NTSB releases preliminary report on Virginia train crash involving Congress members

WTKR ^ | 21 Feb 2018 | Staff

[9YearLurker]

All those streets were blocked for the VIP train. No truck got there without it being meant to.

[AnAmericanMother]

Union rules, probably, it being Jersey and the home of Frank ("I am the law!") Hague.

Grew up in Atlanta, old railroad town, dad was a railroad buff, I married one too - the South had relatively few gate crossings (most were just sawbucks and it's on you to watch for the trains!) and they were automated pretty early.

[Olog-hai]

Funny how “Stop, Look, Listen (And Live)” at the railroad crossing (emphasis on “Stop”, or so it was in the past) is lost on so many people these days.

Federal law still stipulates that the engineer of a train has to blow a signal before getting to the crossing as well, except in the case of “quiet zone” crossings where the four gates have generally made a comeback.

[AnAmericanMother]

Our old house was inside a big sweeping loop of the CSX main line from Atlanta to Chattanooga. We had THREE grade crossings within earshot. Two of them were very close - 500' and 2000' respectively. Two had gates, one was an old sawbuck because there was really nothing on the other side but a couple of old shacks that homeless guys hung out at - and they didn't drive. Before the quiet zone the engineer pretty much blew continuously for Paces Ferry, Paradise Shoals, and Woodland Brook . . .

IIRC, what we heard when we encountered the fellow stuck on the track was not the horn for that crossing but for the crossing about a half mile north. Or maybe the one that's a mile further north of that . . .