[modeleng] Re: Crash-Full size.

On 6/20/07 10:25 AM, "Barrie Purslow" <bpduo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Interesting comment Al. Are your railways plagued by this type of accident?

Crossings in the US are lucky to have half-barriers, and fencing is rare.

"Operation Lifesaver" is a national non-profit dedicated to try and reduce
accidents ( http://www.oli.org ) and while the number of accidents has
declined significantly over the years, according to a May 30th update
a person or a vehicle is struck by a train in the United States
approximately every two hours. The numbers on the web site make that
every three hours (2,897 a year) so I assume the rest are pedestrians
(I take it these are individual incidents rather than headcounts).

It's horribly common for people here to drive around the barriers. The
majority of rail traffic is probably these enormous freight trains that just
don't - can't - stop; 100 car trains weighing 6,000 to 10,000 tons with a
stopping distance of up to a mile. There is a wonderful analogy in the OL
safety tips that points out the weight ratio of an automobile to a train is
proportional to a soft drink can and an automobile...

Tim
-- 
Tim Kirby                   trk@xxxxxxxxxx


MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST.

To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, 
modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

Other related posts: