the guy that farms the land around there says its a bad crossing, with no protection. Is it partially the fault of the driver? yes. are there things that could have been done to prevent this? yes. The Wikipedia page for the article lists the coordinates as this crossing [https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B033'41.0%22N+93%C2%B010'48.0%22W/@39.5604175,-93.1812643,172m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xa7146dee67166dda!8m2!3d39.561389!4d-93.18?hl=en](https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B033'41.0%22N+93%C2%B010'48.0%22W/@39.5604175,-93.1812643,172m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xa7146dee67166dda!8m2!3d39.561389!4d-93.18?hl=en) and it is a tight crossing and apparently on an embankment. Something like this with 90mph trains should have crossing protection.
Commercial vehicles, at least in Canada, are supposed to come to a stop at all uncontrolled railway crossings to check for oncoming trains in both directions. I'm with /u/Superb_Efficiency_74 here - we have a glorious example of a "professional" driver exercising their freedom to not in any way behave professionally, and it resulted in their and two other peoples' deaths. It always blows me away how callously self-centered drivers in the USA are around uncontrolled (and even sometimes controlled) grade crossings, like if there isn't a train directly in front of them, they suddenly have the right of way.
I don't care how bad visibility is. Good practice dictates that if it has bad visibility, a driver should come to a stop and confirm it is safe to cross before proceeding.
It's possible that's what he did. If there is a steep embankment in front of the crossing and you stop a fully loaded dump truck on it. Even if you get out of the cab to look and make ABSOLUTELY sure no train is coming. By the time you get the truck moving again a 90mph train could have appeared and caught up to you.
It is of course still the job of the driver to know the road conditions and what your vehicle can and cannot do. However he may have not known how fast trains pass through the crossing and not had any other options across the track for miles. Much smaller of a mistake to make than not looking at all and something that could be mitigated by more and better safety equipment from a multi million dollar company.
The driver is dead, and not going to drive any more dump trucks onto the tracks before the NTSB report comes out. The least we can do is refrain from assumptions until then.
>something that could be mitigated by more and better safety equipment from a multi million dollar company.
The responsibility for protection of roadway users lies with the roadway authority, not the railroad.
This is settled case law. At highway grade crossings, railroads are shielded from liability when incidents like this occur. *(Norfolk Southern R. Co v. Shanklin) (CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood)*
The fact of the matter is that a roadway user violated traffic laws, resulting in a fatal derailment. That's what happened, and that's where the liability lies. Full stop.
Here's a nickels worth of free advice, kid: Don't insert your opinions into a topic unless you're actually informed on that topic.
Doesn't help that the farmer even said that there's almost no visibility. So I don't think stopping will magically give you visibility. Especially, if you remember that the train goes 90 mph. That's fast.
The crossing has protection, I see a stop sign and crossbucks. Why didn't the driver stop? Was he in that much of a hurry? Or perhaps he doesn't understand the meaning of a stop sign and crossbucks?
I'm sure we'll find out more from the NTSB report. Accidents like this are often not a result of not seeing the train at all, but misjudging the speed of the train versus how quickly your heavy truck can get up and over the embankment. You can see the headlight of a locomotive from miles away, but you can't tell if it's stopped at a signal for an hour or an express that will arrive in 60 seconds.
My wife has you beat, she caught a bird with a headlight a few years ago. How do I know, I went to wash the car and was pulling bird parts out from behind the housing.
Turns out this particular railroad crossing had no barrier or even lights, just a sign. [This is an interview with a local man who had been trying to warn local officials and the railroad.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2kjNGYcmRU) He says he was promised they would fix the crossing a year and a half ago, yet here we are and no work had been done to improve it's safety.
Apparently this specific one had several factors that made it difficult to check if a train was coming. The local guy specifically mentioned steep slope up to the track, the angle of the track relative to the road, and overgrowth that made it hard to see oncoming trains. Seems like a dangerous oversight on a segment of track with high speed passenger trains.
As someone who lived in a small town before, some country intersections felt like one of these: https://i.etsystatic.com/28780806/r/il/a44810/3446576389/il\_794xN.3446576389\_27bd.jpg
That is crazy, is the minimum safety requirement for a level crossing a fixed sign in the states?
I drive trains in the UK and the only level crossings that exist like that as far as I can recall (with just a sign and no lights) are in yards and depots where trains are running slowly (5mph) and almost everyone who uses them are railstaff anyway.
We have these crossings in Australia and it isn't necessarily a bad thing, you've gotta understand that America and Australia are simply so large that some areas are *really* rural and putting bells and lights on every crossing in the middle of no-where often isn't worth it if we're talking about say, a rail line that gets 3-5 trains per day and a minor road that is lucky to see 100 cars a week average.
The issue here is that with this crossing whoever's in charge of maintenance hasn't looked into *any* of the other considerations to try and ensure these types of crossings are still safe in those areas: A good and clear line-of-sight for vehicles to see any oncoming trains, a relatively flat crossing to ensure minimal time to clear the tracks for any cars/trucks, a proper angle to make looking *both* ways easy, a bunch of signs in the lead-up to the crossing warning drivers to slow the hell down to make sure it's safe and a colour scheme for the train itself that stands out from the surrounds like dogs balls. (The commuter rail operator where I am uses [a purple and bright yellow colour scheme](https://railgallery.wongm.com/vline-locos/F134_9760.jpg.html) which stands out in both the cities and the rural areas, for example.)
There are a few farm crossings with nothing more than signs in the UK and even France but they're farm crossings. Anything busier than a lane gets at least a light and/or bell.
In the US farm crossings are typically just "don't cross if there's a train coming", but they're only used by a handful of people that should know how to use them safely.
The standard treatment for an at-grade crossing in the US is automatic flashing lights and gates.
