Passenger Trains > Caltrain Eyes Trespasser Panels

The Palo Alto Daily Post today published an article about a local high school student struck, and killed by a Caltrain near the Churchill Avenue crossing yesterday morning.

The article mentions that Caltrain is considering installing trespasser panels, along with other safety measures.

I was unfamiliar with so-called trespasser panels, but I found a photo online, and a link to a company which makes them.

Has anyone ever seen these in the wild?

I fail to see how trespasser panels would help prevent suicides.

Here's a link to the manufacturer:

https://lbfoster.com/rail/rail-products/transit-products/anti-trespass-panels

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walstib Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Palo Alto Daily Post today published an
> article about a local high school student struck,
> and killed by a Caltrain near the Churchill Avenue
> crossing yesterday morning.
>
> The article mentions that Caltrain is considering
> installing trespasser panels, along with other
> safety measures.
>
> I was unfamiliar with so-called trespasser panels,
> but I found a photo online, and a link to a
> company which makes them.
>
> Has anyone ever seen these in the wild?
>
> I fail to see how trespasser panels would help
> prevent suicides.
>
> Here's a link to the manufacturer:
>
> https://lbfoster.com/rail/rail-products/transit-pr
> oducts/anti-trespass-panels

Even better than that is the system "to stop trains when someone walks onto the tracks."

A person at a slow walk, 1 mph, needs eight seconds to cross from in the clear to in the clear. An 80 mph passenger train train takes about a minute to stop. A ped crossing the track can cross back and forth safely seven times before the stopping train gets there. It will be stopped and the ped will be long gone. With this system in place, there will be no moving trains.

TAW

Suicide among kids in Silicon Valley and nearby seems to be a continuing problem. For kids, for engineers and crews, and for the community.

I don't recall similar problems in the same volume anywhere else

Those are just cattle guards by a different name. They were common at rural railroad crossings in the 19th century. 

The suicides are not new. They were going on in the 1970s when I investigated them and Southern Pacific ran the trains. They were going on before that for years. And not all suicides stepped in front of a train. Some even swan dived beneath the wheels of a passing train be it freight or passenger. There is not a thing the engineer on the train can do to prevent a suicide. Put up a fence and they will do it at a crossing.

When I was a kid growing up in Menlo Park I remember one particularly gruesome suicide when a woman dove under one of the suburban coaches as the train was leaving the station.

You're right, suicides aren't new. They were a constant. One afternoon I was on my way home from the dentist and waiting at the Ravenswood Avenue crossing when someone jumped in front of a train as cars were stopped.

The first one I remember came when I was in kindergarten. The nice cashier who wore a blue smock at Menlo Square Market was gone one day. She used to hand out candy to kids who went through here line. The manager told us she got hit by a train. 

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

I'm not sure I understand how these are supposed to deter trespassers.  Is the design supposed to be difficult to walk on?  So it takes 3 seconds to get across instead of 1 or you just walk 3 feet farther and cross next to it.  What am I missing?

Gary Betz
Ionia MI

geeb557 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not sure I understand how these are supposed
> to deter trespassers.  Is the design supposed to
> be difficult to walk on?  So it takes 3 seconds
> to get across instead of 1 or you just walk 3 feet
> farther and cross next to it.  What am I
> missing?

You are missing that politicians and residents want a feel good answer that something is being done, even though it will not make much if any difference.

The manufacturer's video, oddly, doesn't explain how it works.

The implication is that these knobby surfaces make it harder for people to walk onto a railroad right of way, presumably from a grade crossing or a station platform. If that tactic makes more of the ROW harder to access, then it reduces the number of locations where a person can step in front of a moving train.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of other access points, including the grade crossings and platforms.

Maybe the idea is if these mats help discourage access at key locations, then the person thinking of suicide will be deterred long enough to have second thoughts. Or the person absently intending to use a busy mainline as a footpath will choose a different route.

NPS Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The implication is that these knobby surfaces make
> it harder for people to walk onto a railroad right
> of way, presumably from a grade crossing or a
> station platform. If that tactic makes more of the
> ROW harder to access, then it reduces the number
> of locations where a person can step in front of a
> moving train.
>
> Unfortunately, there are plenty of other access
> points, including the grade crossings and
> platforms.
>
> Maybe the idea is if these mats help discourage
> access at key locations, then the person thinking
> of suicide will be deterred long enough to have
> second thoughts. Or the person absently intending
> to use a busy mainline as a footpath will choose a
> different route.

You are correct. The railroad would have to complete line the tracks with these for hundreds of yards, then periodicly go by with a vacumm or blower or washer to clear out the junk that people will no doubtedly dump on them them to cover them over.

longliveSP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> geeb557 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I'm not sure I understand how these are
> supposed
> > to deter trespassers.  Is the design supposed
> to
> > be difficult to walk on?  So it takes 3
> seconds
> > to get across instead of 1 or you just walk 3
> feet
> > farther and cross next to it.  What am I
> > missing?
>
> You are missing that politicians and residents
> want a feel good answer that something is being
> done, even though it will not make much if any
> difference.

This is an extraordinary effort. Usually it merely involves a study.

TAW

Sad to hear they had another suicide in that area, there have been way too many.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Suicide among kids in Silicon Valley and nearby
> seems to be a continuing problem. For kids, for
> engineers and crews, and for the community.
>
> I don't recall similar problems in the same volume
> anywhere else.

I didn't grow up in Palo Alto and Menlo Park like walstib, but knew many friends who went to schools in the area, as I grew up a couple cities south from there. Academic pressure was VERY high back then, and probably still is, with Palo Alto High ("Paly"), Gunn, Menlo-Atherton all nearby ("must get into Stanford or Ivy League" or else). Add academic pressure to personal problems (family, friends, drugs) and that can push some kids over the edge.

