Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS 267 Car Strike at South Bend, IN 11/26/22

At around 0438 Saturday 11/26/22, per scanner chatter NS IM train 267 (Sandusky, OH to Colehour Yard at Hammond IN) traveling west on track 1 went into emergency after a car strike at West St grade crossing in South Bend IN (mp 432.78). Occupants apparently got out of the car which was stuck between the tracks at the crossing, as 267 approached and the vehicle is now sitting on track 2. Rail traffic in the area is stopped.

I think the Elkhart screen capture is the 267 IM train in question passing mp 421 around 0419, about 30 minutes before the car strike.

Ten days back, CP 230 train was involved in an empty vehicle strike at Goshen, about 10 miles east of Elkhart. Given the amount of train traffic and the number of grade crossings in the area, car strikes happen fairly often?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/22 02:51 by JPB.

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Hitting a car once a year is too often. After a while one hears about some vehicle getting hit often enough that it is too common to remember. Only the fatalities seem to stick in my mind more than a week or two. Even the fatalities seem to blend together over the years. Someone thinks they can beat a train over the crossing. Some pedestrian gets too close to the rail or gets hit by a second train. Other trespasser strikes.

There was a caught on camera incident in Elklhart where someone made a premature right turn from Main St to the railroad tracks instead of Middlebury St. Not fatal but memorable because it was caught on VR.

The most memorable ones are the ones I feel should have been prevented. A fatal incident on the west side of South Bend comes to mind where there are two parallel railroads. At the time the crossing did not have gates and were far enough apart that the signals were not interlocked. The driver apparently did not know that and rolled in front of a train while approaching the second set of tracks where a train could be seen crossing. The crossings were interlocked and gates were installed after that incident.

I agree with the previous post that after you hit enugh none of them except the fatilities stick out. 

Sam

Trainhand Wrote:
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> I agree with the previous post that after you hit enugh none of them except the fatilities stick out. 

I was referring to incidents witnessed via news reporting not ones witnessed from one's own cab.