This article reminds me of an accident between a van full of teens and a Long Island Railroad train back about ‘78. The driver decided to race the train to the intersection , which was gated and had flashing red lights and clanging bells. He and the ten or fifteen others lost. That van spewed bodies for a hundred yards or some damn thing. To hear the media tell it for weeks afterward the fault was with the LIRR . They pounded away on that note until people were sick of it.
If you can’t stay out of the way of a train I don’t know who or what can help you.
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.
” To hear the media tell it for weeks afterward the fault was with the LIRR . They pounded away on that note until people were sick of it.”
I remember that one. They drove around the gate. One of the kids was the child of a powerful politician. The crossing was finally replaced with an underpass.