#91 Train vs pick-up truck...1/31/2007

[Foodman53]

This morning, the southbound Silver Star, #91, struck a pick-up truck that has driven around the flashers and crossing arms at about 7:30am in Hilliard, Florida....about 25 miles north of Jacksonville. The driver, a 17 year old student in my 1st period(8:00am) class, drove his truck around the crossarms, and #91 knocked the front end completely off, scattering debris over a 100 yard radius. At the time. the "Star" was doing his carded 79mph. The debris also struck the sides of the locomotive and several cars, causing an estimated $30,000 damage to the train.

The young man and his two younger sisters walked away without a scratch(Thank God!!)

When I see him again, I'll be sure to let him know that I won't be mad if he's late to class!! :unsure:

From the "Florida Funnel"

Foodman53

 

[haolerider]

This morning, the southbound Silver Star, #91, struck a pick-up truck that has driven around the flashers and crossing arms at about 7:30am in Hilliard, Florida....about 25 miles north of Jacksonville. The driver, a 17 year old student in my 1st period(8:00am) class, drove his truck around the crossarms, and #91 knocked the front end completely off, scattering debris over a 100 yard radius. At the time. the "Star" was doing his carded 79mph. The debris also struck the sides of the locomotive and several cars, causing an estimated $30,000 damage to the train.
The young man and his two younger sisters walked away without a scratch(Thank God!!)

When I see him again, I'll be sure to let him know that I won't be mad if he's late to class!! :unsure:

From the "Florida Funnel"

Foodman53

He may not be late to class, but if he is I hope it is because he will working to pay for the damage to the Amtrak equipment. He was lucky and stupid, but mostly stupid!

 

[MrFSS]

...The driver, a 17 year old student in my 1st period(8:00am) class, drove his truck around the crossarms, and #91 knocked the front end completely off, scattering debris over a 100 yard radius.

I hope the class wasn't Physics. He would have gotten a lesson in the laws of motion real quick.

 

[Guest_RailThunder_*]

Well glad they were able to walk away. Might I suggest contacting Operation Lifesaver, Inc. www.oli.org and seeing if presentations could be done at your school?

 

[CSX Conductor]

Well glad they were able to walk away. Might I suggest contacting Operation Lifesaver, Inc. www.oli.org and seeing if presentations could be done at your school?

They should be countin' their blessings! The outcome could have been much worse! They should also know that not only did they put their lives in danger, they also caused a lot of delay headaches for both Amtrak and CSX trains! I was on the Q652 that day stuck on the mainline at Crawford with about eight other trains on the Callahan Sub because everything was stacked up on the Nahunta Sub! Screw up the "funnel" and it gets hairy very quickly!

That aside, I bet your friend will think twice about driving around lowered gates the next time! Glad to hear he is OK.

 

[Guest]

I detected a little bit of sarcasm in the initial post and frankly it just shouldn't be there. I was on the Lake Shore years back when we hit a semi truck going 60 + miles an hour. Debris was scattered for a 1/4 of a mile and the driver did not survive. Besides yanking the engineer off for drug testing (standard procedure) we waited in an Indiana cornfield for hours after the train had already been late about 4. We gave thanks that we did not derail, but the weather was growing increasingly worse (blizzards expected), food was being depleted, mothers didn't have enough formula for their infants, bottled water was gone, toilets backed up..it was a mess and we were going to Boston/NYC. It was a disaster and we ended up getting into South Station the next day. This eager trucker managed to put over 245 lives at risk, and even though it did not derail the train it made for a travel nightmare and cost thousands of dollars for Amtrak and its passengers. It was one of the worse experiences I have had on the rails and it had nothing to do with Amtrak. Use this as a tool to educate the people who want to challenge a train.

 

[Foodman53]

Trust me...there was certainly no sarcasm intended...just a big "thank you" to the man upstairs that the 3 kids are still alive!! While talking to my student on the second day after, he, like many others in the same location, go around crossarms all the time. We're just lucky that the whole town and school aren't right now preparing for 3 funerals!!

The investigating officer told me personally that the estimated damage to the train was possibly over $30,000, and although the kids' truck was insured....his insurance carrier will certainly try not to pay the damage, since the kid received 2 citations.....careless driving, and ignoring a traffic signal. He and his parents will be dealing with this for a long time to come!!

Yep, I'm sure that CSX's action all along the "funnel" was screwed up for a long while because of this. Hopefully, one young man...and all of his peers...learned a valueable lesson!!

From the "Florida Funnel"

Foodman53

 

[AmtrakWPK]

I thought I read somewhere that somebody (Highway Patrol, or maybe an Insurance company or Railroad ) had been taking the remains of a completely destroyed vehicle (hopefully complete with bloodstains) around to high schools in the U.S. Something like that would, (you would hope), get the attention of those teens with the immortality-invulnerability complex. Probably somebody complained that it was too traumatic. My response to that would be to point out the level of trauma that was inflicted on the driver of the destroyed vehicle, and the trauma that the incident also inflicted on his/her survivors and friends, and to suggest that the trauma involved in looking at it might well end up being beneficial if it worked as a deterrent.

 

[rmgreenesq]

The investigating officer told me personally that the estimated damage to the train was possibly over $30,000, and although the kids' truck was insured....his insurance carrier will certainly try not to pay the damage, since the kid received 2 citations.....careless driving, and ignoring a traffic signal. He and his parents will be dealing with this for a long time to come!!

