Railway News:Death in Yorba Linda

[etaoin22]

Right near Placentia.

Attempting to turn from a street called Lakeview (Cowsills anyone?), onto a major street called Orangethorpe, a sixty-eight year old woman became (presumably) disoriented by the lights and utility poles and turned onto the railway tracks instead. She could not get off and was stuck, and seeing a train coming in what seemed to be a great distance, she called 9-1-1 rather than getting out of the car. She was still on line to 9-1-1 when the train struck, killing her.

The rail line is one of the old Santa Fe mainlaiens, now BNSF

What is interesting is that NBC affiliate, and then MS-NBC illustrate the story with a Canadian locomotive, #2416 of CN. Doesnt look to have been damaged, so may be at the head end of a different container train from CHI to the West Coast. A quick search shows this engine has in been as many different American places, almost as Hank Snow, both within the CN empire of American railroads and outside them.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local ... illed.html

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

Right near Placentia.

Attempting to turn from a street called Lakeview (Cowsills anyone?), onto a major street called Orangethorpe, a sixty-eight year old woman became (presumably) disoriented by the lights and utility poles and turned onto the railway tracks instead. She could not get off and was stuck, and seeing a train coming in what seemed to be a great distance, she called 9-1-1 rather than getting out of the car. She was still on line to 9-1-1 when the train struck, killing her.

That's right near my house. The tracks run parallel to Orangethorpe in this area. Near Lakeview I could see how somebody might get confused because there are some shanty type houses near the tracks.

Still, my first instinct if I saw a train coming off in the distance would be to get out of the car. I wonder if her door was stuck.

[etaoin22]

From this set of pics -- ironically from an Operation Lifesaver run -- one can see how if your car runs off the side of the street crossing the tracks onto the rail line's gravel, you are oodscrooay. From the map the final level crossing is Van Buren. I think.

http://www.trainweb.org/richard/OPLFEB1 ... age_2.html

Anyhow, that's enough riffling through the web's monumental amount of material on trains, and back to the unreal real world.

[ghostjmf]

I was once in a cab which was stuck on some tracks in Kansas City. I was in the back seat, as I was sharing the cab with another driver sent to pick up a car at the same place; I didn't pay for cabs on my own if I could anyway help it.

The cab driver had been engrossed in telling the story of watching a very famous building collapse in Kansas City a few years before, where the structure full of dancing people literally fell to the ground, in front of people waiting to take the dancers home, such as our cab driver.


There are a ton of little side tracks in KC, & none are fitted out with blinking lights & stay-back bars. We looked & saw a single train car coming toward us, very slowly.

The cab driver kept trying to do something to get the car moving. Eventually they did get the car moving, about the time "open the door & jump out" sprang into my head. The driver later said that they were trying to get the car moving by shifting a stick-shift the cab didn't have; their car at home had a stick shift. Seeing a train come bearing down on you, even a one-car train, does funny things to your head. I don't think it took either me or the driver, or the other passenger, all of whom could have opened our respective doors & jumped out, as long to think of jumping out as it would have taken to dial 911 & talk to someone. But you never know.

[Appa23]

That Kansas City collpase was the walkway in the Hyatt Regency at Crown Center. (I was surprised to discover that it occurred in 1981, as I was thinking that is was the latter part of the 1980s.)

[ne1410s]

Remember: if your car stalls on the RR tracks and a train is coming. run toward the train. Well, get off the tracks first...

[silvercamaro]

Remember: if your car stalls on the RR tracks and a train is coming. run toward the train. Well, get off the tracks first...

I've never before considered what would happen to the large bits and pieces if a train hit a car. You have given most excellent advice. If ever needed, I will heed it.

[ghostjmf]

And now that more of this comes back to me, not that I necessarily wanted it to (thanks etaoin!), the cab driver probably stalled out the cab in the 1st place by moving that isn't-a-stick-shifter lever; it really *was* the automatic gear shifter lever, & "park" is where "1st" would be in a stick-shift. So the cab driver had effectively put the cab into park while intending to gun it & out of Dodge (well, out of that part of KC, i.e. away from the train).

Either that, or they had a cab with the gears on the wheel (remember gears on the wheel) & they were stick-shift-attempting thin air, which is even scarier, in a way. I can't remember if I heard any trannie noises or not. I certainly expected to hear train-y noises any minute.

[ne1410s]

SC:

I've never before considered what would happen to the large bits and pieces if a train hit a car.

sliv, I have several golf friends who are also railroaders. Their stories are not for the faint of heart.

Tom