Discuss Detroit » Archives - January 2008 » Wow, another death by Amtrak « Previous Next »
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Lilpup
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Username: Lilpup

Post Number: 3274
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 11:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think I wrote on here about the weirdness of being on a Chicago-bound train that struck a bicycle. Just the thought of hitting someone was depressing, though they assured us the bike was riderless and had been left too close to the tracks (the later newspaper report read the same).

Fortunately I wasn't on board for today's "trespasser incident" (Amtrak's euphemism).

It seems to happen a lot in Ann Arbor.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/ news/15025418/detail.html
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Flanders_field
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Username: Flanders_field

Post Number: 9
Registered: 01-2008
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 11:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I watched a "faces of death" type video a while ago. where a woman inadvertently walked in front of a moving train...she was obliterated, much like dropping a rotten pumpkin from a 10th floor window onto the street...

Trains are nothing to mess around with, or even try to beat at a RR crossing, it is very difficult to judge the speed that they are traveling.

I used to work for a railroad and checked tracks with railcars constantly being moved on sidings and in railyards in all kinds weather and at night as well as in daylight and gained great respect for the sheer mass and power of locomotives.
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 4808
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008 - 11:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

There is a particular location on the Michigan Line (near CP-Town Line--Greenfield Road?) where at least two obvious, unrelated suicides occurred. The "victims" simply walked onto the track before the oncoming speedy trains.

(Message edited by LivernoisYard on January 10, 2008)
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 1042
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 12:42 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That is a particularly heinous form of suicide, since it has more than one victim - the people who do this obviously don't understand the effect this has on the train engineer, who commonly is bothered by the incident for the rest of his life.

It has been happening, of course, almost since there've been trains.

The "car trying to beat the train" thing is a harder nut to crack. People looking down the track see the train but have no idea how fast (or slow) it might be going, and decide to try to beat it. Frequently that is the last decision such a person ever makes.

I grew up near Schenectady, NY, where the City fathers had the foresight to grade separate every single railroad crossing over a hundred years ago. When I came to Detroit, I was astonished at the major-road grade crossings, since I had never seen such a thing. (Example: Eight Mile near Groesbeck. I was stunned the first time I saw the traffic backup at an afternoon rush hour as a train went by; this before I-696 was completed when the Eight Mile traffic was much worse.)

But growing up when General Electric still actually made things and therefore had lots of trains coming and going, I had great respect for the trains and had seen how large and powerful they were. Actually, upstate New York and south-central Michigan have something (related to this) in common: two of the only at-grade railroad crossings on an Interstate highway that ever existed. In NY, I-87 had a railroad crossing at grade just south of the Mohawk River for a time; in Michigan, it was I-94 out near Jackson or Kalamazoo someplace. Very odd.
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Zimm
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Username: Zimm

Post Number: 41
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 12:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

i believe there was a pedestrian fatality late the other night in Ferndale at the Woodward Heights crossing.
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Lilpup
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Username: Lilpup

Post Number: 3275
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 12:57 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^^ I'd be hard pressed to find that accidental unless alcohol or an elderly person was involved. That's a wide, multi-track crossing.

(Message edited by lilpup on January 11, 2008)
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Zimm
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Username: Zimm

Post Number: 42
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 12:59 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

i think it happened around 3am. either drunk, suicide, or vagrant
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Everydayislikesunday
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Username: Everydayislikesunday

Post Number: 354
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:29 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20080107/NEW S05/80107009
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 4810
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 2:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It appears that the many of the reader comments in the Freep made Ferndale the butt of a number of jokes, according to the fair number of censored posts.
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 1253
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 9:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Lilpup-- Your post sounds as if you expected the Amtrak train to stop on a dime. By the time a crew sees something like a bicycle fouling the track-- especially with the many curves and limited visibility ahead in Ann Arbor-- it's impossible to avoid hitting it. Have you any idea of the time it takes to stop thousands of tons of train?

