Racing train

[mike001]

Did anybody read about the woman who was trying to beat a train with her two kids in the car...the train hit her car and the two kids were killed. My girlfriend sent me this article, it's from last week I think. Who in their right mind would try to race with a train with two little kids in the car, let alone putting herself in danger.Didn't say if she was drunk, drugged or just plain nutty.

[Catty1]

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7056095&nav=0Ra7

This Fox link has a surveillance video - shot from a distance. You have to wonder how a) stupid, or b) desperate she was. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296428,00.htmlEdie Bolanos

Mother Dies Days After Children Killed in Van-Train Crash

Sep 11, 2007 10:50 AM

HAMMOND, Ind. - A Hammond woman has died more than a week after being ejected from her minivan when it crashed into a train as she tried to beat it across the track, killing her two children.

The Cook County medical examiner's office says 32-year-old Edie Bolanos died early Tuesday at Loyola Hospital in suburban Chicago.

Her 11-year-old and 8-year-old daughters were ejected from the van and died from massive internal injuries.

The crash happened Sept. 1 at a CSX railroad crossing in Hammond.

Surveillance video shows the blue minivan racing through a parking lot trying to beat an eastbound freight train through the crossing, only to be hit by a westbound engine and then the eastbound train.

(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

[Lady's Human]

That happens all over the world, and far more frequently than most people are aware.

In Oklahoma they run Public Service ads about it, and occasionally you hear them in NY as well.

[Catty1]

LH - do you mean the murder-suicide situation?

Considering the date...I wonder if she lost someone in the Towers... :(

But to take your kids with you....the boys survived, as one was in a car seat and the other in a seat belt (but was still thrown from the vehicle).

[Lady's Human]

No, the idiocy of trying to beat a train to a crossing. It happens all too often.

[Laura's Babies]

They had a rash of those in a nearby parish here, every week somebody was getting killed trying to outrun a train for about a month. That is so sad!

[dukedogsmom]

Goes to show just how stupid people can be.

[DJFyrewolf36]

Unfortuneatly, it happens a LOT here. Many people mistakenly think trains go slowly and they don't realize that they can't beat the train. Cargo trains are huge and people don't like waiting up to 20 minutes for a train to go by :rolleyes: so they try to beat it.

[crow_noir]

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often in my area. We have train tracks EVERYWHERE.

A past time of the teens used to be train boarding. You know... running and jumping onto a train when it's moving.

And you DO have a LOT of idiots that try to outrun the trains or pass through the gates before the train comes.

[moosmom]

Crow Noir,

When I lived in Michigan, I DREADED the trains. You'd sit at a crossing for 10-15 minutes while they SLOWLY went by. The first time I encountered a train, I actually counted the cars. The most I had ever seen was 75 cars!! :eek:

Lady's Human is right. It happens all too often and it's sad.

That woman wasn't hit by the train she was avoiding, it was the train on the OTHER side that hit her. What in the world was she thinking???

[lady_zana]

I don't drive so I typically take a cab home. Yesterday we had to wait for a train but we missed the beginning of it....my driver told me if he had seen the beginning and had been able to count the engines he could have told me how long it was going to be....three engines meant it could be around a mile and a half long!

I understand no one wants to wait for a train, especially if it's going to be 1 1/2 miles long and I get frustrated too waiting but I would rather be annoyed or ten minutes (or even more) late for work or class than try to beat a train. And yet, the people on here saying how often it happens are right: every day people try to beat the train coming through.....very sad and yet very stupid too, risking your life because of impatiance.

[G535]

They're not only risking their own lives but also the lives of their passengers, the train crew and the train passengers. We had one bad "accident" down here in June where eleven people lost their lives when a truck ran into a passenger train at a level crossing, one a very good friend of mine. I take photos of trains for a rail magazine and I have seen some really stupid behaviour around crossings and rail lines. One photo can't be published because of legal issues but it is of a young woman who just ducked her head and ran across the line in front of a moving train, she didn't want to be late for work!

[mike001]

I didn't follow the story because it disgusted me so much. I didn't realize the mother had died. Sheer lunacy to try to beat a train, what are those people thinking? If they don't value their lives they shouldn't kill or endanger others along with themselves. Still boggles my mind that someone would be so stupid.

[Catty1]

G535
she didn't want to be late for work!

Literally....better late than NEVER. I tell myself that when I am in too much of a hurry.

But I never have - and would never try to - race a train.

[mike001]

I would rather be late for an appt. than try to beat a train. What's another 5 minutes wait in exchange for living.

[mike001]

I would rather be late for an appt. than try to beat a train. What's another 5 minutes wait in exchange for living.

