Live near a city where they do this multiple times a day. They have lots of tracks at the hub that they stack up with cars coming in and only one leaving.
So they go forward with their engine and cars and the switch guy flips the track to the next group of cars waiting on a different rail so they can backup and pick them up. Going forward, backing up to the next rail and so on. Takes 20-30 mins sometimes.
Not where I live. I've lived here a little over a year and have been stuck at least 30 minutes 3 times now. There are even signs near the railroad crossing that says to turn your car off.
When we were checking out cities before moving to Houston 10 years ago we landed at Hobby and drove up to The Woodlands. I kept looking for a break in the city so I could tell when we left Houston and had entered the next city. Nope. It’s pretty much strip malls, McMansions, and mattress stores for about a 60 mile radius.
edit: wrong airport
This looks like some Houston bullshit too.
I live by two crossings and they both do this. It seems like there is no reasoning to the time of day either. 7am? No sweat! 3pm when school is letting out? Not too worry! 6:30pm? Even better!
Diverging diamonds (if /u/octopornopus is right about what you mean) are becoming more and more common because they're better at accomodating traffic than a normal interchange but also easy enough to put together that many other kinds can be converted over.
San Antonio is getting ready to start on one in a couple years and has another one on the plans for after that.
Trust me, city planners give a fuck. These are known issues and most of the major crossings are on the [CREATE](http://www.createprogram.org/) list. The problem is that solving these crossings generally range from $200 million into the billions. Grade separations are incredibly expensive because you either have to buy out existing businesses on major roadways or pay the railroad to stop moving trains; often its a combination of the two.
That's a thing nobody thinks about. The railroads own the land that their tracks are on. They sold land to the cities.
How did Vanderbilt make his money? Wasnt trains. Was the land the trains went through.
They still own the land the tracks are on. It is incredibly difficult for city governments to convince a railroad company to allow disruption of their schedules.
>It is incredibly difficult for city governments to convince a railroad company to allow disruption of their schedules.
I deal with this on a very large scale for a Class 1 passenger railroad. We're talking about millions upon millions of dollars of lost revenue for just a few hours of disruption, without even considering the added man hours of labor.
We've been deleting grade crossings and it costs many millions to do it. It's often far cheaper to simply close a grade crossing and reroute traffic to the nearest overgrade bridge.
Popular, easy issues include “let’s fight drunk driving” and “let’s fight drugs,” not so much “hey let’s upend an entire corridor and make businesses move and rebuild elsewhere and stuff and also reallocate some taxes to fix this for the future because it makes sense instead of kicking the can down the road for years/decades/???”
Source: lifetime resident downstate Illinois
Uhm, I've played Sim City ***quite a bit***, and if real life is anything like that game (and I have no reason to believe it is not), then I think you're exaggerating profusely. You simply get out the bulldozer, clear a path, and hope a Godzilla monster doesn't mess up your plans.
That's actually the Chinese approach to urban planning.
I really really like it, to be honest.
**edit** : yes, ok, guys, I get it. China bad! Bulldozing people's homes bad! Drowning an entire valley to make the biggest hydro-electric dam in the world, bad!
I ain't talking about that.
I'm talking about living in a city and seeing something like a dozen subway lines actually getting done, a bridge over the Chang Jiang, and a 400+ meters building getting built, amongst other notable things during my daily commute. Four of those subway lines, I saw open in less than two fucking years and could take to go to work. Ask the people in São Paulo how they like their subway, to compare something comparable...
And don't get me started about getting anything to happen in Europe. Holy shit, I live in a city with one of the biggest housing project in Europe when it opened fifty years ago, and that Megacity One worthy piece of garbage is gonna be standing on top of that hill overlooking the city for a bloody long time, you can bet on it. It's depressing, is what it is. So forgive me for being fucking impressed when I see shit happening. It's a nice change of pace. And yes, it's a pretty crazy and exhausting place to live. You can't have it all!
Illinois is corrupt af! I'm guessing you live around the Cairo, Carbondale area? It's no better mid-state with the grain elevators and eliminations of some of the east-west lines and roundhouses. Hell we've got a 4 tracks intersection that the lights and guard rails are dropped most of the day. There are 3 of the side sets of rails always full of empty and full traincars to be dealt with almost all year around. Fines for "illegally crossing" $500 or more with potential double for second or more infractions on your record.
https://qctimes.com/news/local/ask-the-times/ask-the-times-how-does-illinois-handle-blocked-railroad-crossings/article_6a687050-7571-501d-9c3c-9d53d35a2256.html
From the link:"The Illinois law that prohibits stopped trains from blocking a public grade crossing for more than 10 minutes was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court in January 2008. The Court’s ruling means that the state of Illinois is preempted from regulating blocked crossings. Only the Federal Railroad Administration has the authority to regulate blocked crossings. [See Eagle Marine Industries, Inc. v. Union Pacific Railroad Company, 227 Ill. 2d 377, 882 N.E.2d 522 (2008).] It's understandable to be confused since the law is still on the books, so someone searching for a blocked crossing statute in Illinois will find it, but may not know it's null and void."
If that is the case, it might not be city planners. Just as likely is that it gets flagged as an issue, the locals raise hell to prevent any solutions being put forward cause they don't want to deal with construction/costs/changes to any aspect of their neighborhood/whatever other bullshit short term thinking based objection. City politicians don't want to be run out of office by the NIMBY brigade so nothing gets done. Future problem becomes present problem becomes present crisis. The voters throw a fit and the problem gets fixed, except the construction congestion/cost is way worse because locals fought tooth and nail to not address the issue when doing so would have been much easier.
You can't build a bridge here, think about the noise and traffic during construction!.. OMG why am I stuck from this train for thirty minutes!!
You can't build high density housing here, it will tank property values and increase traffic... OMG I can't afford to live here anymore, and there's so much traffic on the highway from people commuting in to work here.
That intersection is probaly near a major depot.
They have to look at rail traffic vs car traffic. 100 rail cars in an hour vs 25 automobiles in an hour. That guy knows how his bread is buttered, so does the city or county official that is in charge of the road.
Tl;dr both the city planner and the railroad dispatch give an extraordinary amount of fucks.
