Passenger Trains > Snow removal equipment struck by freight train - Naperville IL

Monday night Dec 1. Sad to say this is the third fatality on the BNSF within a three week time frame. Two of them in Naperville. Just the night before there was a fatality incident in Downers Grove.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/naperville-city-contractor-dies-after-train-hits-snow-removal-equipment/3858064/?amp=1

Unfortunately people doing work around stations haven't had any right-of-way safety instruction nor are certified as roadway workers. As a result they have no idea of the hazardous environment they are in. Too, anyone working within a certain distance of a rail ought to have a person designated as a watcher to protect them.

Maybe someday one o dem pesky over-reaching guvment ajuncees will require it. Until then deaths will keep happening.

There is, unfortunately, a seemigly large portion of our society that is just fine with accidental death, as long as it doesnt affect them.
Just for starters, apparently 40,000 ppl dying on the highways each year is OK.

Comon sense???

PumpkinHogger Wrote:
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> Unfortunately people doing work around stations
> haven't had any right-of-way safety instruction
> nor are certified as roadway workers. As a result
> they have no idea of the hazardous environment
> they are in. Too, anyone working within a certain
> distance of a rail ought to have a person
> designated as a watcher to protect them.


Right, except, there are a lot of too complacent rails out there too. My colleague was safety manager for a commuter rail operation Back East (which to folks in my neck of the woods means somewhere east of Missoula). She was traveling and needed some references, asking me to look up som,e CFRs and rules. It seems that one of a platform cleaning crew was using a loud blower to clear platform crosswalks and was hit by a train.

They were working under traffic using a lookout . . .  and he was the lookout. He wanted to get the job done and get in out of the cold.

TAW