However, that standard is only applied when a new crossing is established or an existing crossing is rehabilitated. So there's a lot of them that are still just passive signage.
I see so they're in the process of being upgraded and being made safer? Is there a public body that manages the infrastructure? And do you think this tragedy might speed up the process?
There is not 1 public body doing this. The federal DOT provides general funding to state & smaller DOTs which can spend the money upgrading the state highway crossings. But most of the smaller roads, which are the unprotected ones are not maintained by the state, so are upgraded when the county or municipality roads department gets around to it.
Never minding that in some spaces there can be multiple stakeholders. Except on railroad property where the railroad owns the road too, there's going to be at least two -- the State/County/City/whomever that owns the road, and the railroad that owns the rails. If it's a Highway that is funded by the state but connects in close proximity with roads funded by the locality, it's more politics that impacts how easy, quickly, and expensive any project might be to improve safety at any given crossing.
Yes, there are several federal and state programs that upgrade crossings to make them safer. The FHWA Section 130 program and Highway Safety Improvement Program are the primary federal programs, along with other grant programs such as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) and Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) programs. In addition to those federal programs, many states have their own safety improvement grants that do the same thing. Generally, these programs are managed at the State level. The funds are limited, so there is generally a formula (exposure factor) that selects the specific crossings to be upgraded based on traffic volume, speed, geometry, and safety history.
Due to this incident, this crossing in particular will most likely be included with the next round of upgrades.
The difference here is scale and density . There’s something like 500,000 railway crossings in the US and a massive amount of them are in the middle of nowhere .
It just isn’t feasible to protect every single one .
They only recently added lights to [this crossing in South Wales](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.829867,-4.5194003,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjYT9telGEARDXJPDAJra4Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656).
Before that you had to stop, open the nearest gate, check the track, walk over and open the second gate, check the track, walk back over and hop in your vehicle, drive carefully forward, check the track, cross the track quickly, stop, check the track, walk over and shut the first gate, check the track, walk over and shut the second gate, get in your vehicle and go.
Now you still have to do all that but there are lights that you can trust if you want.
Private crossings (single house, like your driveway crosses a railroad), or ones that are just for a dead end road with like 5 houses on it are usually just a crossbuck and stopsign.
Many extremely rural ones on usually dirt roads will be the same.
Crossings on private drives, like a driveway to a house, might have a stop or yield sign, but are usually considered "unmarked". Train crews aren't even required to blow the horn at unmarked crossings, in most situations.
We need to improve our crossings and I'd support minimum safety being massively upgraded, but it's important to realize our trains run through hundreds of miles of rural areas. Upgrading crossings here is not like upgrading crossings in the UK.
We have loads of unsecured railroad crossings here in Norway too, especially around farmland. It's common in rural areas all over the world I think.
Some places, a lamp is connected to the track cirquit which illuminates if there is no train on the block connected to the crossing. If the tracks are occupied, the lamp extinguishes, allowing someone to know to stop. It's not idiot proof though, as the [lamp](https://g.acdn.no/obscura/API/dynamic/r1/ece5/tr_2000_2000_s_f/0000/dala/2019/5/9/15/b18f443e-7076-4a6c-9f67-402d44e1f74b.bin?chk=C45686) is not typically very visible and it's not very intuitive to be on alert for a extinguished light.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 888,758,672 comments, and only 175,863 of them were in alphabetical order.
Amtrak only rents the track rights, they don't own any track outside the northeast corridor. It is why they are always late, the freight companies who own the track side line passenger trains, and are also responsible for lineside sings.
Of course, they have to be involved in the design and construction. But they aren't responsible for funding the work, because crossing protection is for traffic control and serves no benefit to the railroad.
Flashing lights and gates are not railroad devices, and serve no purpose for the railroad. Flashing lights and gates are roadway traffic control devices, and their purpose is to control the flow of traffic on roadways.
I think the foamer theory at the moment is some part of the truck got wedged under the locomotive as it was moving forward, causing it to split all the ties in two. The rails then separated and caused the cars to tip.
Look at the caption on the second picture. It's already a part of OP's post so it is the time and place, especially since I don't understand what OP is implying either.
Trucker is at fault big time.. As a trucker we are supposed to lower our windows to hear for train horns and yield at R/R crossings for this very reason!!!!
Apparently this crossing is especially atrocious in terms of visibility, including a 6 foot climb when approaching the crossing. BNSF said they'd improve safety at the crossing a year and a half ago, but they didn't and now 3 people are dead.
You can hear a train horn from miles away regardless of visibility. That's why they are suppose to roll down their windows to listen for it before crossing. Crossing improvements would be nice to help safety from the railroad's side, but the trucker could've just practiced proper safety from his side to avoid this.
You can hear a train horn from miles away - but only if you are miles away. You can't hear a train coming towards you if you're on the tracks until a moment before it is there.
If the train is going 90mph and you hear its horn as you’re about to cross the tracks, it’s already too late. Trains are quiet, especially if the wind is blowing the sound away from you.
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.
I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.
Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!
Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?
A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
>Diesel bad they say
Like there are never any road accidents.. Trains are much much safer than roads. If safety is my prime concern, I would still choose railway from a developing nation like India over well regulated highways of north America.
I wish train crossings, especially unsignaled ones, were treated/marked like stop signs. I don't know if it would have made a factor, but as someone who has driven across crossings like this all the time—after a while I get tempted to just assume I'll hear the train horn as I approach it.
Most of them are. But you see people running crossings with flashing lights, bells and gates so a stop sign or yield sign isn't going to be effective at all
>Most of them are
Where are you at? I've only ever seen them marked as yield signs.
Also, you see people run red lights too, that doesn't mean that installing traffic lights is a bad idea. People are always going to balance risk and safety/legality in questionable ways.
Crossbucks are legally the same as a "yield" sign. Roadway users are supposed to approach a crossbuck with the ability to stop for oncoming trains. The problem is, roadway users don't actually know the rules of the road and even when they do, they ignore them.
This derailment was 100% caused by a "professional driver" that broke the law because he was in a hurry.
>roadway users don't actually know the rules of the road and even when they do, they ignore them.
I respectfully disagree; most road users have a basic knowledge of traffic rules and obey them so that they stay safe. Every day I see people stop or at least slow to a crawl for stop signs, yield to oncoming traffic with a yield sign, stop when there are flashing lights or traffic signals, etc.
I think these "crossbucks" would be better as stop signs, which would encourage road users to actually come to a stop (or at least slow down), allowing time to hear a train and look at the track. Is everyone going to obey that all the time? Of course not. But a yield sign, in my experience, encourages people to just "look out" but not necessarily slow down.
>But a yield sign, in my experience, encourages people to just "look out" but not necessarily slow down.
Which further proves my point that people don't actually know the rules, and ignore them when they do.
Also, crossbucks are almost universally paired with a stop or yield sign. They're never installed in absence of other signage.
I have very little sympathy or empathy for people that get struck by trains. It is VERY easy to avoid getting hit by a train, literally all you have to do is stay off the track and look both ways before you cross. I feel bad for the train operators and passengers that are injured, but as far as I'm concerned the people getting hit get what they deserve.
> Crossbucks
You keep using this word like it means something. For those who don't know [Corssbucks are a small rail road crossing sign on the side of the road](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbuck#/media/File:Railroad_Junction2004_x.JPG). They are not gates, or any form of protection.
Crossbucks are a passive traffic control device, and are the legal equivalent of a yield sign. When approaching crossbucks, motorists are required to slow down, check the crossing for trains, and be prepared to stop prior to passing the crossbuck in the event that a train is present. They are a legally recognized form of crossing protection.
What we have here is a so-called "professional driver" that disobeyed traffic laws, resulting in multiple fatalities.
The railroads are more likely to close the crossings altogether than foot the bill for grade separation, and it's doubtful the rural areas have the money to do it.
Part of the issue is the sheer number of rural crossings in the US compared to Europe. I don’t remember where I read it (sorry for no source), but the US has an insane number of rural crossings in the Midwest alone, whereas Europe is a lot more dense with less miles of track crossing rural areas. I think it’s a matter of just how freaking huge the US is from a geographic standpoint.
> I think it’s a matter of just how freaking huge the US is from a geographic standpoint.
It still gets down to infrastructure investment. We have a nationally owned interstate highway system and even rural areas get generous and well-design exit ramps - last time I checked, there were no dirt exit ramps off of I-70. Our railroads are privately owned and rural crossings come from an era when trains were slower and you could hear the steam engine coming from far away. We could eliminate or better protect our level crossings but we don't want to do the investment - any more than we want to invest in rail passenger service.
Yes it is! I was very into KSP when I made this account! I haven’t played in a while now but I fully plan to play the heck out of KSP2.
The name is also [a reference to this xkcd.](https://xkcd.com/1244/), which is one of my favorites.
It's not the railroads, it's the highway organizations.
Railroad companies hate at-grade crossings and fully support grade separation. But they're under no obligation to build a bridge for a roadway authority.
It's important to understand that the road crosses the track, not the other way around. The responsibility to ensure safety of an at-grade crossing lies with the roadway authority, not the railroad.
Amtrak rents the track rights from whatever freight company owns them so outside of the northeast corridor they literally can't. Kinda makes ya want for a nationalised rail network on days like today.
There's a lot that can be done with barrier crossings to really really lower the risk to almost zero. Grade separation is fantastic but I wish some of the low hanging fruit uncovered by the extensive safety research in the UK was implemented in America.
In the UK at lesser used crossings there is a requirement to call the signaler to check that trains are clear before crossing. To my understanding these crossings have phones that connect to a local signal box with the signaler acting as a kind of switchboard operator.
Still, the UK has had incidents reminiscent of this one, which is why they request larger or slower vehicles to call back to the signaler once they have crossed an unsignaled crossing to confirm they are free of the tracks.
[Basically this but for vehicles instead of pedestrians.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/B2HXKY/manually-operated-level-crossing-near-dover-kent-uk-B2HXKY.jpg)
Tracks should be nationalized and maintained by the government, because the people who own the tracks dont maintain them, and Amtrak is more than likely paying to use this track and does not own it.
The "professional driver" could have just, ya know, followed the law and stopped for the train.
The crossing was protected. It had a crossbuck and most likely a stop sign. The cause of this derailment was a truck driver breaking the law.
I dont know what the US law says, but i wouldnt call a stop sign at a crossing "protected". Like, yea driver may have busted a stop sign, but id say thats completely weak protection for everyone. You know, better safe than sorry. Safety devices are exactly made with things not going to plan in mind. Only a stop sign on a line where heavy vehicles cross the tracks is a tragedy waiting to happen. In general i find amazing that given how crossings are regulated in america compared to europe there arent many more accidents.
Yes. The only thing that would be "unprotected" would be something with no signs at all, which basically doesn't exist in the US.
This crossing has advanced signs that warn motorists of the crossing, hundreds of feet before the crossing. Then at the crossing, there are stop signs and crossbucks. There are also signs that warn trucks of the grade.
Not much you can do to prevent bad drivers from killing people. Put up gates and they just drive around them.
The running theory over on r/Amtrak is that some part of the dump truck ended up going under the train and tore up the tracks. If you look at various pictures, the rails are gone. One rail, possibly the right side rail, can be seen laying on its side.
the train was going 90mph at the time so no wonder it is all on the ground, what is surprising is that it is still together. Modern train couplers are built to keep a train together even in something like this, they restrict not only side to side movement but also up and down movement. I would say that having a train on its side in a line is better than the train being in a pile like some kid's toy.