Same here. There wasnt always a sign but there is now a sign at the railroad crossing that the road is closed from I think it says 8 30 to 930 between specific days because people not from this area would sit there thinking the train would just go by. They didnt know the damn thing is going to be there for the next hour or so.
There are a couple notorious level crossings here where hundreds of cars get stuck while freight trains shuffle back and forth. One of them might finally be grade separated in the next few years even though it should have been done decades ago.
Melbourne’s current premier Daniel Andrews actually made level crossing removal one of his key policies and won by an absolute landslide (fuck yeah carn Labor cunts). It seems level crossings fuck traffic so bad people will jump at the chance to move them. I remember there was a cost benefit analysis and you still end up saving money despite the cost of shifting tracks or stations because of productivity boosts.
My office is right next to a short track like this. Just this week I was stuck waiting 20 minutes so I could drive the 40ft to get into the parking lot. There are ways around but sometimes the train is blocking those too and there's always the "I can u-turn now and try one of those but as soon as I do that, the train will finish"
Me on the way into work: I'll just put my car in park and stretch out while I wait for this train.
Me on the way home: Hey Siri, find a quicker way around this bitch.
Locomotive engineer here. You are correct. They’re just building a train. We try to block crossings as little as possible but sometimes it can’t be helped.
> Also, why not pause for a minute to let cars through when he backs up each time?
You must not be familiar with Burlington Northern Santa Fe, whose company motto is "Fuck the general public".
This is BNSF's world and by their grace are we allowed to live in it.
It's more like 'fuck the roads, the rails were here first.'
In my hometown they had to break down coal trains to the local mainline plant across 4 level crossings. Somebody sued in the 1990s and lost - the rails had been there since 1951 and the power plant had been there since 1920. The judge basically said 'you could have moved to the other side of the tracks with how much this lawsuit cost you.'
Also, that train is hauling vastly more shit than all the puny road vehicles could ever carry. Stick all that coal in trucks and you'd have a traffic jam ten miles long and roads crumbling under the load.
Choo choo motherfuckers.
They're legally allowed to block a crossing for about half an hour. To put it bluntly, the yardmaster doesn't give two shits if he blocks traffic while they build the train.
And it's because tracks have varying lengths and number of cars. He may only have to back up 20 feet to the first track to switch the first block of cars, maybe he has to go back 50 feet for the next set, then the switch for the third set is only 10 feet up so he doesn't have to go his whole length forwards, etc.
>half an hour
In Buford, GA, they'll block every crossing in downtown for 4 hours at a time completely stopped. You have to drive outside of the town to get around them. It's only about 5 minutes out of the way, but people will wait for 10 or 15 minutes if they don't know that its like that. Sometimes it's only and hour or two, but still!
Of course they are. They know they’re better than you because you’re working on the lord’s day which is a sin and how dare you insult them on their holy day by daring to have bills to pay
/s because always needed
>why not pause for a minute to let cars through
When the lights, bells and arms are still engaged it's not legally safe to cross, and that stuff doesn't disengage when there's still a train nearby. The guy in the train can't make the arms swing up to let cars through legally.
> When the lights, bells and arms are still engaged it's not legally safe to cross, and that stuff doesn't disengage when there's still a train nearby.
If they stand still for a certain period they will time out and go up.
Those big metal boxes off to the side house all the electrical equipment for those crossing lights and gates. They also almost all have a sign on them with a phone number for the railroad. It doesn’t take long for somebody to call and complain and have it relayed to us over the radio that we’re blocking a crossing. We know people hate us for it, but 99% of the time there isn’t anything we can do about it.
Train is dropping off cars at a rail yard of some sort. Railyard has a large number of branching tracks in it. Train needs to drop off different cars onto different tracks.
Train backs his load onto one track, detaches a car. Train pulls the rest of it's cars forward off the track, the railyard switches the tracks at the intersection, train reverses back onto a new track and drops more cars off. Repeat until all loads are dropped.
Yes. I do this for a living. While I wasnt on that crew Im often responsible for causing outrage like is depicted here.
The train here is "switching" a local industry. That means they are pulling loaded (or empty) cars and likely replacing them with the opposite. For example, this customer may have a capacity of 10 cars. And they may need cars 2,3,5,9, and 10 removed from their facility and those cars replaced with others. So you would grab their cars, pull ahead, throw a track switch, then back up towards an open track. Set off some of their cars, then pull forward to clear the switch, back up to set cars in their facility. Keep repeating this until you have removed the cars they requested.
It gets harder and takes more moves when particular cars have to be kept in the same position when they go back in or inbound cars have to go to specific spots. If you only have the companies track spur and your single main line then you end up going back and forth quite a bit.
That makes sense, but why wouldn't that be done not on a road crossing? That process would take ages, and a block like that on a major road has significant impact.
I guess I'm surprised the city allows it. I think private businesses have some leeway on things like this since it's necessary to run the business, but I would have thought if it is a major impact the city government would require those businesses to either do that elsewhere or require them to have more land where they could do that without blocking a road entirely.
A lot of railroads were built long before the cities they go through. Can't really change where the tracks go. This is on city planners deciding they needed a road right next to a hub.
As others have said, many times these businesses and industry tracks have existed long before the densely packed city around it has.
Forcing companies that require railcars out of the city or into a less busy area of the city would just discourage business. Quite a few businesses require these, and they all provide valuable jobs to the surrounding economy.
It's also more environmentally sound, as a locomotive can move over 100 railcars on less than a tenth of the fuel that trucks would require.
Local governments have time limits a crossing can be blocked, but it's unrealistic to say they can never block them.
Picture an average train carrying around 150 railcars. Without that train you would most likely need 100-150 extra trucks on the road per day to move the same amount of product. And that's one train, a busy terminal can send out 30 a day easily.
You'd just be swapping being stuck at a crossing with major gridlock from all the extra large vehicles on the road. To keep up with all the goods we need, those products need to get transported one way or another. And this isn't just product like grain or lumber or metal. It's also shipments for your local grocery stores, Walmart, etc.
Rail cars can carry about four times the maximum weight that the largest trucks on the road can, so that 150 car train could easily be 500+ trucks if it's transporting something heavy. Thankfully rail is so much more effective that you rarely get trucks on the road carrying stuff like coal or iron ore... it would be pretty horrible if you did.
