[GingisK]

Back in the late 1950s, when I was only five or six, I put a large stick on the tracks and then sat down nearby to watch. (Steam engines were still used) A train came around the bend, then the sounds of breaks screeching started along with reverse wheel movement on the locomotive. It stopped short of the stick. The engineer climbed out of the locomotive, pointed right at me, and told me in flowery terms to get the stick off of the tracks. The guy from the caboose took me to my mother.

There were a lot of sparks on display that day, but none from the train. I didn't do that again.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

When my grandmother was a little girl in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, she would roll down this steep hill and across some railroad tracks a distance down the hill as trains were approaching.

One day, she did this, and the shocked engineer stopped the train and took her home to her mother. Now, my great grandmother was a tough lady, and I’m pretty sure grandma probably had trouble sitting down for a while afterward.