A Semi truck ran the crossing today and collided with a Amtrak train in Nevada 200+ passengers on board, the train caught fire.
Idiot!
NM-Jeff
Jeff-
I don't care what you're driving, unless it's another train, you're gonna lose if you try to occupy the same space at the same time with a train. It knocks me out that people still don't understand that.
My Dad worked for the Central in the 1940s and then the Santa Fe until he died so, unsurprisingly, he was in several train wrecks. I've got official pictures from the Santa Fe wrecks and you just wouldn't believe the damage.
-- D
I will never understand why people take those risks, I knew train/car collisions were high, but on the news today they said some type of train collision happens on average every 100 minutes, I had to rewind and watch it again... to make sure I did not hear it wrong.
NM-Jeff
I saw it on the news too. I don't think it is just any old collision though.
I saw this on the news as well. They said the truck hit the train. Usually it's the other way around. They said one passenger and the truck driver were the only fatalities. I don't understand how someone can actually hit a train unless your blind. And they were superliners of all things. More shiny, taller and longer than most frieght cars. It just boggles me.
Blink-
"I don't understand how someone can actually hit a train unless your blind."
I think a lot of people are blind. How often you hear of somebody running into a police car while the officer is stopped to write a ticket and all the lights in the world are flashing on the squad?
-- D
Just saw a report on this on the NBC Nightly News. NBC's film made it look like the whole consist of the train burned. NBC also suggested that there might be more deaths. :(
Can a driver be cited for violating Newton's Laws of Motion?
Quote from: Blink_182_Fan on June 25, 2011, 02:38:27 PM
They said the truck hit the train.
In the immortal words of Sancho Panza, "Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it's gonna be bad for the pitcher."
Saw the story when I was out of town. Two passenger cars were burned , the one confirmed death was a railroad employee on the train . The driver of the semi also died in the crash. The NTSB and other government agencies were going to be investigating for about 10 Days. They were going to have to check the burned out passenger cars for more bodies. The truckdriver left skidmarks from slamming on the brakes but was a little to late. J2
Last I heard this morning the official death toll is up to six, I believe, including a "conductor," and they think there may be more bodies in the burned-out cars. :( I also heard they're having trouble accounting for everyone.
(I put conductor in quotation marks because I don't trust TV news to get the job titles correct for all the employees on a train like the Zephyr.)
vehicles crashing into the sides of moving trains are not as rare as you'd think. when i worked with the railroad it happened to us twice.
How bad did the cars burn? From what I saw on the news there was a fire on the side of one car. And there can't be that many dead because they all most likely ran away from the fire while inside the car, unless the car just instantly burned.
Blink-
"they all most likely ran away from the fire while inside the car"
...or it instantly was turned into scrap metal.
-- D
I saw two that looked gutted and burned through the aluminum skins.
NM-Jeff
Nice one Doneldon. Anyway, that's surprising NarrowMinded how they looked gutted.
I was reading an article a couple days ago, which accused the cars involved to be unstable. From looking at the pictures it appears every car remained upright and on the track. I'm very sorry for those involved, but the media has really blown this out of proportion.
I haven't heard or read anything about the cars being unstable in ordinary use. I did hear a report on TV that the condition of the burned cars was considered dangerous to emergency personnel and thus was hindering the search for additional casualties, but the report didn't elaborate on why or how the cars were dangerous.
the instability may come from the heat of the fire damaging the structural integrity of the cars. this would be especially true if they are made out of aluminum like many freight cars are.
The media is having fun with this story for a few reasons. The main reason is due to the government's recent findings on Osama Bin Laden's computers and the ties to terrorist documents and their topics being attacking American Railroads. The media sees this as a way to say this incident was an attack. The media loves to jump to conclusions. It happens all the time, it is one of the ways they make their money.
Quote from: BillingsRR on June 30, 2011, 05:30:43 PM
The media is having fun with this story for a few reasons. The main reason is due to the government's recent findings on Osama Bin Laden's computers and the ties to terrorist documents and their topics being attacking American Railroads. The media sees this as a way to say this incident was an attack. The media loves to jump to conclusions. It happens all the time, it is one of the ways they make their money.
I have seen no reports that even remotely characterized this accident as a terrorist act. Perhaps others have, but I haven't.
QuoteI have seen no reports that even remotely characterized this accident as a terrorist act.
I have not either, the day of the accident there was speculation, but after that They just say they were trying to find out why the driver only applied the brakes at the last second.
A lot of people are unaware that late model vehicles have a "black box" it's part of the vehicle computer, it tracks speed, braking, motor rpm, airbag deployment, Etc.
Not sure what year the truck was though it may have had it.
NM
The reports that I have seen that trucking company had a poor record.
My local news channel for FOX loves to jump to conclusions all of the time. Their program is where I heard the classification of it as a terrorist act, I don't believe it, but the staff at FOX does. Yet, wasn't FOX the one who reported Obama was killed by the US Government instead of Osama? So again, never sure how accurate their "reports" are. I can't stand their host so I never watch their program, but I did watch all of my local channnels for coverage of the train collision to get more information.