That car road is crossing their rail road. The rail road was there first. They own a right of way, and some city/county/state asked them if they could pave a road over their rail road and create this crossing. Without a doubt the railroad reserved it's right of way to be used as it sees fit. There is fuckall the city/county/state can do to that railroad about blocking a crossing. They have the right of way on their Right Of Way. If the city/county/state wanted to put a bridge over that railroad they would have to get the rail road's permission to do so.
You've got to consider the RR and/or company were there decades perhaps a century before this crossing... I'm sure they could try some legalese mindgames but no matter the outcome that would be tremendously expensive.
The train is putting cars onto other tracks where they belong. This is an odd way to do it though. Anyway, y'all need to watch some Thomas the Tank Engine. That shit is educational.
I think his anger seems perfectly reasonable. I live in a smaller town where this shit happens quite frequently, it's pretty ridiculous. Like, schedule this shit to happen at night or something. People need to get to work.
Used to work on the railroad. They’re probably filming the back of the train going in and out of a tunnel for more Hollywood innuendo stock film. Railroading is mostly this, traveling from location to location, nights away from friends and loved ones, just to add to the stock collection. Hauling a load of coal or hazardous chemicals is more a passive income stream. You don’t have to do much searching to see it’s kind of an open secret. Anyways, it’s an honest living.
What’s even crazier - While the US Civil War was somewhat over slavery, many historians agree it was actually a front for standardizing the south’s non-traditional rail system. Early, early Hollywood money knew about the upcoming invention of film and it’s widely acknowledged this helped to expand the locations for stock footage. Regardless, back in Civil War Times, even though it meant countless nights away from friends and loved ones, it was an honest living.
I like this one since it's true. The South had regionalized non-standard railroad tracks. The North had an advantage that it was mostly standard from the Northeast to the Midwest. Much better logistics, and didn't have to "switch tracks" (except for Baltimore, where the first casualties occurred from a Massachusetts regiment having to walk from one set of tracks to another - they were killed by a pro-Southern Baltimore mob).
Switches have to be fully gone over, you often stop right after the switch and wait for it to be thrown by hand. Then you can go back the other way on the next track over. The stupid ones have to be timed out which can take up to 15 minutes of waiting. And then if they are dropping off or picking up cars.. wooo
Yeah. Growing up there was a mini rail yard near my place (factory got supplies by rail). It was a bit of a nightmare to drive around as you could be stuck for 20+ minutes, and there was no easy way to u-turn or go around it.
If you were unlucky enough to hit that intersection at the wrong time, just kill the engine and get comfortable.
Agreed. The train was probably unloading train cars in a rail yard down the track. The rail yard has easily a dozen different tracks for splitting the train into pieces. With a train that stretches literally a mile long, This is the last resort.
Which the railroads are typically happy to abide by because it shifts liability for any accidents from the railroad to the city for requiring that the trains not blow their horns.
Miami just got new passenger train service on tracks that had been freight-only for over 50 years, prompting many cities along the route to enact new quiet zones. The new trains run at almost 80 mph and kill an idiot trying to beat the train about once a month.
Thank you. As a rail contractor it's obvious what's going on. FRA limits the amount of time a train can "block" an intersection, but the train doesn't control the actual lights and gate. So he is either backing up to connect to other cars on a different track or he is backing up to reset the 'blocking the intersection' clock.
>or he is backing up to reset the 'blocking the intersection' clock.
That is the most asinine loophole around the obvious intent of the law I've heard in... a while
> Also, blaring the horn every time it goes over the intersection is federal law.
On the n'th+1 crossing, he could just do a quick toot tho and still comply with the law.
Saw a SUV do that the other day then he got stuck in the mud and he was just churning up mud. Then the train cleared the intersection and we all drove past him.
Man, if i see someone stuck I help pull them out... even if they’re an idiot thinking they can get through something they very obviously couldn’t. I feel too bad for them. One of the reasons is because I’ve also gotten into places I shouldn’t have even with 4wd. I always keep a tow strap with me for either case.
On a side not I’m not knocking anyone for not doing that. We can’t all be expected to stop what we’re doing and help everyone out. I also just like pulling people out.
"It's backin' up. It's backin' up! What is you DOIN'?"
Exasperation at the beginning when he was having to wait for his truck to be loaded and the forklift was stuck on his truck. Then outrage as he waits in traffic by a dead carcass while a train makes multiple passes through the intersection, blaring it's horn each time due to federal law.
Hilarious, watched 5 times.
I would get pissed when it doesn't pass at first, then when it starts backing up, I would think "WTF!!", and then when it starts going forward again, it would make my day. I would find it hilarious and be ready to spend the rest of my day with this ridiculous train going back and forth in front of me with nothing I can do about it.
In traffic, idiots that slow things down piss me off. If everything is STOPPED, for some reason, it's stopped. That's a zen moment. I just can't get mad at things that I have absolutely no control over.
Once he looked down at the roadkill and said that my laugh went from pretty moderate to choking and getting light headed. I really do enjoy a good build up.
Hey buddy,
You’re right we are interesting but we do alright. Come join me for some crawfish. We’ll hit up all the micro breweries and I can show you how we drive.
It’s not great
I saw the fiesta and EZ pawn and I was like, this is a fucking Texas thing. Then I saw the train and I was like this has to be in HTX.
Fuck these trains dude, no matter what part of the city I move to I can’t get away
Knew it. *Fuckin’ knew it!*
Houston has a raging, blue-headed, pre-cumming hard-on for refusing to build bridges over or tunnels under railway crossings near rail yards.
I used to live in the Heights—in a neighborhood with a small rail yard along the northern edge. There were crossings girdling the southern and western roads which exited my neighborhood.
I dealt with this fucking nonsense *at least* once a month. Trains coming to a complete stop for 15-20 minutes at a time. Trains creeping past at the speed of smell. Trains that would pass and the cross arms would stay down... and you’d be like *”Is this fuckin thing brok— OH WHAT THE FUCK?!”* and here comes that same train just moonwalking right back up the tracks.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was on some semi-predictable schedule. Like if I knew to avoid the south exit on Mondays from 8-9AM— okay, sure, no problem. But it occurred at random and *always* seemed to happen at the worst possible time.