You find fault with the term "trespasser incident," when by definition, anybody leaving anything on the tracks was trespassing.
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Peachlaser
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Username: Peachlaser

Post Number: 146
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 11:40 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've always had respect for trains and have not tried beating them across an intersection. But, in a similar situation in L.A. Harbor, aka Hurricane Gulch, I was crewing on a racing two-man catamaran and we went over. Looked up and there was a huge freighter heading straight for us! Getting a catamaran righted in heavy wind can be challenging, but seeing a freighter bearing down on you adds a huge degree of stress in the situation. I once heard that aircraft carriers cut their engines when five miles out and then coast into the harbor because of their mass and momentum. These huge freighters probably do the same since it takes them so long to stop. So, with trains and freighters, one should not toy. If we had been hit by the freighter, it would of been totally our own fault.
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 4319
Registered: 02-2005
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 12:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think he/she was just pointing out the interesting terminology. I don't think they implied what you are suggesting, Burnsie.
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Melody
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Username: Melody

Post Number: 67
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 12:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I can't believe there are still so many train crossings in places as populated as Ferndale and Hamtramck. It's so annoying to wait for a long train that is going under 10 miles an hour (it happens alot). It's 2008, build a bridge! It'd help traffic flow and it'd be safer for people walking/biking around the area. Or would it be too expensive and not worth it?

Also, the people on that Freep forum are bananas, that stuff is worse than some of the neo-con comments I've seen around here.
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Focusonthed
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Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 1597
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

It's 2008, build a bridge!


Melody, the only problem is that it was much easier to simply "build a bridge" in 1908 than in 2008.
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Melody
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Username: Melody

Post Number: 68
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That's why I asked...I don't know how much the hell bridges cost :-)
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Lilpup
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Username: Lilpup

Post Number: 3276
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Your post sounds as if you expected the Amtrak train to stop on a dime"

It does? How so?

"You find fault with the term "trespasser incident,"

I don't find fault with it, just found it, um, unexpected(?), different(?), no matter how legally correct

"Have you any idea of the time it takes to stop thousands of tons of train?"

Given that I studied engineering for six years and earned a couple of degrees in it - yeah, I have. I also know the Ann Arbor rails quite well.
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 1254
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Lilpup, I re-read my post and now it's obvious that I didn't read your post carefully enough. My apologies.
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Novine
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Username: Novine

Post Number: 333
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"That's why I asked...I don't know how much the hell bridges cost"

How about $15 million? That's the cost of the Sheldon Road underpass in Plymouth.

Building one in a place like RO or Ferndale where you literally have to tunnel under the tracks in a built-up urban area is going to cost you a ton of money. Look at the debacle going on with the Sheldon Road underpass in Plymouth and that doesn't have anywhere near the complexities of building a bridge or underpass would in Ferndale or Royal Oak.

http://www.hometownlife.com/ap ps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080 106/NEWS15/801060481/1032
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 1781
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 1:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Grade separation is much more than a bridge. A train needs a smooth, nearly slopeless track to travel on. Adding a bridge may only cost tens of millions, but shoring up and regrading a mile or so of track is a very expensive proposition indeed!
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Focusonthed
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Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 1602
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 3:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It makes one appreciate the projects in which entire cities rail networks were raised above grade 100 years ago. What an undertaking, and usually done while the rail line continued to be active.
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Johnlodge
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Username: Johnlodge

Post Number: 4572
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008 - 4:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't find trains that inconvenient. I actually like being stopped by a train now and then. But one time, the train that cuts accross main street in Royal Oak just stopped there, parked. I had to make my way to the one bridge over on 11 mile to get around it.

Not positive, but I think that train supplied the Wixom Ford plant as one of its stops, so it probably runs less or is shorter than it was.
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Novine
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Username: Novine

Post Number: 334
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 12:01 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Not positive, but I think that train supplied the Wixom Ford plant as one of its stops, so it probably runs less or is shorter than it was"

Which train? The Ferndale/RO train? I would guess not. The Wixom plant is on the CSX and that line runs south to Plymouth. The line though RO and Ferndale is the old Grand Trunk Western and is now owned by Canadian National.
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 4818
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 12:49 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Conrail SAA and connections
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Billybbrew
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Username: Billybbrew

Post Number: 308
Registered: 07-2005
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 6:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I always found it very progressive that almost all of the Southwest Side of Detroit has the rail above grade. This was done in the early 1900's back when the land was less developed and it was easier to do so. But I still think it took alot of foresight by the railroads. Unfortunately one of the side effects of their foresight is the inevitable flooded viaducts when we get heavy rains......
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 4825
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2008 - 6:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

BBW: The long stretch from Delray to the Boatyards is at grade and there were times when fatalities occurred there. Also, the Forman Wye leading into Rougemere. Plus, the Michigan Line by us at Central, Lonyo, Kronk, and Southern is at grade, too. And, of course, those tracks by your places of work...

Those elevated areas at Lonyo and Central were partially hump classification yards.

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