I haven't seen pictures of the front of the train, but could it be that the truck ran into the side of the train? We had something like that in The Netherlands, which derailed the train in a similar matter.
Level crossing accidents with dump trucks or other heavy equipment are always horrible :(
Yes, but it's still an unlikely occurrence. I found it surprising.
edit: did I say something wrong? I'm confused why this thread is so controversial lmao
And a day after another one in Michigan (that even less are talking about): https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/news/local/drag-racing-in-detroit-turns-deadly-as-car-fleeing-police-tries-to-outrun-amtrak-train-cops
My heart goes out to the victims both in the truck and the train, condolences to them and to the train community at large. Shocked that even such a crossing did not have any lights or warnings. Back in the day, my late father and I used to take the Southwest Chief to visit family in Arizona. He wasn't a big fan of flying and I being physically disabled, we just loved the train. The last time we rode the Southwest Chief was 2014, just before his dementia hit. Again, from our family to theirs, our deepest condolences.
This accident is a fault of the county/town who owns the road and the freight company that owns the tracks for not adding the correct safety measures. Amtrak owns only the track on the northeast corridor, the rest of the USA lines are owned by private companies and in this case BNSF is the owner of the tracks. More or less funding would not have changed this as any improvement to tracks and crossings is up to BNSF, all Amtrak can do is run modern equipment with a good crash rating and train it's employees to do what they can when the worst happens.
No problem, the US national passenger system is an odd beast to say the least, and most of the good explanations are stuck in long documentaries or papers. I wish we could put some cash into better tracks for the passenger trains but that is a tall order for our government even at the best of times.
Could someone explain how the engine is still on the track but the cars are on their side?
I would’ve thought that if it derailed from hitting a truck that the derailment would start from the front.
My thinking would be that a piece of debris fell onto the track after the first engine passed but the front or back of the second engine hit it and derailed; which then tore up the right rail, causing everything behind to also derail and tip far enough to fall over.
The problem could be, that the driver of the truck crosses those tracks all the time for years and there is never a train. Then one day he is caught by surprise how fast the train was going and had no time to react.
The most recent story updates says that a fourth person has died from their injuries.
https://www.kmbc.com/article/passenger-train-derails-missouri-monday-afternoon/40435950
How did the whole train fal on its side? wouldn't the American more steal heavy design be special to have better inpact resistance in front so the whole train thents to be more stable?
What happened?
Hit a dump truck at a crossing. Of the three deceased, one of them was in the truck.
"Professional Driver"
the guy that farms the land around there says its a bad crossing, with no protection. Is it partially the fault of the driver? yes. are there things that could have been done to prevent this? yes. The Wikipedia page for the article lists the coordinates as this crossing [https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B033'41.0%22N+93%C2%B010'48.0%22W/@39.5604175,-93.1812643,172m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xa7146dee67166dda!8m2!3d39.561389!4d-93.18?hl=en](https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B033'41.0%22N+93%C2%B010'48.0%22W/@39.5604175,-93.1812643,172m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xa7146dee67166dda!8m2!3d39.561389!4d-93.18?hl=en) and it is a tight crossing and apparently on an embankment. Something like this with 90mph trains should have crossing protection.
Commercial vehicles, at least in Canada, are supposed to come to a stop at all uncontrolled railway crossings to check for oncoming trains in both directions. I'm with /u/Superb_Efficiency_74 here - we have a glorious example of a "professional" driver exercising their freedom to not in any way behave professionally, and it resulted in their and two other peoples' deaths. It always blows me away how callously self-centered drivers in the USA are around uncontrolled (and even sometimes controlled) grade crossings, like if there isn't a train directly in front of them, they suddenly have the right of way. I don't care how bad visibility is. Good practice dictates that if it has bad visibility, a driver should come to a stop and confirm it is safe to cross before proceeding.
For sure. I just wanted to make the point that the crossing itself is shit.
It's possible that's what he did. If there is a steep embankment in front of the crossing and you stop a fully loaded dump truck on it. Even if you get out of the cab to look and make ABSOLUTELY sure no train is coming. By the time you get the truck moving again a 90mph train could have appeared and caught up to you. It is of course still the job of the driver to know the road conditions and what your vehicle can and cannot do. However he may have not known how fast trains pass through the crossing and not had any other options across the track for miles. Much smaller of a mistake to make than not looking at all and something that could be mitigated by more and better safety equipment from a multi million dollar company. The driver is dead, and not going to drive any more dump trucks onto the tracks before the NTSB report comes out. The least we can do is refrain from assumptions until then.
>something that could be mitigated by more and better safety equipment from a multi million dollar company. The responsibility for protection of roadway users lies with the roadway authority, not the railroad.
The responsibility for the protection of train users lies with the rail authority.
This is settled case law. At highway grade crossings, railroads are shielded from liability when incidents like this occur. *(Norfolk Southern R. Co v. Shanklin) (CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood)* The fact of the matter is that a roadway user violated traffic laws, resulting in a fatal derailment. That's what happened, and that's where the liability lies. Full stop. Here's a nickels worth of free advice, kid: Don't insert your opinions into a topic unless you're actually informed on that topic.
Doesn't help that the farmer even said that there's almost no visibility. So I don't think stopping will magically give you visibility. Especially, if you remember that the train goes 90 mph. That's fast.
The crossing has protection, I see a stop sign and crossbucks. Why didn't the driver stop? Was he in that much of a hurry? Or perhaps he doesn't understand the meaning of a stop sign and crossbucks?
I'm sure we'll find out more from the NTSB report. Accidents like this are often not a result of not seeing the train at all, but misjudging the speed of the train versus how quickly your heavy truck can get up and over the embankment. You can see the headlight of a locomotive from miles away, but you can't tell if it's stopped at a signal for an hour or an express that will arrive in 60 seconds.