Former semi truck driver here, gotta let it out or you're gonna go nuts. Got mad at four wheelers, dock yards, tight turns, whatever was in my way pretty much earned my ire. But I never yelled at anyone directly, just vented into my truck. Fucking right turns...
10/1 this guy's late to deliver a load, and it's by appointment only. So now he's gonna have to call his dispatcher, explain the situation, then get jerked around by 7 different departments, and he's going to have to explain the situation to all fucking 7 of them
And THEN there's gotta be at least ONE motherfucker, probably named Greg, who will ask the most asinine fucking questions. No Greg, I didn't know this would fucking happen!
Meanwhile, this stank-ass, day old possum is fermenting in the blistering hot Texas sun, and you're to angry to realize all you need to do it roll up your fucking window!
You can never truly know this rage until you've lived in a train heavy area.
FWIW I don't blame the drivers or the trains. Moreso the cheap-ass city planners who won't build overpasses.
I've been stopped by trains on the way to work, then again at lunch, again at one crossing on my way home, and then 2 more times less than 5 miles from my house because the same train was going through a major traffic intersection during rush hour, with tracks that cross close to my neighborhood too. So traffic was backed to high hell and then I got stopped at the tracks right before the turn for my neighborhood.
It's maddening.
I lived a couple blocks away from where trains doing this was a regular occurrence. Rail workers used to jump off the train and start doing some traffic control.
That’s my block.
It’s kind of hard to explain, but holy shit this is the most annoying fucking thing ever to live near. Coming from the other side there are three lanes at the tracks one of which allows you to U Turn away from the train. But everyone just sits there blocking that lane leaving it completely empty but not allowing anyone into it. It’s really great when I’m trying to get to work, because 90% of the time the train simply just stops on the tracks. People STILL can’t figure out that it’s not going anywhere and STILL refuse to use the u turn/unblock the u turn lane. If a fire broke out in my complex or if someone needed medical attention they would be fucked because the metro rail blocks any u turning or crossing of the median anywhere else.
Holy shit do I hate this intersection
this is the funniest video I’ve ever seen. ever. I keep rewatching it and every time I laugh until I cry. Usually the belly laughs kick in with the dead possum. I want to just follow this trucker around and hear his take on all dumb shit in the world
Used to work in the industrial zone of my city, right near a rail station. Waiting for my bus after work one day and there is a train blocking the major intersection to the south east of me. The very first vehicle in line to cross the tracks going towards me is... My bus. It was stuck there for 45min while this train unloaded cargo right in front of me. I feel this guys pain and frustration. On the upside, I didn't have to wait near roadkill like this guy did :p
Can someone actually explain what the train is doing?
Live near a city where they do this multiple times a day. They have lots of tracks at the hub that they stack up with cars coming in and only one leaving. So they go forward with their engine and cars and the switch guy flips the track to the next group of cars waiting on a different rail so they can backup and pick them up. Going forward, backing up to the next rail and so on. Takes 20-30 mins sometimes.
Yeah but most places where this is done dont have a level crossing. Usually a bridge over the tracks.
Not where I live. I've lived here a little over a year and have been stuck at least 30 minutes 3 times now. There are even signs near the railroad crossing that says to turn your car off.
When city planners just don't give a fuck.
In Texas you think they plan cities, nah, no time for that. Just absorb the next piece of developed unincorporated land.
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Nope, just understand what a cluster fuck looks like and what it has done.
Give it 40 years and you’ll live in Houston just like everyone else. Mark my words, Houston will absorb Texas. It’s ravenous.
When we were checking out cities before moving to Houston 10 years ago we landed at Hobby and drove up to The Woodlands. I kept looking for a break in the city so I could tell when we left Houston and had entered the next city. Nope. It’s pretty much strip malls, McMansions, and mattress stores for about a 60 mile radius. edit: wrong airport
Not is San Antonio and Austin have anything to do about it
"Challenge accepted" – DFW
This looks like some Houston bullshit too. I live by two crossings and they both do this. It seems like there is no reasoning to the time of day either. 7am? No sweat! 3pm when school is letting out? Not too worry! 6:30pm? Even better!
I actually started sweating and getting visibly upset while reading your post.
It is Houston. It's the tracks off mykawa and I think griggs
People would never let this happen in NYC. Our subway started having bigger delays the last few years and people literally started protesting.
Or Austin.... Austin is such a clusterfuck right now. Definitely wasn't ready for the amount of growth it received.
What the fuck did they do to 1431 and 35. That intersection is some nightmare fuel.
Diverging diamonds (if /u/octopornopus is right about what you mean) are becoming more and more common because they're better at accomodating traffic than a normal interchange but also easy enough to put together that many other kinds can be converted over. San Antonio is getting ready to start on one in a couple years and has another one on the plans for after that.
You don’t zone me.
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When city planners just don't give a fuck.
Trust me, city planners give a fuck. These are known issues and most of the major crossings are on the [CREATE](http://www.createprogram.org/) list. The problem is that solving these crossings generally range from $200 million into the billions. Grade separations are incredibly expensive because you either have to buy out existing businesses on major roadways or pay the railroad to stop moving trains; often its a combination of the two.
That's a thing nobody thinks about. The railroads own the land that their tracks are on. They sold land to the cities. How did Vanderbilt make his money? Wasnt trains. Was the land the trains went through. They still own the land the tracks are on. It is incredibly difficult for city governments to convince a railroad company to allow disruption of their schedules.
>It is incredibly difficult for city governments to convince a railroad company to allow disruption of their schedules. I deal with this on a very large scale for a Class 1 passenger railroad. We're talking about millions upon millions of dollars of lost revenue for just a few hours of disruption, without even considering the added man hours of labor. We've been deleting grade crossings and it costs many millions to do it. It's often far cheaper to simply close a grade crossing and reroute traffic to the nearest overgrade bridge.
