We live just a few blocks from THREE grade crossings - two gated, one little used one that leads to a short dead end street with one blind approach and just the old white sawbucks. The Paces Ferry crossing is at one end of our neighborhood, the Woodland Brook crossing at the other, and Paradise Shoals (the unlighted crossing) right in the middle. I cross one of them at least twice every day, and sometimes far more often. I respect the heck out of them.
Heard from one of my neighbors about an incident that happened before we moved here. Fellow was in a hurry to get home from work, jumped the gate at Paces Ferry, and was hit and killed instantly by the locomotive, which pushed his car about three quarters of a mile down the track and off an embankment into his own back yard. His wife found him in the wreckage. My neighbor said, "She was never right after that . . . "
Folks, think before you jump the gate.
More years than I like to think about, I was station at Aberdeen, MD. A passenger train hit a car on a crossing at 80mph cutting the car into right at the dash board. The driver sat in his car and watched an entire passenger train go through his car. He was a little shook up.