Passenger Trains > Almost half of engineers operated a train that struck a person...

Almost half of America’s engineers have operated a train that killed someone on the tracks.
Locally (Philadelphia area), it’s estimated to be even worse.
Afterward, many suffer nightmares, anxiety, PTSD.

Philadelphia Inquirer

 by Jason Laughlin and Dylan Purcell,
Nov. 19, 2019

Her first fatality still haunts.It’s late afternoon, and Raelynn Dickerson, a SEPTA engineer on the Main Line, is approaching a city station where people often risk dashing across the tracks. She has to be alert.

Someone is walking directly in the path of the train.“I blow the horn,” she recalled. “He doesn’t move.”Dickerson sets a valve handle to the emergency position and hears a loud rush of air from the brakes. But the train, traveling 60 mph, will not stop before it hits the man.

She steps out of the cab to avoid seeing what happens next.

There’s an awful secret shared by America’s train engineers: Almost half have operated a train that killed someone. Locally, it’s estimated to be even worse. Many longtime engineers have experienced more than one death on the tracks...


https://www.inquirer.com/transportation/a/septa-suicide-trespassing-engineers-subway-regional-rail-20191119.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/19 09:37 by GenePoon.

That's a good read and offers some good insight. m

I stopped keeping track after 25 or so hits.  I'd say by the time I retired the number was up to 30.  That's the price you pay for being an engineer in a densly populated area.  Engineers working across desert areas or the Great Plains probably have it much easier. 

Way back when the San Jose Mercury News still had a Sunday magazine they did a cover story on this subject.  It was a sobering read.

At one time I used to know. Now, I just want to forget but can’t.

I liked the paper using the term "witnessed a track death" instead of "hit the person." This is because unless the train engineer purposely sped up or swreved his train, THEY didn't hit anybody. They were just in the seat at the time.

I came close a few times when I ran a light rail train but thankfully nothing ever came of it. I feel lucky.

Great article.  I almost didn't read it but I'm glad I did.

In the Louisville, Ky area, a train hit a car on the edge of the city in one of the suburbs.  As it turned out, that engineer had hit another car at that same crossing exactly two years earlier.  Fortunately for him, neither involved a fatality.

John
 

Inthehole Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I liked the paper using the term "witnessed a
> track death" instead of "hit the person." This is
> because unless the train engineer purposely sped
> up or swreved his train, THEY didn't hit anybody.
> They were just in the seat at the time.
>
> I came close a few times when I ran a light rail
> train but thankfully nothing ever came of it. I
> feel lucky.


I wasn't an engineer but was the head brakeman in the cab when we struck a vehicle.  The engineer...who
is now retired and on this board but silent...said, "You didn't have a throttle and brake but we both were
just as helpless."

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Inthehole Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I liked the paper using the term "witnessed a
> > track death" instead of "hit the person." This
> is
> > because unless the train engineer purposely
> sped
> > up or swreved his train, THEY didn't hit
> anybody.
> > They were just in the seat at the time.
> >
> > I came close a few times when I ran a light
> rail
> > train but thankfully nothing ever came of it. I
> > feel lucky.
>
>
> I wasn't an engineer but was the head brakeman in
> the cab when we struck a vehicle.  The
> engineer...who
> is now retired and on this board but
> silent...said, "You didn't have a throttle and
> brake but we both were
> just as helpless."

Absolutely nothing you or the engineer can do. The person made a choice, and fate chose you to be the instrument.

In my first two years there were 4 instances, one within two weeks of the other. Nothing in the twenty years since. I feel
like it almost happened to a different person.

I an not an engineer, but I have seen that stuff from ground level.  

First one is way back in 2002, still have nightmares from that one, second one is fairly recent a couple of years ago a couple of locals trespassed and decided to tempt an eastbound manifest into hitting them.  Local crew was there as was I from Campbell St.  I had hoped the crew was ok as well as the local crew.  Later found out Sandusky Police were lookng for them.  

I have talked to several engineers, but the one that sticks out was one I met years ago, retired with 40 years on NS.  He basically remembered the very first time he hit someone and IIRC it was a station wagon with a family going to church.  He was the enginner, hit the wagon and IIRC killed everyone in the wagon.  Shocked the hell out of me-a railfan.  

Michael Fair
Royal Oak, MI