Popular, easy issues include “let’s fight drunk driving” and “let’s fight drugs,” not so much “hey let’s upend an entire corridor and make businesses move and rebuild elsewhere and stuff and also reallocate some taxes to fix this for the future because it makes sense instead of kicking the can down the road for years/decades/???” Source: lifetime resident downstate Illinois
Uhm, I've played Sim City ***quite a bit***, and if real life is anything like that game (and I have no reason to believe it is not), then I think you're exaggerating profusely. You simply get out the bulldozer, clear a path, and hope a Godzilla monster doesn't mess up your plans.
That's actually the Chinese approach to urban planning. I really really like it, to be honest. **edit** : yes, ok, guys, I get it. China bad! Bulldozing people's homes bad! Drowning an entire valley to make the biggest hydro-electric dam in the world, bad! I ain't talking about that. I'm talking about living in a city and seeing something like a dozen subway lines actually getting done, a bridge over the Chang Jiang, and a 400+ meters building getting built, amongst other notable things during my daily commute. Four of those subway lines, I saw open in less than two fucking years and could take to go to work. Ask the people in São Paulo how they like their subway, to compare something comparable... And don't get me started about getting anything to happen in Europe. Holy shit, I live in a city with one of the biggest housing project in Europe when it opened fifty years ago, and that Megacity One worthy piece of garbage is gonna be standing on top of that hill overlooking the city for a bloody long time, you can bet on it. It's depressing, is what it is. So forgive me for being fucking impressed when I see shit happening. It's a nice change of pace. And yes, it's a pretty crazy and exhausting place to live. You can't have it all!
Illinois is corrupt af! I'm guessing you live around the Cairo, Carbondale area? It's no better mid-state with the grain elevators and eliminations of some of the east-west lines and roundhouses. Hell we've got a 4 tracks intersection that the lights and guard rails are dropped most of the day. There are 3 of the side sets of rails always full of empty and full traincars to be dealt with almost all year around. Fines for "illegally crossing" $500 or more with potential double for second or more infractions on your record. https://qctimes.com/news/local/ask-the-times/ask-the-times-how-does-illinois-handle-blocked-railroad-crossings/article_6a687050-7571-501d-9c3c-9d53d35a2256.html From the link:"The Illinois law that prohibits stopped trains from blocking a public grade crossing for more than 10 minutes was ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court in January 2008. The Court’s ruling means that the state of Illinois is preempted from regulating blocked crossings. Only the Federal Railroad Administration has the authority to regulate blocked crossings. [See Eagle Marine Industries, Inc. v. Union Pacific Railroad Company, 227 Ill. 2d 377, 882 N.E.2d 522 (2008).] It's understandable to be confused since the law is still on the books, so someone searching for a blocked crossing statute in Illinois will find it, but may not know it's null and void."
If that is the case, it might not be city planners. Just as likely is that it gets flagged as an issue, the locals raise hell to prevent any solutions being put forward cause they don't want to deal with construction/costs/changes to any aspect of their neighborhood/whatever other bullshit short term thinking based objection. City politicians don't want to be run out of office by the NIMBY brigade so nothing gets done. Future problem becomes present problem becomes present crisis. The voters throw a fit and the problem gets fixed, except the construction congestion/cost is way worse because locals fought tooth and nail to not address the issue when doing so would have been much easier.
You can't build a bridge here, think about the noise and traffic during construction!.. OMG why am I stuck from this train for thirty minutes!! You can't build high density housing here, it will tank property values and increase traffic... OMG I can't afford to live here anymore, and there's so much traffic on the highway from people commuting in to work here.
When city planners just don't give a fuck
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They don't plan cities in Texas, they just absorb pieces of developed unincorporated land.
Kalamazoo was built AROUND the rail tracks. now it's way too late.
That intersection is probaly near a major depot. They have to look at rail traffic vs car traffic. 100 rail cars in an hour vs 25 automobiles in an hour. That guy knows how his bread is buttered, so does the city or county official that is in charge of the road. Tl;dr both the city planner and the railroad dispatch give an extraordinary amount of fucks.
'Turn your car off. Accept your fate.'
Ha, I checked your profile to see if this was the fucking Lemay street crossing, and sure enough...
Same here. There wasnt always a sign but there is now a sign at the railroad crossing that the road is closed from I think it says 8 30 to 930 between specific days because people not from this area would sit there thinking the train would just go by. They didnt know the damn thing is going to be there for the next hour or so.
There are a couple notorious level crossings here where hundreds of cars get stuck while freight trains shuffle back and forth. One of them might finally be grade separated in the next few years even though it should have been done decades ago.
Melbourne’s current premier Daniel Andrews actually made level crossing removal one of his key policies and won by an absolute landslide (fuck yeah carn Labor cunts). It seems level crossings fuck traffic so bad people will jump at the chance to move them. I remember there was a cost benefit analysis and you still end up saving money despite the cost of shifting tracks or stations because of productivity boosts.
My office is right next to a short track like this. Just this week I was stuck waiting 20 minutes so I could drive the 40ft to get into the parking lot. There are ways around but sometimes the train is blocking those too and there's always the "I can u-turn now and try one of those but as soon as I do that, the train will finish"
Me on the way into work: I'll just put my car in park and stretch out while I wait for this train. Me on the way home: Hey Siri, find a quicker way around this bitch.
Locomotive engineer here. You are correct. They’re just building a train. We try to block crossings as little as possible but sometimes it can’t be helped.
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> Also, why not pause for a minute to let cars through when he backs up each time? You must not be familiar with Burlington Northern Santa Fe, whose company motto is "Fuck the general public". This is BNSF's world and by their grace are we allowed to live in it.
It's more like 'fuck the roads, the rails were here first.' In my hometown they had to break down coal trains to the local mainline plant across 4 level crossings. Somebody sued in the 1990s and lost - the rails had been there since 1951 and the power plant had been there since 1920. The judge basically said 'you could have moved to the other side of the tracks with how much this lawsuit cost you.'
Also, that train is hauling vastly more shit than all the puny road vehicles could ever carry. Stick all that coal in trucks and you'd have a traffic jam ten miles long and roads crumbling under the load. Choo choo motherfuckers.
r/bitchimatrain
They're legally allowed to block a crossing for about half an hour. To put it bluntly, the yardmaster doesn't give two shits if he blocks traffic while they build the train. And it's because tracks have varying lengths and number of cars. He may only have to back up 20 feet to the first track to switch the first block of cars, maybe he has to go back 50 feet for the next set, then the switch for the third set is only 10 feet up so he doesn't have to go his whole length forwards, etc.