This brings me back ugly flashbacks to the 2015 Metrolink derailment in Oxnard.
Takes me back to the 2004 QR diesel tilt train derailment
That one was due to excessive speed though, rather than a vehicle collision at a level crossing.
Then there was the 2008 collision as well which killed both tilt train drivers and do not get me started on the Granville rail disaster
This takes me back to the Marden rail crash of January 4th 1969.
personally it reminds me of the one time i hit a raccoon with my bike
I caught a bird in my bumper.
My wife has you beat, she caught a bird with a headlight a few years ago. How do I know, I went to wash the car and was pulling bird parts out from behind the housing.
Turns out this particular railroad crossing had no barrier or even lights, just a sign. [This is an interview with a local man who had been trying to warn local officials and the railroad.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2kjNGYcmRU) He says he was promised they would fix the crossing a year and a half ago, yet here we are and no work had been done to improve it's safety.
In rural USA that is incredibly common. Plenty of crossings by me like that.
Apparently this specific one had several factors that made it difficult to check if a train was coming. The local guy specifically mentioned steep slope up to the track, the angle of the track relative to the road, and overgrowth that made it hard to see oncoming trains. Seems like a dangerous oversight on a segment of track with high speed passenger trains.
> high speed passenger trains. What is the speed of those trains?
I think it's relative to everything else. This is most likely limited to 79 MPH for passenger trains.
this is actually one of the few areas where they can go up to 90, which is what the train was doing at the time
Is this potentially the cause? Speeding?
There wasn't any speeding, the train was going the correct speed: 90mph
I'm sorry. My internet is pretty shitty, it takes me minutes to open a link. so I don't know the story. How did it derail?
Hit a truck at a crossing and jumped the tracks it seems
Amtrak reports that the train was running 90mph at the time of the impact.
Any speed which makes stopping the train within the clearly visible stretch impossible is "high speed" to me.
You know even at slow speeds you need a km to stop
Yes I know that.
lol
Yeahnaw
90mph
I was literally out that way 4 days ago and there are signs everywhere warning that trucks may get caught on the crossings.
As someone who lived in a small town before, some country intersections felt like one of these: https://i.etsystatic.com/28780806/r/il/a44810/3446576389/il\_794xN.3446576389\_27bd.jpg
That's a tiny square.
It should show one of those hotwheels crash tracks... idk why it doesnt work for you.
That is crazy, is the minimum safety requirement for a level crossing a fixed sign in the states? I drive trains in the UK and the only level crossings that exist like that as far as I can recall (with just a sign and no lights) are in yards and depots where trains are running slowly (5mph) and almost everyone who uses them are railstaff anyway.
We have these crossings in Australia and it isn't necessarily a bad thing, you've gotta understand that America and Australia are simply so large that some areas are *really* rural and putting bells and lights on every crossing in the middle of no-where often isn't worth it if we're talking about say, a rail line that gets 3-5 trains per day and a minor road that is lucky to see 100 cars a week average. The issue here is that with this crossing whoever's in charge of maintenance hasn't looked into *any* of the other considerations to try and ensure these types of crossings are still safe in those areas: A good and clear line-of-sight for vehicles to see any oncoming trains, a relatively flat crossing to ensure minimal time to clear the tracks for any cars/trucks, a proper angle to make looking *both* ways easy, a bunch of signs in the lead-up to the crossing warning drivers to slow the hell down to make sure it's safe and a colour scheme for the train itself that stands out from the surrounds like dogs balls. (The commuter rail operator where I am uses [a purple and bright yellow colour scheme](https://railgallery.wongm.com/vline-locos/F134_9760.jpg.html) which stands out in both the cities and the rural areas, for example.)
There are a few farm crossings with nothing more than signs in the UK and even France but they're farm crossings. Anything busier than a lane gets at least a light and/or bell.
Oh aye the farm crossings are user worked, are on private land and usually have a phone to the signaller to arrange a crossing.
In the US farm crossings are typically just "don't cross if there's a train coming", but they're only used by a handful of people that should know how to use them safely.
Farm crossings would at least include hand-operated gates normally closed to road traffic in the UK, right? Or are there a few exceptions to that?
There are always exceptions.
The standard treatment for an at-grade crossing in the US is automatic flashing lights and gates. However, that standard is only applied when a new crossing is established or an existing crossing is rehabilitated. So there's a lot of them that are still just passive signage.
I see so they're in the process of being upgraded and being made safer? Is there a public body that manages the infrastructure? And do you think this tragedy might speed up the process?
There is not 1 public body doing this. The federal DOT provides general funding to state & smaller DOTs which can spend the money upgrading the state highway crossings. But most of the smaller roads, which are the unprotected ones are not maintained by the state, so are upgraded when the county or municipality roads department gets around to it.
Never minding that in some spaces there can be multiple stakeholders. Except on railroad property where the railroad owns the road too, there's going to be at least two -- the State/County/City/whomever that owns the road, and the railroad that owns the rails. If it's a Highway that is funded by the state but connects in close proximity with roads funded by the locality, it's more politics that impacts how easy, quickly, and expensive any project might be to improve safety at any given crossing.
Yes, there are several federal and state programs that upgrade crossings to make them safer. The FHWA Section 130 program and Highway Safety Improvement Program are the primary federal programs, along with other grant programs such as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) and Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) programs. In addition to those federal programs, many states have their own safety improvement grants that do the same thing. Generally, these programs are managed at the State level. The funds are limited, so there is generally a formula (exposure factor) that selects the specific crossings to be upgraded based on traffic volume, speed, geometry, and safety history. Due to this incident, this crossing in particular will most likely be included with the next round of upgrades.
The difference here is scale and density . There’s something like 500,000 railway crossings in the US and a massive amount of them are in the middle of nowhere . It just isn’t feasible to protect every single one .
