Railroaders' Nostalgia > The Crossing Collision that Wasn't

A recent crossing collision thread brought back a memory of a crossing collision that didn't involve the train being hit, or vice versa.

BN train 143, Sumas-Seattle called the operator at Sumas to report that they were pretty sure they were hit by a car, somewhere behind the lead unit. As they were coming up to the Mt. Baker Road crossing between Lawrence and Deming, they saw a car approaching at somewhere in excess of a very high rate of speed. There was no way it was going to stop and, of course, no way they were going to get stopped.

I called all the usual call list after the cops and fire department. The signal maintainer lived nearby and got there first. The thoroughly wrecked car was in the ditch on the other side of the crossing from where the crew saw it. There was no apparent damage to the train. As the cops were trying to figure it out, the maintainer went about checking the crossing signals. Together with what the police found on the ground, they figured out what happened.

The driver lost control trying to get stopped. The car skidded a short distance, hit the guard rail, tearing out a chunk and vaulting the car over the train, clipping the crossing signal cantilever on the way by.

That was the best crossing accident report I ever wrote.

TAW

Saw several unusual events at crossings during my career...one I remember was a car at night approaching a crossing on a snowy road.   At the last minute he sees me and slams on the brakes and slides to a stop with his front bumper right against the tracks.  He then puts it into reverse and floor boards it, shoots backwards into the ditch so when we went by he was sitting in the ditch with his headlights pointing straight up.   But, the story of the car pole vaulting clear over the train is incredible, wonder if the driver survived?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/24 05:45 by atsfer.

atsfer Wrote:
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>  But, the story of the car pole vaulting clear
> over the train is incredible, wonder if the driver
> survived?

Dim memory, but don't think so. That was before seatbelt laws.

TAW

Was approaching a private crossing one afternoon out in farm country. 60 MPH track. Two vehicles were approaching the crossing from my left. The first one started across the track until they saw me coming, then stopped right on the track. He threw it into reverse and promptly backed right into the vehicle behind him, hitting him fairly hard. Fortunately, he stopped just clear of the track. Funny thing is, I was still so far away that both vehicles probably could have made it safely across if they had just kept right on going.

Another instance that I was told about on the territory I worked (not my train) was that two vehicles going in opposite directions at a gated crossing both had the brilliant idea of driving around the gates, at the same time. They collided on the single track crossing, but fortunately both had at least a little intelligence and got out of their vehicles just before the train hit them both.

People do the strangest things around railroad crossings.

My best one was 2 guys ran around the gates, and choked the car down. They jumped out. If they had gone 6 inches farther I wouldn't have hit them. I pushed the car off and it restarted. They jumped back in and fled the scene. Called the dispatcher to report it, he said no car no report, go ahead and leave.

Sam
 

I can think of two memorable almost vehicle/train collisions over the years.

I'm on a manifest approaching a road crossing. It was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky. The road was in an east/west direction, and apparently it was the right time of the year and time of day where the road was facing right into that low sun. A car, like maybe a Subaru, was westbound and stopped at the crossing for us to go by. Then a F-150 truck comes along also going west, but apparently doesn't see the car, the gates, or us on the train. They kept chugging along and hit the stopped car while doing at least 50 mph. The collision was so violent that the stopped car was launched right through the crossing and clear across the other side of the tracks. The truck instantly came to a dead stop where the car had been. We missed it all by like 5 seconds on the train and didn't hit anything, going right between the two now demolished vehicles. Immediately I dialed 911 on the radio. Never did hear how the people involved fared.

Another day I'm just cruising along on my manifest. Parallel to the tracks was a highway with two lanes of traffic in each direction. On the side of the road closer to the tracks, which was moving the same direction as us, a car in the fast lane attempts to pass a semi truck who is minding their business in the slow lane. Except the driver of the car misjudges things and clips the front corner of the semi truck. This causes the car to spin out in front of the semi truck. The car ends up going backwards off the road at a high rate of speed. They went right down into the drainage ditch between the road and the tracks. Down the ditch they went, and then back up the other side towards the tracks they came. We missed colliding with them by a couple of feet. If it hadn't been for the incline up to the tracks it would have been a perfect tie goes to the train.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/24 16:05 by ble692.

Bob Pauley, engineer on our Eugene Hauler mentioned that he saw a motorcycle approaching a crossing just north of Eugene at a high rate of speed. At the last minute, the rider hits the brakes and dumps it and slid across the tracks (and under the crossing gates).  Road rash has to be better than getting run over, for sure.  In casr anyone is wondering, it was at Meadowview Road more than 25 years ago.  Mr Pauley retired in the early 2000s and passed away by 2010, as I remember.

Two close calls come to mind. One, westbound on Santa Fe approaching Lugo, CA, below Summit, coming around fifty mph curve dirt biker riding DOWN MIDDLE OF TRACKS! He just made it out of the way at a small crossing. South Central LA, heavy fog along Slausen Ave 10 mph DS tells us car on track at certain street while looking for car at the crossing, here he is on tracks BETWEEN crossings. Plug it stopping twenty feet from car which was good as the car knocked rails out of alignment.
JB

irhoghead Wrote:
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> Another instance that I was told about on the
> territory I worked (not my train) was that two
> vehicles going in opposite directions at a gated
> crossing both had the brilliant idea of driving
> around the gates, at the same time. They collided
> on the single track crossing, but fortunately both
> had at least a little intelligence and got out of
> their vehicles just before the train hit them
> both.

I do not remember the details, but something like that happened years ago on the UP LA sub in City of Industry, CA at the Nogales St crossing. 

The one I was told about happened on the SP Coast Line just east of Moorpark.

One day on a switch job, we came through a crossing at low speed to see an inattentive cement mixer driver realize the gates were down when it was too late.  As our cab passed over the road the hogger plugged it and scooted over to my side of the cab.  Through the side window we could see the truck driver standing on the brake pedal up out of his seat as the mixer came towards us with all the tires smoking and watched as physics came into play as the heavy rear end of the truck slowly started swinging around with all that weight wanting to be the leader.  We braced ourselves for what we knew was going to be a solid impact but never felt anything as we ground to a halt with the rear of the fuel tank and rear truck coming to a stop on top of the crossing.  The cement mixer had managed to get stopped and looked like he hit us but we didn't see anything bent.  We climbed down to check things out and discovered the front bumper on the cement truck had the ends angled back 45 degrees towards the rear, and the truck came to a halt at about a 45 degree angle to us, matching the angle of the bumper end.   Turns out there was about two or three inches of space between us and the angled bumper.  If it had been a straight bumper he'd have dinged us for sure.  It took the truck driver about ten minutes and a few smokes for him to be able to come down out of the cab.  
-Tom