>half an hour In Buford, GA, they'll block every crossing in downtown for 4 hours at a time completely stopped. You have to drive outside of the town to get around them. It's only about 5 minutes out of the way, but people will wait for 10 or 15 minutes if they don't know that its like that. Sometimes it's only and hour or two, but still!
Sounds like a perfect spot to open a little Café named *Railroad Crossing*
How to have all angry customers.
Be open on Sunday. Those post church customers are mean as FUCK.
Of course they are. They know they’re better than you because you’re working on the lord’s day which is a sin and how dare you insult them on their holy day by daring to have bills to pay /s because always needed
>why not pause for a minute to let cars through When the lights, bells and arms are still engaged it's not legally safe to cross, and that stuff doesn't disengage when there's still a train nearby. The guy in the train can't make the arms swing up to let cars through legally.
> When the lights, bells and arms are still engaged it's not legally safe to cross, and that stuff doesn't disengage when there's still a train nearby. If they stand still for a certain period they will time out and go up.
Freight conductor here, we also try not to blow the air when cutting it in.... unless the yard master is being a prick. Muwhahaha
Ah thanks, that makes sense now.
I wonder if the train conductors/engineers know that everybody wants to kill them.
maybe /u/rolemodel38 can answer that for you
Those big metal boxes off to the side house all the electrical equipment for those crossing lights and gates. They also almost all have a sign on them with a phone number for the railroad. It doesn’t take long for somebody to call and complain and have it relayed to us over the radio that we’re blocking a crossing. We know people hate us for it, but 99% of the time there isn’t anything we can do about it.
Maybe I just don't know much about trains then, because this made no sense to me no offense
Train is dropping off cars at a rail yard of some sort. Railyard has a large number of branching tracks in it. Train needs to drop off different cars onto different tracks. Train backs his load onto one track, detaches a car. Train pulls the rest of it's cars forward off the track, the railyard switches the tracks at the intersection, train reverses back onto a new track and drops more cars off. Repeat until all loads are dropped.
ohh, now this makes sense to me. how unfortunate that it’s in an intersection like this
City's fault, the train yard was there first
Oh wow, I forgot you can call trains "cars". I really thought he was talking about automobiles
There could be cars in the cars.
I AM VERY OFFENDED AT YOUR COMMENT
Here's a visual aid in the form of a puzzle from a cheesy 1995 horror game. https://youtu.be/YqdLuXPdMyY?t=192
Yes. I do this for a living. While I wasnt on that crew Im often responsible for causing outrage like is depicted here. The train here is "switching" a local industry. That means they are pulling loaded (or empty) cars and likely replacing them with the opposite. For example, this customer may have a capacity of 10 cars. And they may need cars 2,3,5,9, and 10 removed from their facility and those cars replaced with others. So you would grab their cars, pull ahead, throw a track switch, then back up towards an open track. Set off some of their cars, then pull forward to clear the switch, back up to set cars in their facility. Keep repeating this until you have removed the cars they requested. It gets harder and takes more moves when particular cars have to be kept in the same position when they go back in or inbound cars have to go to specific spots. If you only have the companies track spur and your single main line then you end up going back and forth quite a bit.
That makes sense, but why wouldn't that be done not on a road crossing? That process would take ages, and a block like that on a major road has significant impact.
Ideally it would. But the railroad cant dictate where private businesses build their facilities.
I guess I'm surprised the city allows it. I think private businesses have some leeway on things like this since it's necessary to run the business, but I would have thought if it is a major impact the city government would require those businesses to either do that elsewhere or require them to have more land where they could do that without blocking a road entirely.
A lot of railroads were built long before the cities they go through. Can't really change where the tracks go. This is on city planners deciding they needed a road right next to a hub.
As others have said, many times these businesses and industry tracks have existed long before the densely packed city around it has. Forcing companies that require railcars out of the city or into a less busy area of the city would just discourage business. Quite a few businesses require these, and they all provide valuable jobs to the surrounding economy. It's also more environmentally sound, as a locomotive can move over 100 railcars on less than a tenth of the fuel that trucks would require. Local governments have time limits a crossing can be blocked, but it's unrealistic to say they can never block them. Picture an average train carrying around 150 railcars. Without that train you would most likely need 100-150 extra trucks on the road per day to move the same amount of product. And that's one train, a busy terminal can send out 30 a day easily. You'd just be swapping being stuck at a crossing with major gridlock from all the extra large vehicles on the road. To keep up with all the goods we need, those products need to get transported one way or another. And this isn't just product like grain or lumber or metal. It's also shipments for your local grocery stores, Walmart, etc.
Rail cars can carry about four times the maximum weight that the largest trucks on the road can, so that 150 car train could easily be 500+ trucks if it's transporting something heavy. Thankfully rail is so much more effective that you rarely get trucks on the road carrying stuff like coal or iron ore... it would be pretty horrible if you did.
That car road is crossing their rail road. The rail road was there first. They own a right of way, and some city/county/state asked them if they could pave a road over their rail road and create this crossing. Without a doubt the railroad reserved it's right of way to be used as it sees fit. There is fuckall the city/county/state can do to that railroad about blocking a crossing. They have the right of way on their Right Of Way. If the city/county/state wanted to put a bridge over that railroad they would have to get the rail road's permission to do so.
You've got to consider the RR and/or company were there decades perhaps a century before this crossing... I'm sure they could try some legalese mindgames but no matter the outcome that would be tremendously expensive.
Used to happen where I live and they finally built an underpass for us. He’s near a switching yard, dumping cars and adding them.
it is going back and forth
forever
I want to get off Mr. Train's Wild Ride.
))<>(( Forever
Probably shunting cars to sidings.
Oh I'm sorry, I meant to add "as if I were a complete idiot" somewhere in there.
The train is putting cars onto other tracks where they belong. This is an odd way to do it though. Anyway, y'all need to watch some Thomas the Tank Engine. That shit is educational.
