the truck was making a delivery to the local Co-op, and, ignoring the lights and crossing bell (not to mention the whistle of the train), drove in front of the train. The locomotive rendered the truck to sheet metal, and the now-dead driver to mush. In the process, the truck's fuel tank was ruptired, and the contents burst into flames. The crew of the train, by now having hit the floor, looked up in horror at the flames and pieces of truck smash through the cab windows. It took a local rescue worker to get the crew out of the cab- shaken, banged up, but still very much alive. The second incident involved a young man in a small car speeding west down US 6 in Palisade. He turned right to cross the parallel tracks, chatting on his cell phone and ignoring the onrushing California Zephyr, bearing down on him at 70 MPH. He never noted the lights, signals, whistle, or the train- and, as a result, probably never knew what hit him. The car was smashed to pieces, the front of the P42 was banged up, but again there was blood on the coupler. I've heard railroaders try to cope with such accidents by brushing the victims off as boneheads, Darwin Award winners, and language I can't use. At first I thought they were being cold, but later I realized they were trying to cope as best they could. I'm finding myself more & more thinking of people who dare to beat the train to the crossing in the same way. The railroaders operate heavy machinery, and have to work withing a ton of safety rules (learned the hard way). Add the 24-7-365 requirements of the job, the task of operating a train over the tracks, missing a stable home life, and all the bushwa that takes place in any workplace, and the engineer has enough stress. The very last thing he or she needs is to be a captive, unwilling witness to the death or severe injury of another inattentive, apathetic driver. Yes, I WILL send Watash's story to my daughter- as well as my 18-year-old son, who is graduating from high school this spring. I owe this much to them.......................
Yeah Friscobob, but you may wish to correct my spelling, and clean it up a little before sending it out. Its really not from me, it is from all engineers to all the people, especially the young ones who are just starting out in life. Just ask them to PLEASE help us keep them alive, and not all mangled up. I think the boys would appreciate that more than I can put into words. Maybe if I was better at writing, it would sound more polished, but it is the truth either way! You can bet your life on it!
I, too, would like premission to use your story. At the Danbury Railway Museum, I take out tours. Many of the tours consist of young people from 4-years-old on up. I, of course, vary the talk with the age of the group, but I always make sure I emphasize the safety issues. Any time I can make my point in a dramatic way, I will try to do so. Your story can be made into a hand-out that will carry an impact. It is not original with me, and I don't remember the source, but this is one example I use to emphasize the damage that can be done by a train. I tell the group to imagine what their family car can do to a beer or soda can when it is run over. I then point out that a locomotive can do the same thing to their car. It is interesting to see the expression on their faces when they realize the result. Thanks for making your point in such a dramatic way.
Watash, I sent it on to my daughter, as well as two railfan/modelrailroader buddies of mine. I didn't change a word, or polish the spelling- to me, it would be like drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa. I'm also gonna give a copy to my buddies at the Grand Valey Model RR Club. Your writing is plenty powerful, my man- don't worry about spit & polish. I've gotten more truth out of plain speaking that anybody else.
Wayne, is there any way of getting your piece to Operation Lifesaver? I don't have any connections, but maybe some of our other members do. Your analytical style of writing brings the facts to a basic level that should be understood by just about everyone. It is riveting! Thanks!
Watash, I too am going to spread it around as well as post it on the door to my train room! Plus post it by my layout at the train club for shows when theirs tons and tons of railfans around and just normal everyday people also for them to read..... As a few said. There is no need to spit polish that! Reason being. Its spoken as a normal jesture and not a lecture. People learn more by just reading plain unprefect English then to read someone lecture...... Plain Engish, is just that. normal everyday talk..... A lecture on the other hand it like reading dirrections or instructions which can become boring... Hence my therory of a Lecture. And not only that.. You know how to put it in words to keep the peoples attention... I know it kept mine when I read it! And I'll probably read it over and over at times! So I'm going to make posters of it... Printed just as you put it in words but enlarged to size for a poster put it on a backing and elaminate it and put it on the wall at the club and also in my own train room at home. It has a very good "Safety" precaution on it! Very well worth posting in my eyes....