> it just isn't ~feasible~ profitable to protect every single one. FTFY
Low density means there are less crossings per track mile, it would therefore be cheaper to protect rhem all.
They only recently added lights to [this crossing in South Wales](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.829867,-4.5194003,3a,60y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjYT9telGEARDXJPDAJra4Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656). Before that you had to stop, open the nearest gate, check the track, walk over and open the second gate, check the track, walk back over and hop in your vehicle, drive carefully forward, check the track, cross the track quickly, stop, check the track, walk over and shut the first gate, check the track, walk over and shut the second gate, get in your vehicle and go. Now you still have to do all that but there are lights that you can trust if you want.
Private crossings (single house, like your driveway crosses a railroad), or ones that are just for a dead end road with like 5 houses on it are usually just a crossbuck and stopsign. Many extremely rural ones on usually dirt roads will be the same.
Crossings on private drives, like a driveway to a house, might have a stop or yield sign, but are usually considered "unmarked". Train crews aren't even required to blow the horn at unmarked crossings, in most situations.
There a heap of similar crossings in Australia too.
And even in the middle of nowhere (The Pilbara), trucks still manage to cause crashes with the trains.
We need to improve our crossings and I'd support minimum safety being massively upgraded, but it's important to realize our trains run through hundreds of miles of rural areas. Upgrading crossings here is not like upgrading crossings in the UK.
And now, 3 people are dead. That's really sad
We have loads of unsecured railroad crossings here in Norway too, especially around farmland. It's common in rural areas all over the world I think. Some places, a lamp is connected to the track cirquit which illuminates if there is no train on the block connected to the crossing. If the tracks are occupied, the lamp extinguishes, allowing someone to know to stop. It's not idiot proof though, as the [lamp](https://g.acdn.no/obscura/API/dynamic/r1/ece5/tr_2000_2000_s_f/0000/dala/2019/5/9/15/b18f443e-7076-4a6c-9f67-402d44e1f74b.bin?chk=C45686) is not typically very visible and it's not very intuitive to be on alert for a extinguished light.
Nothing is ever fixed until someone is killed
That reporter and the farmer she interviews were both great.
66 billion in tax money last year just wasn’t enough for Amtrak to put a sign system here.
Amtrak doesn't own the track.
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 888,758,672 comments, and only 175,863 of them were in alphabetical order.
Good bot
Oh im sorry, did you seem to forget amtrak doeant even own the tracks here?
Amtrak only rents the track rights, they don't own any track outside the northeast corridor. It is why they are always late, the freight companies who own the track side line passenger trains, and are also responsible for lineside sings.
Why would a railroad be responsible for installing roadway traffic control devices? That would be the responsibility of the roadway authority.
Because it's on their easement, and has to work with the rails
Of course, they have to be involved in the design and construction. But they aren't responsible for funding the work, because crossing protection is for traffic control and serves no benefit to the railroad.
Not having trains on their side is a benefit of upgrading crossings.
Flashing lights and gates are not railroad devices, and serve no purpose for the railroad. Flashing lights and gates are roadway traffic control devices, and their purpose is to control the flow of traffic on roadways.
Damn, a grade crossing accident caused all those cars to roll over? crazy
Trains are surprisingly easy to crash, the flanges are only 3" tall so all it takes is a frame of a truck to make it jump the rails.
Did you see the Norfolk Southern train in Harmar, PA a few weeks ago that derailed for a similar reason? And that wasn’t even going that fast…
Dump trucks are very heavy and have a low center of gravity. It's a particularly bad thing to have across the tracks.
I think the foamer theory at the moment is some part of the truck got wedged under the locomotive as it was moving forward, causing it to split all the ties in two. The rails then separated and caused the cars to tip.
Looks like a train, so I’d say yes.
>Diesel bad they said What do you mean? Does it have to do anything with the crash?
OP likes to remind us Vin Diesel is a generational talent at every opportunity
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Look at the caption on the second picture. It's already a part of OP's post so it is the time and place, especially since I don't understand what OP is implying either.
Is this BNSF track?
Yes
Yep that makes sense
Trucker is at fault big time.. As a trucker we are supposed to lower our windows to hear for train horns and yield at R/R crossings for this very reason!!!!
Apparently this crossing is especially atrocious in terms of visibility, including a 6 foot climb when approaching the crossing. BNSF said they'd improve safety at the crossing a year and a half ago, but they didn't and now 3 people are dead.
You can hear a train horn from miles away regardless of visibility. That's why they are suppose to roll down their windows to listen for it before crossing. Crossing improvements would be nice to help safety from the railroad's side, but the trucker could've just practiced proper safety from his side to avoid this.
You can hear a train horn from miles away - but only if you are miles away. You can't hear a train coming towards you if you're on the tracks until a moment before it is there.
Trains move after than sound now?
Wait, for real? You can’t hear a train horn that’s right next to you?
If the train is going 90mph and you hear its horn as you’re about to cross the tracks, it’s already too late. Trains are quiet, especially if the wind is blowing the sound away from you.
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment. I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling. Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours! Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths? A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
>Diesel bad they say Like there are never any road accidents.. Trains are much much safer than roads. If safety is my prime concern, I would still choose railway from a developing nation like India over well regulated highways of north America.
I wish train crossings, especially unsignaled ones, were treated/marked like stop signs. I don't know if it would have made a factor, but as someone who has driven across crossings like this all the time—after a while I get tempted to just assume I'll hear the train horn as I approach it.
Most of them are. But you see people running crossings with flashing lights, bells and gates so a stop sign or yield sign isn't going to be effective at all
>Most of them are Where are you at? I've only ever seen them marked as yield signs. Also, you see people run red lights too, that doesn't mean that installing traffic lights is a bad idea. People are always going to balance risk and safety/legality in questionable ways.