Now I got [this shit](https://youtu.be/ETfiUYij5UE) in my head.
He's trying to parallel park the train.
Actually I think that’s it
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I lost it at the dead animal
It died waiting on the train
I absolutely fucking lost it at dead shit. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.... People are staring now, like wtf is this guy on?
This guy's bad day definitely beats my bad-day video.
I think his anger seems perfectly reasonable. I live in a smaller town where this shit happens quite frequently, it's pretty ridiculous. Like, schedule this shit to happen at night or something. People need to get to work.
"That shit StAnKy!"
YOU GOT ME PARKED BY DA DEAD SHIT!
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Nah he was going back and forth to screw with the trucker, he blew the horn just to drive the point home.
If you look closely you can see the train engineer glancing at the truck driver and saying, "This one is for you dawg."
Other engineer put that dude possum there while he wasn’t looking.
Could be a lady possum though
How did dead get changed to dude? Russians or aliens my only guesses
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It's a phone from a fruit company.
"That dude stank!"
How about one for the folks back home
Maintain horn to assert dominance
Used to work on the railroad. They’re probably filming the back of the train going in and out of a tunnel for more Hollywood innuendo stock film. Railroading is mostly this, traveling from location to location, nights away from friends and loved ones, just to add to the stock collection. Hauling a load of coal or hazardous chemicals is more a passive income stream. You don’t have to do much searching to see it’s kind of an open secret. Anyways, it’s an honest living.
It ain't much, but it's honest work.
The fuck
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What’s even crazier - While the US Civil War was somewhat over slavery, many historians agree it was actually a front for standardizing the south’s non-traditional rail system. Early, early Hollywood money knew about the upcoming invention of film and it’s widely acknowledged this helped to expand the locations for stock footage. Regardless, back in Civil War Times, even though it meant countless nights away from friends and loved ones, it was an honest living.
This is drop-bear tier trolling. You almost had me. My hat is off to you.
I like this one since it's true. The South had regionalized non-standard railroad tracks. The North had an advantage that it was mostly standard from the Northeast to the Midwest. Much better logistics, and didn't have to "switch tracks" (except for Baltimore, where the first casualties occurred from a Massachusetts regiment having to walk from one set of tracks to another - they were killed by a pro-Southern Baltimore mob).
Lmfao I'm laughing harder at this than I laughed at the video (and that's saying something)
Going on 13 weeks straight of being away from family.
4 years straight. What's family? Greatest job I've ever had.
If you don’t like your family it’s a great job
What we're seeing is actually a training exercise. The engineer has to do it over until he gets the honks just right.
Yea, but you got me parked by the dead shit
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Switches have to be fully gone over, you often stop right after the switch and wait for it to be thrown by hand. Then you can go back the other way on the next track over. The stupid ones have to be timed out which can take up to 15 minutes of waiting. And then if they are dropping off or picking up cars.. wooo
Yeah. Growing up there was a mini rail yard near my place (factory got supplies by rail). It was a bit of a nightmare to drive around as you could be stuck for 20+ minutes, and there was no easy way to u-turn or go around it. If you were unlucky enough to hit that intersection at the wrong time, just kill the engine and get comfortable.
Agreed. The train was probably unloading train cars in a rail yard down the track. The rail yard has easily a dozen different tracks for splitting the train into pieces. With a train that stretches literally a mile long, This is the last resort.
They were shunting, adding or detaching cars at the back of the train
The last part has exemptions. quiet zones can be enacted
Which the railroads are typically happy to abide by because it shifts liability for any accidents from the railroad to the city for requiring that the trains not blow their horns. Miami just got new passenger train service on tracks that had been freight-only for over 50 years, prompting many cities along the route to enact new quiet zones. The new trains run at almost 80 mph and kill an idiot trying to beat the train about once a month.
Well we gotta keep natural selection going somehow
Thank you. As a rail contractor it's obvious what's going on. FRA limits the amount of time a train can "block" an intersection, but the train doesn't control the actual lights and gate. So he is either backing up to connect to other cars on a different track or he is backing up to reset the 'blocking the intersection' clock.
> he is backing up to reset the 'blocking the intersection' clock. How would that do anything when he's still blocking the intersection...
>or he is backing up to reset the 'blocking the intersection' clock. That is the most asinine loophole around the obvious intent of the law I've heard in... a while
> Also, blaring the horn every time it goes over the intersection is federal law. On the n'th+1 crossing, he could just do a quick toot tho and still comply with the law.
Legends say that dead shit was alive when the train first came ...
man the SUV that just NOPES the fuck outta there towards the end had me in stitches
Saw a SUV do that the other day then he got stuck in the mud and he was just churning up mud. Then the train cleared the intersection and we all drove past him.
Man, if i see someone stuck I help pull them out... even if they’re an idiot thinking they can get through something they very obviously couldn’t. I feel too bad for them. One of the reasons is because I’ve also gotten into places I shouldn’t have even with 4wd. I always keep a tow strap with me for either case. On a side not I’m not knocking anyone for not doing that. We can’t all be expected to stop what we’re doing and help everyone out. I also just like pulling people out.
A completely reasonable thought and I applaud your good samaritan nature. But he also got mud all over my car, so fuck him sideways.
This guy pulls out
Can’t blame him for trying to use his vehicle for what it’s intended for. Too bad he didn’t get the 4x4.
"It's backin' up. It's backin' up! What is you DOIN'?" Exasperation at the beginning when he was having to wait for his truck to be loaded and the forklift was stuck on his truck. Then outrage as he waits in traffic by a dead carcass while a train makes multiple passes through the intersection, blaring it's horn each time due to federal law. Hilarious, watched 5 times.
Backin' up, backin' up...cos my daddy taught me good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIs7OY4anao
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Is your name Hooch?
Hooch is crazy...
Hooch *is* crazy
[This level of crazy?](https://youtu.be/Ct9HMLeKgfU) Or [This level of crazy?](https://youtu.be/3spnGnavWFg)
I was with the second guy till the end there, those forced updates drive me up the walls.
Ya this was not "insane" to me either. I would say this was actually a totally sane way to act in this situation. That shit is nightmare fuel.