If kids (and especially parents) realized today's reality, they'll know it's not worth it. Academic prestige today can lead to bad influence (recent political scandal has ties to higher education), no guarantee of career success (layoffs, death of meritocracy). If they haven't acquired good learning habits by junior high, they should focus on specific skills instead of academic prestige. These days, progress is too fast.

I went to the same high school that guys named Jobs and Wozniak went. Former was known for pranks, and the latter was seeking spritual enlightenment. Not high school dropouts, but not a victim of academic pressure. They were already interested in electronics (specializing in something they liked).

My comment might be off topic and dismissable, but certainly more worthy than Trespasser Panels.

Worth noting that Palo Alto HS borders the CalTrain tracks for almost a mile. There's a fence ... but....

There's not much isolation between the tracks and the living spaces around the tracks. There was talk about a trench but they didn't want to effect property values, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. My vote for an HSR approach was to use the Dumbunny bridge to make use of the other shoreline and just walk away from the mess,

fwiw Lived in Palo Alto for a few years but worked in the City Limits for a really long time, actually my three grown up jobs were all in town. 
 

NPS Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The manufacturer's video, oddly, doesn't explain
> how it works.
>
> The implication is that these knobby surfaces make
> it harder for people to walk onto a railroad right
> of way, presumably from a grade crossing or a
> station platform. If that tactic makes more of the
> ROW harder to access, then it reduces the number
> of locations where a person can step in front of a
> moving train.
>
> Unfortunately, there are plenty of other access
> points, including the grade crossings and
> platforms.
>
> Maybe the idea is if these mats help discourage
> access at key locations, then the person thinking
> of suicide will be deterred long enough to have
> second thoughts. Or the person absently intending
> to use a busy mainline as a footpath will choose a
> different route.

Those panels or something like them are used on some third-rail electrified transit systems where there is ground-level running. I've seen them on the CTA "El" routes in Chicago on a couple of lines that have sections of grade-level running, such as the outer part of the Brown Line in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood on the northwest side. They are on both sides of every one of the many at-grade crossings, every block, for about the last two miles or so of the line. Some I saw on a recent trip appeared to be an older style of upturned, angled steel panels, but many looked like the item in the image above. Going by at track speed, it was difficult to see them in detail, but that's my recollection, and I tried to look them over best as I could.

I don't see how you could walk across them except with very great difficulty. But I guess it could happen. I've ridden the Chicago El system a lot for many years, including those lines with grade-level running, and I've never seen an anyone trying to cross one of those panels or something like it. But it's probably happened. The electrified third rail stops some distance before the guard and the pavement of the roadway crossing is reached, with the train receiving power form cars to the rear still contacting the third rail. As they lose the power rail at the crossing, the cars at the head-end have picked it up on the other side of the crossing. Trains of at least four cars assure that this can work.

It's a deterrent, an intervention, a device to introduce a moment of pause into someone who is either being careless, or who wants to do self-harm, from contacting the third rail, or being struck by a train. That doesn't always work, but it can work. I know that as someone who talked a person into a moment of pause before an attempted suicide, and who kept them paused and calmed until a trained public safety intervention person could arrive on the scene. That moment of intervention, that pause in the progression of feelings and action, can save a life. If deterrent panels can do that, and I think they can at least sometimes, then they're worth every penny.

MC

Who designed those panels???  Was it one of the evil characters from a James Bond 
movie?  Or perhaps from the Batman television series?  Put a damn fence up, lol.

/Mitch

Mgoldman Wrote:
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> Who designed those panels???  Was it one of the
> evil characters from a James Bond 
> movie?  Or perhaps from the Batman television
> series?  Put a damn fence up, lol.
>
> /Mitch

Ha Ha. Put up a fence. Ha Ha. And who is going to pay for the automated system which would have to be integrated with the railroad signal system and crossing circuits to open the fence to allow the train to go through and then close it immediately after the train clears.

Ha Ha. Maybe think first next time. Or at the very least take a few minutes to actually look at facts and the picture to see what is being discussed.

longliveSP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ha Ha. Put up a fence. Ha Ha. And who is going to
> pay for the automated system which would have to
> be integrated with the railroad signal system and
> crossing circuits to open the fence to allow the
> train to go through and then close it immediately
> after the train clears.
>
> Ha Ha. Maybe think first next time. 

It was a joke... Jeeze.

Anyway - we have pedestrian tunnels and overpasses here 
on the NEC.  Shouldn't cost more then a 60 or 70 million 
dollars, lol.  They could do a study.

/Mitch

 

Funny thing is they have been studying the question of grade separations in Palo Alto for decades.

Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else, and the whole thing is bogged down in analysis paralysis.

The result is that nothing gets done.

Meantime, in Menlo Park, one town to the north, city council there is currently looking at a $62 million project to build a bike and pedestrian undercrossing.

Posted from iPhone

If anyone is interested -- go to GOOGLE MAPS. Enter Guildwood GO Station. Aerial view,
Locate Galloway Rd, ist crossing to the east, Select the crossing in STREETVIEW0.
You should see either side of the xing the anti-trespasser panels and the associated fencing.
Metrolinx has installed a lot of these panels and fencing on the lines that they own.
A Feb. 3, 2020 press release said Metrolinx was going to install the panels/fencing
at high-risk crossings. Also increased signage. There are 7 or 8 xings involved, from Rodd Ave In the
East to Scarborough Golf Club Rd in the West. this is the former CN Kingston Sub, Durham Junction Mile
314 to Cherry St, which is the beginning of the Union Station Rail Corridor.