Personally, I think the kid's insurance company will just get out their checkbook and write Amtrak a check. They have accepted the risk of teenage kids suffering from the invunerability/immortality complex doing something really stupid like driving around a flashing railroad crossing. Now you know why teenage driver's auto insurance rates are so high. They do stuff like this. I dont know much about Florida insurance law, but this kid may be uninsurable for awhile.

My daily commute takes me across a CSX grade crossing in Northborough, MA. The crossing is about 50' from a traffic light. Two cars can stop on the far side of the tracks. If I am car number three to this red light, I will wait on the other side of the tracks. I regurarly get honked at and yelled at to pull up to the car in front of me. Although the arms have never come down, I really dont want to be waiting for a traffic light when they do.

These kids are lucky to be alive.

Rick

 

[MrFSS]

I thought I read somewhere that somebody (Highway Patrol, or maybe an Insurance company or Railroad ) had been taking the remains of a completely destroyed vehicle (hopefully complete with bloodstains) around to high schools in the U.S. Something like that would, (you would hope), get the attention of those teens with the immortality-invulnerability complex. Probably somebody complained that it was too traumatic. My response to that would be to point out the level of trauma that was inflicted on the driver of the destroyed vehicle, and the trauma that the incident also inflicted on his/her survivors and friends, and to suggest that the trauma involved in looking at it might well end up being beneficial if it worked as a deterrent.

I'm retired from a large insurance company. They used to have a car hit by a train, another one hit by a semi truck, and others badly damaged they would show at schools, etc. Last I heard they stopped, but I never heard the reason they don't do that any longer.
Here is a picture I took years ago of a static display at Belleview, OH museum. Sort of gets the point across.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

I can imagine that his insurance will go through the roof for a few years, and rightly so, as he proved that like most teenagers he considers his own skills and judgment to be much superior to "the law". Sometimes I think it's amazing that they actually survive long enough to gain the wisdom that usually comes with maturity.

I've found that on the local mutli-lane road with a grade crossing that I semi-frequently drive on, if I set an example by stopping behind the limit lines, other drivers will do likewise, but if one car stops smack-dab on the tracks, so will everybody else.

It seems to me that if the local police would take a week every few weeks and just station some officers at that crossing and ticket everybody that blocked the tracks, that might start getting the point across to even the most stupid drivers that you don't block the tracks. They may not get the point that it's dangerous, but if you actively threaten their wallets, you'll get their attention.

 

[Amtrak OBS Gone Freight]

They should be countin' their blessings! The outcome could have been much worse! They should also know that not only did they put their lives in danger, they also caused a lot of delay headaches for both Amtrak and CSX trains! I was on the Q652 that day stuck on the mainline at Crawford with about eight other trains on the Callahan Sub because everything was stacked up on the Nahunta Sub! Screw up the "funnel" and it gets hairy very quickly!
That aside, I bet your friend will think twice about driving around lowered gates the next time! Glad to hear he is OK.

Hey dude, I see you found the boards! Hope to see ya on here off and on when I don't see you at work. If you are gonna be a regular try to register. It has its little perks. L8r.. OBS...

 

[Amtrak OBS Gone Freight]

I hate to say this, but personally I believe as long as there are grade crossings present on our railroad lines these kinds of incidents will continue to happen. One thing I have noticed since I began employment with CSX thus spending the majority of my travels up on the head end, it is absolutely amazing that more folks aren't maimed and killed than we already have! I see on average of at least one or two vehicles per trip driving around gates or crossing in front of the train (crossings without gates), with one close call over in Waycross just last week! People are just plain impatient out there on the road! As my coworker has already posted, anyone who survives an ordeal such as a train/car collision should "count their blessings!" OBS...

 

[D.P. Roberts]

I hate to say this, but personally I believe as long as there are grade crossings present on our railroad lines these kinds of incidents will continue to happen. One thing I have noticed since I began employment with CSX thus spending the majority of my travels up on the head end, it is absolutely amazing that more folks aren't maimed and killed than we already have! I see on average of at least one or two vehicles per trip driving around gates or crossing in front of the train (crossings without gates), with one close call over in Waycross just last week! People are just plain impatient out there on the road! As my coworker has already posted, anyone who survives an ordeal such as a train/car collision should "count their blessings!" OBS...

When I was in high school, our school bus crossed an ungated crossing every day. Somehow, our bus driver had misunderstood her original training regarding crossings: instead of stopping BEFORE the crossing, she stopped ON the crossing. She pulled the bus up onto the tracks, opened the door, and looked both ways across the tracks to see if a train was coming. We tried to point out that if a train was indeed coming, being stopped ON the tracks was the worst place to be. However, she adamantly refused to listen to us. Looking back on it now, we should have reported her to her superiors, but that didn't occur to us then.

I just wanted to tell this story to show that it's not only reckless drivers who can cause these accidents - plain old STUPID ones do too!

 

[AmtrakWPK]

She was probably one of those folks that believe that if you squeeze all the air out of a 2 liter coke bottle, then put the cap on, it'll keep the carbonation longer. They never think about what they thought they heard to see if it makes sense or not.

 

[MrFSS]

She was probably one of those folks that believe that if you squeeze all the air out of a 2 liter coke bottle, then put the cap on, it'll keep the carbonation longer. They never think about what they thought they heard to see if it makes sense or not.

It doesn't??? :lol: :lol: :lol: