Passenger Trains > 3 killed trying to beat Amtrak on MICH line today

PumpkinHogger,

I agree with your comments!

FYI: gates come down 90 sec before train enters crossing at accident site in this story.

chico

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BigSkyBlue Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How about using the Milwaukee Road's tactic:
> >
> > Post signs at crossings that say:
> >
> > TRAINS PASS AT 100MPH
> >
> > BSB
>
> You forgot the rest of the sign.
> WEATHER YOU'RE ON THE TRACKS OR NOT!

The signs I observed in Western Wisconsin did not say that.

BSB

This is video I took last winter at the crossing just east of the location where the accident occurred. The vid shows a westbound train, gaining speed as it departs Kalamazoo. In the accident, it was an eastbound, and the train traveled a mile after impact at 70-80mph. That means the crash vehicle was pushed through this intersection.

Anyway, you get the idea from this video of the nature of the area and train operations. The accident Tuesday happened at 4:30pm, and there was still light until after 5pm local time there.

chico

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This deadly crash sounds alarmingly similar to a 2009 crash of Amtrak 353 at
79mph into a Ford Fusion loaded with teenagers, going around a lowered crossing
gate in Canton MI. In that crash, too, the teens were with a driver who just HAD
to trade a few seconds for infinity. All of the teens died.

The Amtrak cab-camera video can be viewed by anybody...it was released to the
public and media by the Canton, MI Police Dept. It's been somewhat abridged
here to eliminate "dead space" showing just the tracks after the train stopped,
but watch it to the end and imagine the feeling of disgust on the part of the
conductor, near the end of the clip.

View the 2009 video below, or click on:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l4r38p8c8b3ih76/Canton%20MI%20crash.wmv?dl=0



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/14 08:50 by GenePoon.

---

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GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This deadly crash sounds alarmingly similar to a
> 2009 crash of Amtrak 353 into
> a Ford Fusion loaded with teenagers, in Canton MI.
> In that crash, too, the
> teens were with a driver who just HAD to trade a
> few seconds for infinity.
> All of them died.


The report of this crash reminded me, too, of the earlier example from just west of Wayne, MI.

The European solution, of sealing off crossings well ahead of time, would make automobile-centric Americans go ballistic, and somebody also would have to pay for it. I presume the reason for 90-second lead time on the 110-mph trackage west of Kalamazoo, which is longer than normal for the USA, is to give the positive-protection system time to alert the train if the gates do not function properly. But it also means more time for impatient idiot drivers to decide the wait is too long.

i'll reiterate ... again any access of a vehicle into the critical danger zone area of the crossing while a passenger train is approaching especially at high speed(90mph+) is a potential disaster waiting to happen ... it's just a matter of time when one of these hazardous incidents finds the locomotive lifted off the rails and the following passenger cars derailing resulting with critical and possibly fatal injuries ... it will only take one incident of this sort and there would be reaction/action taken to either protect the crossing completely or eliminate them ...

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/14 12:20 by Out_Of_Service.

The below article has nothing to do with the Tuesday evening accident west of Kalamazoo, but this happened on Wednesday morning south of Detroit. This just shows that you cannot protect people from themselves. It's the result of the dumbing down of America. Whether the train is moving or STOPPED, the more stupid people of our society will figure out a way to 1) Be killed by a moving train; or 2) Try to kill themselves with a stopped train. Although there were no fatalities in the Wednesday event.


http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/11/19/car-hits-train-at-notorious-woodhaven-railroad-crossing/

WOODHAVEN (WWJ) - Authorities say a car drove into a train that was “completely stopped” at a notorious railroad crossing in Woodhaven.

The accident happened early Wednesday morning at the railroad tracks on Allen Road just north of Van Horn Road.

Police tell WWJ a vehicle traveling northbound on Allen Road struck the train, which was stopped on the tracks. Other details weren’t immediately clear.

“One car, it looks like it was just clipped by the edge of one of the flatbed trailers on the train tracks,” WWJ’s Bill Szumanski reported from above the scene in Chopper 950.

Police say two people were inside the vehicle. One of the occupants was taken to the hospital while the other “walked away” from the crash, police said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the driver or the passenger was injured.

Allen Road was closed for several hours while police investigated the crash, with the train also blocking traffic on Van Horn Road, but has since reopened.

Many drivers Downriver are familiar with the railroad crossing often causing delays in traffic, with trains blocking Allen Road for over an hour at times. City planning officials have applied for multiple federal transportation grants over the years to construct an underpass at the crossing — but all applications have been denied. Authorities have estimated the cost around $30 million to create a solution for their train troubles.