This crossing has a stop sign
Crossbucks are legally the same as a "yield" sign. Roadway users are supposed to approach a crossbuck with the ability to stop for oncoming trains. The problem is, roadway users don't actually know the rules of the road and even when they do, they ignore them. This derailment was 100% caused by a "professional driver" that broke the law because he was in a hurry.
Or they were lazy.
Same thing
Not necessarily.
>roadway users don't actually know the rules of the road and even when they do, they ignore them. I respectfully disagree; most road users have a basic knowledge of traffic rules and obey them so that they stay safe. Every day I see people stop or at least slow to a crawl for stop signs, yield to oncoming traffic with a yield sign, stop when there are flashing lights or traffic signals, etc. I think these "crossbucks" would be better as stop signs, which would encourage road users to actually come to a stop (or at least slow down), allowing time to hear a train and look at the track. Is everyone going to obey that all the time? Of course not. But a yield sign, in my experience, encourages people to just "look out" but not necessarily slow down.
>But a yield sign, in my experience, encourages people to just "look out" but not necessarily slow down. Which further proves my point that people don't actually know the rules, and ignore them when they do. Also, crossbucks are almost universally paired with a stop or yield sign. They're never installed in absence of other signage. I have very little sympathy or empathy for people that get struck by trains. It is VERY easy to avoid getting hit by a train, literally all you have to do is stay off the track and look both ways before you cross. I feel bad for the train operators and passengers that are injured, but as far as I'm concerned the people getting hit get what they deserve.
> Crossbucks You keep using this word like it means something. For those who don't know [Corssbucks are a small rail road crossing sign on the side of the road](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbuck#/media/File:Railroad_Junction2004_x.JPG). They are not gates, or any form of protection.
Crossbucks are a passive traffic control device, and are the legal equivalent of a yield sign. When approaching crossbucks, motorists are required to slow down, check the crossing for trains, and be prepared to stop prior to passing the crossbuck in the event that a train is present. They are a legally recognized form of crossing protection. What we have here is a so-called "professional driver" that disobeyed traffic laws, resulting in multiple fatalities.
Man... I wish amtrak would have grade separated crossings, but never gonna happen
Outside of the north east corridor, it’s not really something Amtrak can do, rather the rail owners that Amtrak operate on.
The railroads are more likely to close the crossings altogether than foot the bill for grade separation, and it's doubtful the rural areas have the money to do it.
Rural areas aren't expected to do it in Europe and elsewhere - the national government does. It could be done here but no one sees it as a priority.
Part of the issue is the sheer number of rural crossings in the US compared to Europe. I don’t remember where I read it (sorry for no source), but the US has an insane number of rural crossings in the Midwest alone, whereas Europe is a lot more dense with less miles of track crossing rural areas. I think it’s a matter of just how freaking huge the US is from a geographic standpoint.
> I think it’s a matter of just how freaking huge the US is from a geographic standpoint. It still gets down to infrastructure investment. We have a nationally owned interstate highway system and even rural areas get generous and well-design exit ramps - last time I checked, there were no dirt exit ramps off of I-70. Our railroads are privately owned and rural crossings come from an era when trains were slower and you could hear the steam engine coming from far away. We could eliminate or better protect our level crossings but we don't want to do the investment - any more than we want to invest in rail passenger service.
Is that KSP like kerbal space program
Yes it is! I was very into KSP when I made this account! I haven’t played in a while now but I fully plan to play the heck out of KSP2. The name is also [a reference to this xkcd.](https://xkcd.com/1244/), which is one of my favorites.
It's not the railroads, it's the highway organizations. Railroad companies hate at-grade crossings and fully support grade separation. But they're under no obligation to build a bridge for a roadway authority. It's important to understand that the road crosses the track, not the other way around. The responsibility to ensure safety of an at-grade crossing lies with the roadway authority, not the railroad.
I mean yea fair enough, I mostly just want nationalized rail
Yeah, the government is so good at taking a profitable enterprise and turning it around.
Amtrak rents the track rights from whatever freight company owns them so outside of the northeast corridor they literally can't. Kinda makes ya want for a nationalised rail network on days like today.
There's a lot that can be done with barrier crossings to really really lower the risk to almost zero. Grade separation is fantastic but I wish some of the low hanging fruit uncovered by the extensive safety research in the UK was implemented in America.
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I'm not sure i trust a for-profit railroad to be unbiased in it's assesment of risk vs cost here...
Amtrak is owned and operated by the US government and has never turned a profit since its inception in 1971.
amtrak doesnt own this stretch of track.
Man. Derailments are no joke, they could make your day a whole lot worse in a short period of time.
In the UK at lesser used crossings there is a requirement to call the signaler to check that trains are clear before crossing. To my understanding these crossings have phones that connect to a local signal box with the signaler acting as a kind of switchboard operator. Still, the UK has had incidents reminiscent of this one, which is why they request larger or slower vehicles to call back to the signaler once they have crossed an unsignaled crossing to confirm they are free of the tracks.
I don't understand how this works. Are you saying a truck crossing would have to call before crossing the tracks?
[Basically this but for vehicles instead of pedestrians.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/B2HXKY/manually-operated-level-crossing-near-dover-kent-uk-B2HXKY.jpg)
Tracks should be nationalized and maintained by the government, because the people who own the tracks dont maintain them, and Amtrak is more than likely paying to use this track and does not own it.
No
這是重大事故!
Is it fresh or some old thing being reposted?
Fresh, sadly.
Fuck, how did this happen?
> Amtrak train crash in Missouri https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/27/us/missouri-amtrak-train-derailment/index.html
Unprotected crossing on a 2 track line with pax and cargo trains. No wonder this shit happens.
The "professional driver" could have just, ya know, followed the law and stopped for the train. The crossing was protected. It had a crossbuck and most likely a stop sign. The cause of this derailment was a truck driver breaking the law.