Great post Watash. It makes you think a lot. Like someone else posted about others in various professions. I've been a trucker for the past seven years until recently, but here is my mishap story, a good end result though... I drove a 99 Peterbilt daycab with a 48 foot Heil tanker trailer. Just got loaded at a terminal in Philadelphia, I was hauling 8,900 gallons of 87 octane gas. My weight is sitting right up there around 77,000 pounds. I had made a right turn onto Passyunk Ave and was crusing along at probably 45-50 mph. I just started up the approach onto the bridge crossing a river, by now the road is three lanes and I'm in the middle lane. I feel a boom at the driver side of my tractor. I look down wondering what it was, to my suprise to see a small Toyota or something going out of control on my left slightly ahead of me headed for the barrier on my left. I quickly reacted, my brakes are on, the Jake break is on, luckily we're traveling up hill somewhat. I can't swerve due to flipping over with liquid as my cargo. Her car careens in front of me doing a 180 and smashes into the barrier on the passenger side. No kidding, she bounces off that side and is headed out in front of me again. I can't stop in time and wham! I dragged her car to a stop quite a few feet down. Her driver's side door is under my bumper. I quickly call 911 and the rest. Fortunetly she was taken to the hospital with only minor back injuries. But her car was totalled, every piece of sheet metal was bent and all tires were flat. I got out of the truck with the rescue guys around and standers by. I was very shaken, this was my first major accident. I had to take pictures for the insurance, my hands were trembling. But in my mind I replayed what happened over and over again, wondering if maybe I had drifted over into her lane or not. But, I had not. She had hit my driver's side steering tire and that sent her into the wall. I was not at fault and happy of course, but thankful no one had been more seriously injured. Not something I would ever want to happen again. It's intresting because you really do get 'gun-shy' so to speak about getting back in the cab again. But that's my little story, I'm sure everyone here has one similar. Thanks for letting me tell mine.
Engineer's view from Diesel. Some experience isn't it Jeff? I drove a K-12 International, and a "three-banger" Autocar years ago, so I know where of you speak! That old Autocar sat so high off the wheels, the whole motor was way out in front of the front axel and you sat right over the axel ! There were a few times a motorcycle policeman would stop too quickly at a stop light, and his helmet would just go out of my line of sight as I stopped. I always waited until he would pull out before I started up because for all I could tell he may be under my front wheels. That long hood covered a normal car if my front end was only 5 feet from their rear bumper! My server has been down for up dating, and just now back up, so the photo I wanted to post with my Topic post, is the one below. Notice how far it is out in front before you can even see the left hand rail? The nose of the short hood, sticks out so far and high we can not see to our left for a long ways. By the time any car or truck comes into sight, that wasn't there all along, you are just a few feet from using his door for a tunnel! If you look ahead to where you can see both rails, figure those rails are just under five feet apart way up there. If an engineer saw you start out up there and he is going anything over fourty miles an hour, you just bought the farm, even if he dumped all his air just as you dissapeared under his line of sight along that hood! It looks like a long ways doesn't it? If you decide to try it, keep in mind your rear wheels might spin, so you are not moving forward, you are sitting there while the train is still moving toward you! You will have begun to move enough to get your front end in the way of that oncoming train though. Then you will panic and really sit down on the gas and your wheels are going to spin for sure, again when they try to get traction crossing that first rail, so you are going to slow down again, yet the train is still getting closer! WHAT DO I DO? Do I hit the brakes? NO, then I would stop right in his path! So you "Gun it" and squawl those tires really smokin' 'em down to GO! GO- go- OOPS! There is another rail and your wheels are going to spin on that one too! It wont matter really, because by then you have suddenly changed direction and have joined the train grinding along his rails! You may also have severely bent your car. While you are doing all that, the photo below is what the engineer saw you doing. Notice the dirt road going along the tracks on the left? The engine is approaching the edge of a rural road crossing and a car is sitting on the left, waiting for this engine to pass. Well, he was sitting there the last I could see of him! Oh, was that you? Sorry hot shot, I win this time! [ 26 March 2002, 08:06: Message edited by: watash ]
Watash, Nope not a fun experience. I'm glad it wasn't worse. Great picture by the way. Where was it taken? Down Texas way?
No Jeff, it was farther north. The sun was setting. You can see the sun shining through the trees on the left coming across the road diagonally toward the engine. The engine was facing the north west. This photo was just for my illustration, and is not where the accident happened, that was in a western state actually several years ago. You can not see out of an F7 any better than the photo I chose for the illustration of what an engineer does see. I combined a few things to get the point across in my first post. I have told the story before, and because it was actually a teenage boy, there was not the reader impact than it is if it is a young girl, see? Probably if I had made it a young mother taking her baby to see her grandmother, and gave you details of what happened to the baby, I would have had all of you in tears. I only wanted to tell a story in such a way that you get the point of how you will die in this situation, and how helpless any engineer actually is to prevent your death! Yes, the boy died. (I really shouldn't pin point the actual location.) [ 29 March 2002, 20:00: Message edited by: watash ]