Ron

Ron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The below article has nothing to do with the
> Tuesday evening accident west of Kalamazoo, but
> this happened on Wednesday morning south of
> Detroit. This just shows that you cannot protect
> people from themselves. It's the result of the
> dumbing down of America. Whether the train is
> moving or STOPPED, the more stupid people of our
> society will figure out a way to 1) Be killed by a
> moving train; or 2) Try to kill themselves with a
> stopped train. Although there were no fatalities
> in the Wednesday event.
>
>
> http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/11/19/car-hits-tr
> ain-at-notorious-woodhaven-railroad-crossing/
>
> WOODHAVEN (WWJ) - Authorities say a car drove into
> a train that was “completely stopped” at a
> notorious railroad crossing in Woodhaven.
>
> The accident happened early Wednesday morning at
> the railroad tracks on Allen Road just north of
> Van Horn Road.
>
> Police tell WWJ a vehicle traveling northbound on
> Allen Road struck the train, which was stopped on
> the tracks. Other details weren’t immediately
> clear.
>
> “One car, it looks like it was just clipped by
> the edge of one of the flatbed trailers on the
> train tracks,” WWJ’s Bill Szumanski reported
> from above the scene in Chopper 950.
>
> Police say two people were inside the vehicle. One
> of the occupants was taken to the hospital while
> the other “walked away” from the crash, police
> said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the driver
> or the passenger was injured.
>
> Allen Road was closed for several hours while
> police investigated the crash, with the train also
> blocking traffic on Van Horn Road, but has since
> reopened.
>
> Many drivers Downriver are familiar with the
> railroad crossing often causing delays in traffic,
> with trains blocking Allen Road for over an hour
> at times. City planning officials have applied for
> multiple federal transportation grants over the
> years to construct an underpass at the crossing
> — but all applications have been denied.
> Authorities have estimated the cost around $30
> million to create a solution for their train
> troubles.
>
>
> Ron

I didn't mention it in earlier post, but also last Thursday Amtrak #371, the Pere Marquette, hit a semi that was not all the way across the tracks not that far from the fatal in Kalamazoo Co. It happened up by Zeeland on the CSX, caused by traffic backups on the highway! Thankfully nobody hurt.

http://woodtv.com/2014/11/13/train-collides-with-semi-truck-in-zeeland-twp/

cutboy2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1 grade crossing for every mile of track in the
> USA. Eliminate one at a time asa fast as
> possible. In my mom's home town 3 in 1 mile.


No one is stopping the local communities or states from replacing their grade crossings with bridges or underpasses -- except the local community or state legislatures, who refuse to pay for it.

I hope it's not something contagious or genetic, or in the water in Michigan.

Here's a crash that occurred in 2010 and it didn't involve Michigan teenagers, but grownups.

Yup. Those are a Detroit fire truck and a Detroit police car in the video.

The fire truck was destroyed...it had cost the city $600,000. In an understatement,
executive fire commissioner James Mack said, "I'm going to make it known that this is
not acceptable and we'll do some training."

Yeh...TRAINING!

---

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But the Fire Department cannot always be blamed for not acting with the best of intelligence, can they?


Ron

---

Addressing the original subject, an Amtrak train is usually about 12 units or less. Traveling at 110 mph, that's less than a 10 second delay. Add to that about 25 seconds for the gates to go down (if you stop when the lights first start flashing) and another 5 to 7 seconds for the gates to go up enough for you to pass them. You have a total delay of less than 45 seconds. If you can't wait that long you don't need to be driving because there are going to be some traffic lights along your way that will delay you twice that long. Surely they wouldn't run a red light in front of a trailer truck, would they?

John

Update:

the three kids killed (they were between 17-20) were area residents, from Comstock, which, ironically, is the other side of the Kzoo metro and where Amtrak will soon be running 110 with the upgrade east from Kalamazoo to 110 operations soon.

Anyway, here's the story from mlive on the grieving mother. She saw the story on the 6 o'clock news, got that bad premonition, called the Sheriff Dept. Later State Police showed up at her door.

Nothing at all on the engineer and how he/she must be feeling right now.. how hopeless a feeling it must have been, or maybe it just happened that the van suddenly rolled in front.. how ever, how awful.

<http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/11/my_heart_has_been_ripped_out_j.html#incart_river&gt;

PS: aside: I remember in 1964 (I was 11 then) on New Years Eve 4 teenagers were killed in Comstock when they tried to beat the first train only to get hammered by the train on the other track. I have tried unsuccessfully thus far to find any archived article on that in the Kalamazoo Gazette. But I do remember it. Location is just east of the switch that goes from double to single track now in Comstock, MI.

chico

Here is a more level-headed story about the fatal crash near Kalamazoo.
It stops just barely short of accusing the driver's act of driving past
stopped cars, around the gates and onto the tracks as manslaughter.
====================================================

Police say driver went around several stopped cars at railroad crossing
before getting hit by train near Kalamazoo

WTVB
November 20, 2014

> KALAMAZOO, M I (WTVB) - Friends of Joshua Cartwright say he was an
> impatient guy, that may explain why the 21-year-old decided to pass
> several cars waiting at the rail crossing at KL and 9th Street near
> Kalamazoo to try to slip through the gates and beat an Amtrak train
> on Tuesday. He didn’t make it, killing himself and 2 lifelong
> friends.
>
> Investigators say Cartwright’s driver’s license expired two weeks
> ago...
>
> ...Police say the crossing was functioning as designed and say they will
> never truly know what Cartwright was thinking, or if he was thinking
> at all when he made his fatal mistake.

LINK:

Police say driver went around several stopped cars



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/14 07:38 by GenePoon.