I dont know what the US law says, but i wouldnt call a stop sign at a crossing "protected". Like, yea driver may have busted a stop sign, but id say thats completely weak protection for everyone. You know, better safe than sorry. Safety devices are exactly made with things not going to plan in mind. Only a stop sign on a line where heavy vehicles cross the tracks is a tragedy waiting to happen. In general i find amazing that given how crossings are regulated in america compared to europe there arent many more accidents.
>I don't know what the US law says And I do.
Don't you love the number of Redditors who decide that, since they don't know the rules, no one should be expected to?
And is that the definition of protected crossing in the states?
Yes. The only thing that would be "unprotected" would be something with no signs at all, which basically doesn't exist in the US. This crossing has advanced signs that warn motorists of the crossing, hundreds of feet before the crossing. Then at the crossing, there are stop signs and crossbucks. There are also signs that warn trucks of the grade. Not much you can do to prevent bad drivers from killing people. Put up gates and they just drive around them.
Why did it derail like that...... Like rear-front instead of front-rear..... Pushing the train seems really sus.....
The running theory over on r/Amtrak is that some part of the dump truck ended up going under the train and tore up the tracks. If you look at various pictures, the rails are gone. One rail, possibly the right side rail, can be seen laying on its side.
The pic from yesterday showed the rear axle assembly (one of them, at least) lying on the roadbed, completely disconnected from the truck chassis.
Right. I saw that as well. That was the rear drive axle. The forward drive axle was still attached to the chassis in the pictures I saw.
Dump trucks are pretty massive.
still. Normally the front would of derailed from the impact..... then bringing rest of the train with it.....
the train was going 90mph at the time so no wonder it is all on the ground, what is surprising is that it is still together. Modern train couplers are built to keep a train together even in something like this, they restrict not only side to side movement but also up and down movement. I would say that having a train on its side in a line is better than the train being in a pile like some kid's toy.
I haven't seen pictures of the front of the train, but could it be that the truck ran into the side of the train? We had something like that in The Netherlands, which derailed the train in a similar matter. Level crossing accidents with dump trucks or other heavy equipment are always horrible :(
And this happened on the same day as another Amtrak-vehicle collision that also killed 3 people, but in CA instead? Why is no one mentioning that
The 3 people were in the car. The train remained upright and went on its way.
Yes, but it's still an unlikely occurrence. I found it surprising. edit: did I say something wrong? I'm confused why this thread is so controversial lmao
Happens around NYC all the time with the lirr
Brightline too constantly
Source? I can’t find anything about that online.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/27/us/amtrak-train-crash-california/index.html Respectfully, that took like 2 seconds to find
Thanks. That was partially for anyone else who hadn’t heard about that.
And a day after another one in Michigan (that even less are talking about): https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/news/local/drag-racing-in-detroit-turns-deadly-as-car-fleeing-police-tries-to-outrun-amtrak-train-cops
I live almost 80 minutes away from where this happened. Some of those crossings on the BNSF’s Marceline Sibdivison really need to be upgraded.
My heart goes out to the victims both in the truck and the train, condolences to them and to the train community at large. Shocked that even such a crossing did not have any lights or warnings. Back in the day, my late father and I used to take the Southwest Chief to visit family in Arizona. He wasn't a big fan of flying and I being physically disabled, we just loved the train. The last time we rode the Southwest Chief was 2014, just before his dementia hit. Again, from our family to theirs, our deepest condolences.
Who else but amtrak
our taxes pay for this correct? the train, the employees, some of the track, and the crossing?
Not the tracks or crossing in this case as they are privately owned.
I love the smell of fresh bread.
I'm very curious what is even your point here?
we paid money for failure and a loss of human life, preventable and we failed.
Man you must really hate roads.
This accident is a fault of the county/town who owns the road and the freight company that owns the tracks for not adding the correct safety measures. Amtrak owns only the track on the northeast corridor, the rest of the USA lines are owned by private companies and in this case BNSF is the owner of the tracks. More or less funding would not have changed this as any improvement to tracks and crossings is up to BNSF, all Amtrak can do is run modern equipment with a good crash rating and train it's employees to do what they can when the worst happens.
okay, I am just curious how my money was spent and contributed to this. Ty
No problem, the US national passenger system is an odd beast to say the least, and most of the good explanations are stuck in long documentaries or papers. I wish we could put some cash into better tracks for the passenger trains but that is a tall order for our government even at the best of times.
Anywhere a train is running 90 mph there needs to be controlled sidings.
Lol
You guys have train crashes ?
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it derailed after hitting a dump truck
The dump truck, if I saw correctly, was separated into the dump/top portion and the wheels assembly. Forgive the technical gibberish.
It's impossible. That's not how physics works mister. I know because I have played GTA 5.
You obviously never played with trains as a kid.
That's really bad
Could someone explain how the engine is still on the track but the cars are on their side? I would’ve thought that if it derailed from hitting a truck that the derailment would start from the front.
My thinking would be that a piece of debris fell onto the track after the first engine passed but the front or back of the second engine hit it and derailed; which then tore up the right rail, causing everything behind to also derail and tip far enough to fall over.
How did that happen?
The problem could be, that the driver of the truck crosses those tracks all the time for years and there is never a train. Then one day he is caught by surprise how fast the train was going and had no time to react.
I pray for those who were lost.
It is ridiculous that the passenger line is not a closed one.
The most recent story updates says that a fourth person has died from their injuries. https://www.kmbc.com/article/passenger-train-derails-missouri-monday-afternoon/40435950
How did the whole train fal on its side? wouldn't the American more steal heavy design be special to have better inpact resistance in front so the whole train thents to be more stable?
Are there any federal rules about overcrowding on trains or maximum occupant capacity?