While this incident was in all likelihood attributed to driver negligence, Metro North, having had two incidents within as many years attributed to their own causes, does not need this.
Here is Mr. Google's depiction of the scene where the incident occurred. Ask me, and it was an accident waiting to happen.
What is apparent is that the driver was not intent upon "beating the train", but rather she was confronted with a backup of traffic waiting at a traffic signal at a major thoroughfare. Her negligence, however, was that she X'd the tracks apparently without concern for whether there was a car length of space on the other side.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I thought all crossings with nearby traffic lights had been upgraded with pre-emption since that schoolbus-vs-train incident several years ago? However, that wouldn't have helped if the traffic was not moving regardless of the traffic lights. Visibility looks ok, even with the Google car camera height so I'm not clear where you get the idea it was an accident waiting to happen IF the pre-emption is there.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mr. Mayo, I believe you are addressing the 1995 incident along the C&NW (UP) that occurred at Cary IL and did involve a school bus that did not have room to clear the tracks. This resulted in stop signs being placed in my village (that some, even ten years later, "have yet to get it") and some "no stop" diagonally striped zones after X-ing in neighboring communities.
To continue, here is an X-ing at Michiana Shores, IN (Amtrak MP 224) that I have occasion to use several times a year, and which always has me "wary". Save the frequency of trains (8 Amtrak plus an NS freight "every so often"), this presents much the same conditions as were present at Valhalla.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, that is the incident to which I was referring.
I'll agree situations like that are contradictory: "do not stop on railroad tracks" and "stop at the stop sign" are not compatible instructions when you have anything longer than a car in such situations.
I was reading yesterday about possibly increasing the warning times for crossings. I can't remember where (I am currently jetlagged) but agreed that it probably wouldn't help as it would encourage more drivers to bypass the lowered barriers. The same article also said that European barriers lower a minute to a minute and a half before trains arrive which was somewhat misleading: manually operated barriers with CCTV and full barriers blocking the entire road, yes. Automatic half barriers akin to US style are pretty much the same: 25 seconds minimum for single track lines and 35 seconds minimum for double track lines.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I would regard a track having third rail, no fences, and grade crossings as somewhere between accidents waiting to happen and idiocy. At the least, this track should have serious fences on both sides. If they do not have a serious eliminate grade crossings, they should, and politicians that would oppose such driven from office.
Yes, given the proportion of stupid drivers and high train frequency, this was an accident waiting to happen even if the line was fenced. Also, what level of idiocy and by who resulted in the substation or whatever it is being placed so close to the track? The building does not look to be that old, either.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mr. Harris, it appears that the instigator of the incident is being portrayed as a responsible career woman, age 49, kids and husband, and a Bennie ML for a ride. I highly doubt that she was intentionally playing "beat the train"; she simply was "driving on autopilot"
But coming from one who once had a "closer shave" at an X-ing than I would like (Ms McFarland, at the NNYC Museum), I can understand how the incident occurred.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I should note that all grade crossings are accidents waiting to happen. What I was unclear on was why this particular one was any worse than any other. It would appear that the risk models used indicated it had a higher risk - but from traffic density, not from factors such as visibility which do not feature in the model apparently.
My wife nearly had an "interaction" with a crossing barrier. She'd stopped (I was the passenger) as the barriers came down but then the traffic lights, which were just one car length on the other side of the crossing, turned green. She saw the green lights and forgot the barriers in the immediate foreground. Luckily she only moved a foot or two before realizing. In that situation I don't understand why the traffic lights turned green after the barriers went down - very misleading with the reading-through risk.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Here is where my close shave occurred. Rotate this Google image and one can see how exiting the NNYC Museum, one is North of the South gate on Main Street.
First knowledge I had that a WB NS freight was coming (30mph if that) was when he blew for the X-ing. My reaction was "tramp it and skedaddle".
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
“Her family was everything to her,” Rabbi Benjy Silverman, co-director of the synagogue, said of Ms. Brody. “She was their biggest fan and supporter. Her beautiful soul always found beauty within others. She felt a deep connection with everyone she encountered.”
Her husband, Alan, and the couple’s three daughters took turns remembering Ms. Brody, 49, who lived with her family nearby in the Edgemont section of Greenburgh, and had worked in a jewelry store in Chappaqua, N.Y. Mr. Brody touched on the accident only once at the beginning of his eulogy, saying that his wife “was taken from us in a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.”
