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Posted on 07/15/2025 3:48:01 PM PDT by Morgana
Florida's beloved Brightline has been dubbed America's deadliest train after it was revealed to have revealed killed someone on average every 13 days.
In total, a staggering 182 people have died and 99 were injured on the tracks since 2018, leading to furious finger-pointing and calls for further safety measures around the notoriously deadly rail line.
Another 101 collisions into vehicles mercifully ended without causalities, according to an investigation by the Miami Herald and WLRN.
The high-speed trainlines first victim, 18-year-old Maddie Brunelle, died eight years ago after being struck by a Brightline train. Her mother, Amy Brunelle, continues to fret over the tracks that line Florida.
'What scares me is how much open track there is,' Brunelle told the Herald. 'And how close it is to public areas.'
Her daughter, who was bipolar and in a manic state, had walked out of a treatment facility and headed toward the tracks.
Still, the area of track where the teenager had died remains unfenced.
Brightline's dangerous reputation has spurred controversy for years, and as the first few deaths occurred in 2018 the company faced backlash for 'victim blaming.'
In Brightline's first week of service, 51-year-old Jeffrey King had been struck and killed on a bicycle in Boynton Beach, making him the fourth death at the hands of the train line at the time.
US Rep. Brian Mast called the company out for it's public comments that people such as King had not payed attention to the safety warnings at crossings.
'Stop victim blaming and take responsibility for the fact that your trains are killing people,' Mast tweeted at the time. 'Trains should stop running until massive safety flaws are resolved.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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You **can’t fix stupid** (or mental incapacitation).
No doubt the local governments there DEMANDED the train, so as to increase their ‘green’ cred. So now what, they’re changing their minds or something?
Double track and no crossing gate or even crossing lights even way out in the sticks?
I don’t think so. I vote for Jim Beam and watch me beat that train.
I had to look that one up because it was so stupid.
TRAIN KILLS 9 TEEN-AGERS ON L.I. AS VAN GOES PAST CROSSING GATE
March 15, 1982
here is an excerpt
Nine teen-agers in a van that apparently drove around a flashing railroad crossing gate were killed early today when a Long Island Rail Road train plowed into the van and hurled it 150 yards down the tracks, the Nassau County police said.
The victims, friends since childhood, had been classmates at local parochial schools and still lived within blocks of one another. Today friends and family members walked to each other’s homes seeking comfort.
A 10th teen-ager in the van survived, suffering a fractured skull and leg injuries when she was flung onto the tracks by the dieselpowered locomotive. Train Was Going 65 M.P.H.
The five-car train was traveling east at a normal cruising speed of 65 miles an hour and was unable to stop in time to avoid the collision, according to the railroad.
The survivor was identified as Kathleen Caemmerer, the 17-year-old daughter of the late John Caemmerer, a Republican State Senator from the nearby community of East Williston. Mr. Caemmerer died last month of cancer. Miss Caemmerer was listed in critical condition in the surgical intensive care unit of Nassau Hospital.
It was the worst collision in decades at any of the railroad’s 305 grade-level crossings, where there were 10 fatalities last year and 10 the year before. Railroad officials said there had been fewer such incidents in recent years because of the construction of elevated track. But they said they had no plans to eliminate the grade crossing in today’s accident.
Two of the teen-agers were trapped in the cream-colored van, the police said. The eight others were thrown free. ‘’I went to one person and he was dead, and I went to another and she was alive,’’ said Jeffrey Weigel, who owns a restaurant about 500 yards north of the tracks and ran to the scene moments after the crash.
‘’She was moaning,’’ he said. ‘’The most I could do was help’’ by handing supplies to the paramedics who worked to save her life. The engine smashed into the passenger side of the 1981 Ford Econoline van, shearing one rear wheel from its axle, touching off a small fire and throwing the van down the tracks. Before it came to rest against an embankment on the north side of the tracks, the van rolled over the rail that carries 600 volts of electrical power for the trains. The police said it did not appear that any of the victims had been electrocuted.
The dead were identified as 19-year-old Joseph Grammas, the driver, who lived in New Hyde Park; Daniel Barrick, 19, of Mineola; William R. Harte, 17, of East Williston; Peter Hodgson, 18, of Mineola; Stacey Lindeen, 19, of Garden City; Gerald Mallick, 18, of New Hyde Park; Maureen Nolan, 17, of Hempstead; Christofer Ryan, 19, of Mineola, and James Spinelli, 18, of Mineola.
The trains are not deadly. Foolish people do foolish things and get killed.
Blame the people, not the train.
Tommy played piano like a kid out in the rain
Then he lost his leg in Dallas he was dancin’ with the train
They were all in love with dying they were drinkin’ from a fountian
That is pouring like an avalance coming down the mountian
“They make it sound like the trains are getting off the tracks and hunting people down.”
They don’t?
“Assault” rifles do......
I know two people killed this way less than 45 years ago.
People really are this retarded. Can’t seem to figure out that trains only run on train tracks
Keep racking up those Darwin Awards.
I grew up in Wallingford, Connecticut, a town of about 40,000 people over 100 square miles. The train line, which carries Amtrak and freight (but NOT Metro North) runs parallel to Route 5, the main street.
The trains horns blare when passing through, but nonetheless, pedestrians and bad drivers and their passengers sometimes got killed.
Each time, it was stupidity on the part of the one killed. I remember one woman was killed because she was walking on the track with a Walkman headset on.
So, I did a look up on Perplexity AI:
In 1992, three people were killed when a car was struck by an Amtrak train at a railroad crossing.
As of August 1992, a total of eight people had been killed in crossing accidents in Wallingford since 1985.
In 2012, a 21-year-old man, Giovanni Policard, died after being struck by a train near the Wilbur Cross Parkway.
In 2016, two individuals (Brittaney Tine, 24, and Robert Webb, 29) died after being hit by an Amtrak train.
In September 2020, a person was struck and killed by a train in Wallingford
Wikipedia’s list of major rail disasters in the United States from 1910–1919 also includes a 1913 accident in Wallingford, Connecticut, involving a stopped local train and multiple expresses, and it notes “86 deaths and 127 injured”—though some reports aggregate counts from multiple accidents or may refer to nearby towns
In my lifetime, all crossings had at least lights, and most had crossing gates as well. In my early childhood, there was a watch tower by the train station before it was all automated.
Sometimes the lights would stay on past there time, or go on when there was no train, but I have never known them to fail.
These are all due to negligence on the part of the pedestrians/drivers.
I sure hope this topic doesn’t go off track.
I’m sure someone will tie this all together for us though.
These Brightline trains are deceivingly fast. Like Amtrak 70 mph plus fast. In the congested urban areas of Palm Beach County it catches you by surprise to see something moving so fast. Recently a fire truck was hit in Delray Beach, no fatalities. Though the victims are usually doing something wrong, it’s wrong by a margin of error slimmer than most have ever experienced.
In this house, we obey the Law of Conservation of Momentum!
It would hard to think of a danger easier to avoid than getting hit by a train.
Most of these deaths are suicides. I was on Amtrak heading to New York when somebody jumped in front of our train. My business partner’s teenage son was on a train outside of Philly when someone deliberately walked in front of the train. Very common method of suicide.
It has been known to happen!
A friend of mine is an engineer for Union Pacific, he said that a panic stop takes several miles.
Many choose train tracks as their suicide venue.
You engineered those puns nicely....
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