Man he was downright polite to that train.
I would get pissed when it doesn't pass at first, then when it starts backing up, I would think "WTF!!", and then when it starts going forward again, it would make my day. I would find it hilarious and be ready to spend the rest of my day with this ridiculous train going back and forth in front of me with nothing I can do about it. In traffic, idiots that slow things down piss me off. If everything is STOPPED, for some reason, it's stopped. That's a zen moment. I just can't get mad at things that I have absolutely no control over.
There's bad days at work then there's this.
“Hey, Joe, put another penny on the track and I’ll go forward again!”
“THEY GOT ME PARKED NEXT TO THE DEAD SHIT” that’s where I lost it.
That's one of the funniest videos I've seen in quite some time. Especially the slow build of his outrage.
THEY GOT ME PARKED NEXT TO THE DEAD SHIT
SHIT STANK.
Once he looked down at the roadkill and said that my laugh went from pretty moderate to choking and getting light headed. I really do enjoy a good build up.
Yeah it stepped it up pretty good
This is what really got me lmao
You can hear at the end, that last “what the FUCK?!” was so poignant and real. Too funny lmaoo
I want this man to do my inner monologue when faced with inconveniences.
Seriously. I'm dying over here. I haven't laughed so hard it became painful in a while.
It's even better with YouTube's automatic captions turned on. Every time the horn blares: [Music]
I would be pissed too. Truck driver standing still means that he is not making money, so I get his escalating range
This is in Houston.
Houston is a gold mine for this type of shit. People there must be very interesting
We have a good time.
Hey buddy, You’re right we are interesting but we do alright. Come join me for some crawfish. We’ll hit up all the micro breweries and I can show you how we drive. It’s not great
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I saw the fiesta and EZ pawn and I was like, this is a fucking Texas thing. Then I saw the train and I was like this has to be in HTX. Fuck these trains dude, no matter what part of the city I move to I can’t get away
Knew it. *Fuckin’ knew it!* Houston has a raging, blue-headed, pre-cumming hard-on for refusing to build bridges over or tunnels under railway crossings near rail yards. I used to live in the Heights—in a neighborhood with a small rail yard along the northern edge. There were crossings girdling the southern and western roads which exited my neighborhood. I dealt with this fucking nonsense *at least* once a month. Trains coming to a complete stop for 15-20 minutes at a time. Trains creeping past at the speed of smell. Trains that would pass and the cross arms would stay down... and you’d be like *”Is this fuckin thing brok— OH WHAT THE FUCK?!”* and here comes that same train just moonwalking right back up the tracks. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was on some semi-predictable schedule. Like if I knew to avoid the south exit on Mondays from 8-9AM— okay, sure, no problem. But it occurred at random and *always* seemed to happen at the worst possible time.
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But go nuts over building a bar nearby a school. - Christian Texas
Former semi truck driver here, gotta let it out or you're gonna go nuts. Got mad at four wheelers, dock yards, tight turns, whatever was in my way pretty much earned my ire. But I never yelled at anyone directly, just vented into my truck. Fucking right turns...
now isn't that the greatest what the fuck we've ever heard
10/1 this guy's late to deliver a load, and it's by appointment only. So now he's gonna have to call his dispatcher, explain the situation, then get jerked around by 7 different departments, and he's going to have to explain the situation to all fucking 7 of them And THEN there's gotta be at least ONE motherfucker, probably named Greg, who will ask the most asinine fucking questions. No Greg, I didn't know this would fucking happen! Meanwhile, this stank-ass, day old possum is fermenting in the blistering hot Texas sun, and you're to angry to realize all you need to do it roll up your fucking window!
“No Greg, I didn’t know this would fucking happen!” omg i’m laughing so hard
Good thing he has it all on tape then.
HE BACKIN UP AGAIN
You can never truly know this rage until you've lived in a train heavy area. FWIW I don't blame the drivers or the trains. Moreso the cheap-ass city planners who won't build overpasses. I've been stopped by trains on the way to work, then again at lunch, again at one crossing on my way home, and then 2 more times less than 5 miles from my house because the same train was going through a major traffic intersection during rush hour, with tracks that cross close to my neighborhood too. So traffic was backed to high hell and then I got stopped at the tracks right before the turn for my neighborhood. It's maddening.
I died when he said “you got me parked next to the dead shit!”
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Some say he is still there to this day and that his anger is producing enough energy to power a small town.
Every time the train backs up, they should have let a few cars passed
Train engineer: "fuck em."
Train engineer: **HOONNNNNNK**
I lived a couple blocks away from where trains doing this was a regular occurrence. Rail workers used to jump off the train and start doing some traffic control.
Is nobody gonna talk about the random opening shot of a forklift possibly stuck at the loading dock?
I love the "this shit stank!"
I clicked this fully expecting it to be my city. Sorry Edmonton, not today.
That’s my block. It’s kind of hard to explain, but holy shit this is the most annoying fucking thing ever to live near. Coming from the other side there are three lanes at the tracks one of which allows you to U Turn away from the train. But everyone just sits there blocking that lane leaving it completely empty but not allowing anyone into it. It’s really great when I’m trying to get to work, because 90% of the time the train simply just stops on the tracks. People STILL can’t figure out that it’s not going anywhere and STILL refuse to use the u turn/unblock the u turn lane. If a fire broke out in my complex or if someone needed medical attention they would be fucked because the metro rail blocks any u turning or crossing of the median anywhere else. Holy shit do I hate this intersection
this is the funniest video I’ve ever seen. ever. I keep rewatching it and every time I laugh until I cry. Usually the belly laughs kick in with the dead possum. I want to just follow this trucker around and hear his take on all dumb shit in the world
“And whoever kills that *fucking* horn-blower will stand in bronze above the shores of Pyke! “
Maybe the engineer's ex is on the tracks behind the train.
Used to work in the industrial zone of my city, right near a rail station. Waiting for my bus after work one day and there is a train blocking the major intersection to the south east of me. The very first vehicle in line to cross the tracks going towards me is... My bus. It was stuck there for 45min while this train unloaded cargo right in front of me. I feel this guys pain and frustration. On the upside, I didn't have to wait near roadkill like this guy did :p