He also made a critical reference to the rail crossing where Ms. Brody drove forward into the path of an oncoming commuter train after she stopped to inspect a gate that had dropped onto her vehicle. The Brodys live in lower Westchester County, south of the crash scene, where there are fewer at-grade crossings.
“Ellen was on her way to meet a new client and somehow she wound up in a strange, unfamiliar place,” said Mr. Brody, a native of South Africa, referring to the crossing on Commerce Street, one of the streets onto which an accident on the Taconic Parkway had forced traffic on Tuesday. “I once drove there in that area and I remember thinking, ‘You know, this looks like my old home in Africa,’ ” he said. “I also remember thinking, ‘Are you kidding?’ Who could imagine that a major commuter railroad runs through this?”
The final quoted comment from Mr. Brody, reminds me of "The Harlem" I rode mostly Millerton or Dover Plains to White Plains circa 1954-56. Upper Westchester is mostly where the affluent went for their "Final Rest", hopefully in Peace. The Alco RS-3 hauling a handful of heavyweight Coaches, and making interminable stops, made me think what a "sleepy" line this was compared to the New Haven I lived along. Well, over the ensuing fifty years, the population of the "here" started to exceed that of the "hereinafter" giving rise to additional frequencies, hi level station platforms, and the electrification extension.
But in view of this horrific crash, evidently caused by a responsible woman with a career, family, and a Bennie for a ride, one has to wonder was the build out of The Harlem simply done too much on the cheap?
By on the cheap, I am addressing that Third Rail electrification, to my knowledge (somebody will find an exception - mass transit in NY and Chicago coming to mind), has only been used by the Long Island, Pennsylvania, and New York Central in the New York area and over grade X-ing free routes. The PRR abandoned theirs when the overhead system extending to Harrisburg was built.
But on both the Long Island and Metro North (NYC), third rail electrification was significantly extended on routes with grade X-ings - something never intended by private sector operators.
On both the LIRR and now NYC (MNR) there have been grade X-ing incidents that were magnified by third rail. Messrs. Cassatt (PRR/LI) and Wilgus (NYC) never intended for that. It will be interesting to learn if the Final NTSB Report will reference such.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Bearing in mind we can only go on media reports and suchlike, so we may be missing a fact here and there, but what possessed an apparently sensible woman to stay on the crossing when the gate came down on her vehicle? 99% of the time there will be a train coming within 30s - in this case at quite a pace. What kind of mindset, or lack of awareness/education, causes such a lack of judgement? Maybe back in her home town where she was growing up there was no "operation lifesaver" predecessor.
I still fail to see how the crossing itself could be a problem. By all accounts it was appropriately signed with reasonable visibility on both sides. Even if she started to cross and realised her exit wasn't clear, why not back up a little - okay, maybe the vehicle behind was too close, but if the driver of that vehicle had any sense, (s)he would have backed up too.
I suspect we may see more tidbits of information come out of this case which change the story somewhat.
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Backing into a car behind you or pulling forward into the back of the car in front of you beats getting hit by a train. I still think there are things we are not getting in the news reports.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:New Yorkers may not think railroad grade crossings have anything to do with them, but the city owes its immensely popular High Line to a campaign that began more than a century ago against the carnage caused by a street-level freight line.
In an era of bluntly descriptive place names — Hell’s Kitchen, the Tenderloin, the Gashouse District — 11th Avenue had the bluntest name of all: Death Avenue
I do, however, think The Times reporting is weak for even this "feature" article should point out there are Zero Grade X-ings over which mainline passenger trains X within NY City limits.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Family of the dead woman is to sue Metro North. FOX CT.
Apparently the fact there were crossing warning signs, barriers, lights, and all worked correctly still means it was a dangerous crossing. The barriers coming down on top of her car didn't cause her to think "uh oh, better get out of the way as a train's coming" but "let me get out of the car and inspect the damage".
-------------------- Geoff M. Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
The driver of a sport utility vehicle that was hit by a Metro-North Railroad train caused the accident that killed her and five train passengers when she drove onto the tracks in Westchester County two years ago, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday.
But the board said it could not answer a key question: why the woman drove forward into the path of the train after a crossing arm came down on her vehicle rather than back up.
Still, the severity of the accident was exacerbated by the track itself. The electrified third rail was constructed in such a way that the crash caused it to rip away and tear through train
The Board's site; "not there yet".
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
