Passenger Trains > CalTrain hit car Atherton, CA -- NO injuries

CalTrain Train #284 hit a car in Atherton, CA,
tonight, at 7:30 pm. NO injuries! #284 is a
southbound that stops at all stops SF-Menlo
Park, then expresses to Mountain View, then
makes all stops except Lawrence to San Jose.
The vehicle is still under the train right now.

The car was on fire briefly under the train, but
the fire department was able to quickly put it
out. The driver was not injured, and neither was
anyone on the train. The fire department
evacuated the train because of the fire.
AFAIK, everyone is OK. Whew!

This is the first time in many years that CalTrain
has hit a vehicle.

This was at the Fair Oaks grade crossing, MP 27.8.
No trains stop at the Atherton station on weekdays.

EDIT:
All southbound CalTrain trains are pulled by the
locomotive, Thank heavens this happened to a
southbound train, and NOT a northbound train
with just a cab car in front! CalTrain still allows
passengers to sit at the very front of the train in
the push mode, and IF this was a gallery-car train,
that car is always a bike car, with most of the seats
removed downstairs and many bike racks where the
seats used to be. CalTrain still allows passengers to
sit at the very front of the train in the gallery-car
cab car. I hate to think what might have happened
to the downstairs passengers had a train in push
mode hit a vehicle! (Those bike racks on the gallery
cars are not designed to restrain bikes if a train hits
a vehicle in the push mode. The bikes are restrained
only by bungee cords.)

There is a good reason for the FRA buff forces rules!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/14 20:35 by Margaret_SP_fan.

Some current news on this twitter feed :

https://twitter.com/CaltrainStatus

I hope all involved are okay.
---- Daniel

On a visit to the Bay Area a while back, I was riding the control cab car (we traction types may call it a "control trailer") on a San Francisco-bound CalTrain. I like to stand at the front door window and check out the line, and usually this is OK. But one time the conductor told me quite firmly that I should take a seat and implied that I should remain seated for the duration of the trip. His train, his rules, so I sat and rode like a normal passenger.

Many trains in Europe are not locomotive hauled. Most have seats in the first car. Some, like ICE even allow you to look out the driver's compartment (assuming he un-fogs the glass). But oh no. Here we shouldn't even risk having passengers occupy the first car at all. All because of idiot drivers like this fool who drove in front of a moving train. Lets hope this lucky individual has the book thrown at him. But instead he'll probably just get a minor traffic violation. No harm, no foul.

I was on 288, which held in Redwood City for an indeterminate period. I and my seatmates got off and took a cab the rest of the way.

The car was reported to be unoccupied at the time of the collision. My guess is that the car stalled out when trying to go over the Fair Oaks Ave crossing and could not be restarted, and the occupants evacuated. There may not have been time to call the crossing alert phone before 284 hit it.

Menlo Fire District station 5 is not far away, right on the same street (plus it was raining) so the fire would have been handled pretty quickly.

There's no need to guess when the facts are out there.

According to published reports, the driver was relying on the car's GPS when he ended up on the railroad tracks.

Here's a link to the story along with a photo of the fire-damaged locomotive.

http://www.almanacnews.com/news/2014/12/16/train-strikes-vehicle-in-atherton

walstib Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's a link to the story along with a photo of
> the fire-damaged locomotive.
>
> http://www.almanacnews.com/news/2014/12/16/train-s
> trikes-vehicle-in-Atherton

Louise68 (commenter on the linked article) knows what she is talking about!

Ray

Regarding drivers being misled by a GPS: Back when artificial satellites were still in the realm of Science Fiction, San Francisco Muni had problems with nitwits driving into the Twin Peaks and Sunset tunnels.