[critter crazy]

Where I live I am surrounded by train tracks. No matter what Direction I drive, you have a great chance of being stopped at a Railroad crossing. One afternoon, on the way to my aunts, I was stopped at a RR Crossing for over 40 minutes! My aunt and I talked on the phone the whole time just laughing!! I had shut off the car, and just sat on the phone the whole time. I was only 2 miles from my aunts house, I could have walked there, in the time I waited for the train.

But there is no way in hell, that I would try to Beat a train!!! No matter what! I have been late to work because of the train, and my boss could care less. she knows the deal. It isnt something that one should get upset about, nor risk their life or others lives over.

[IRescue452]

Train accidents aren't common here either, and since we live in and around paper mill heaven, we have tons of trains and tracks. Almost all have the train track crossbar things that come down. We have rules that trains can't block the road for more than 10 minutes, and the train stations are always getting calls from the city to get out of the way because they sit for so long.

These people must not have had seatbelts. Another stupid thing, especially with kids.

[mike001]

IRESCUE-----Don't think seat belts would be of much help when a train rams you...lol. I think I would rather be dead than walk away from that kind of thing. Probably would be so badly injured you would be like a vegie.
I had to wonder if the woman was on drugs or drunk for doing this with 2 babies in the car. Might just be that she was an impatient idiot also. Why not sit back, listen to music or make a phone call as was mentioned. Why are people in such a rush today?

[G535]

Seat belts are compulsory here but they didn't save any of the idiots who tried to beat the trains. People need to know that trains can't stop immediately, even slow moving trains can take up to one kilometre to come to a complete halt and fully loaded freight trains travelling at track speed can take well over two kilometres to stop. Education might help some people but you can't educate idiots.

[dukedogsmom]

Here's the video
http://www.nwi.com/special/train/

[Catty1]

That last video shows she was racing that first train...IDIOT!

I hate it when stupidity incurs the death penalty...

I wonder if a billboard or large sign near crossings would help: "Slow trains take 1/2 mile to STOP."

:(

[Lady's Human]

If someone is too ignorant to realize that a 7500-20,000 ton object is going to take a LOOOOOONG distance to stop, another sign ain't gonna help.

[dukedogsmom]

Speaking of trains, there's a bunch of dumb people in this video
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=25244

[ramanth]

Stupid, stupid, stupid! :( :(


There's a track where I live. Typically the trains go through pretty fast. Today, the gate was down and I was the first car to it. Looked down the track and the train was pretty much sitting there a couple hundred feet away. I looked again and saw that it was moving, just very slowly.

If I waited there, I'd probably be late for work.

So I turned around and took a different route. I could of been across well before the train but no way would I dare.

[Cinder & Smoke]

<gasp>

Tell me she didn't ...




... the train was pretty much sitting there a couple hundred feet away.
I looked again and saw that it was moving, just very slowly.

If I waited there, I'd probably be late for work.
.
.
.
.
.
.

So I turned around and took a different route.

OMG!
I almost *died* between "IF I'd waited" ...
and "So I turned around ..."

GOOD GIRL! ;)

I **HATE** diggin ex-people outta *smushed* cars & trucks at RR crossings.
The car / truck ALWAYS looses those contests! :(

[cmayer31]

I feel so awful for those train conductors :( . The train going in the same direction had to know what she was doing when she went racing past him, and he would have had no way to stop her from being so stupid. You can see that her complete attention was on the train to her right and she never even saw the train on the left.

[crow_noir]

There's something you could do if you ever won a small lotto :D

If I become rich remind me OK?

We have plenty of billboards near tracks around here.


I wonder if a billboard or large sign near crossings would help: "Slow trains take 1/2 mile to STOP."

[ramanth]

Gotcha Phred! ;) :D

I never mess with trains. No way!

Once the gate was malfunctioning and even though there was an officer there directing traffic, I still was real uneasy about going around the gate to cross the tracks.

Creepy feeling.

[cassiesmom]

I wonder if a billboard or large sign near crossings would help: "Slow trains take 1/2 mile to STOP."



I don't think so ... at least not around here ... you know how Chicago is the Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler ... I know intuitively that trains need a long stopping distance, but that doesn't come to mind when I'm late and the gate is descending. When the tracks were laid there was not as much auto traffic, of course. People are more cautious for awhile after serious accidents like this, and then they start slacking off again. One thing that might help is more bridges and/or viaducts so that the trains can keep moving and the auto traffic can too.

[IRescue452]

I know a seatbelt wouldn't have saved them guys :p
I was just pointing out that she didn't have her kids buckled! If she were alive I'd have slapped her for that one alone. Lemme at her!

[mike001]

I could go for that, I'll help you. Some people even buy seatbelts for their dogs, but she doesn't buckle up her kids.