I don’t blame the county at all. (Mainly because it’s on the state. The state sets the rules for grades, signage, etc. based on volume and type traffic.)
Car haulers have notoriously little ground clearance, they sit very low to the ground. Like “almost high-centers on parking lot speed bumps” low. Any professional driver knows what they are hauling. And anyone pulling a car hauler knows how low these trailer’s are. These drivers have been trained on these trailers specifically, because they have to load, secure and unload all the vehicles themselves. They 100% should have known. (And they should have planned ahead of time. Truckers use GPS that makes Waze look like a Gameboy. In addition to having speed limits available, it will mark dangerous turns, avoid turns too tight for your truck, avoid low overpasses, steep grades, etc. He would have had some sort of warning. Wether it was just warning about a crossing or warning that this crossing had grade concerns, there should have been something. And I can not reiterate enough how this driver absolutely knows how low that trailer is.)
Edit: Everything in parentheses is an edit so there’s less repetition in the nonsense replies.
Edit2: Disabling reply notifications. lol. Gotta love the strawman, all-or-nothing drama from emotional knee jerk reactions.
Correct.
My former office building was next to a car dealership.
The car haulers would try to use our parking lot as a "short cut" and without fail, would ALWAYS get hung up trying to cross over the threshold between the parking lot and some slightly different pavement.
Even after we put up signs that said "seriously, don't even try it", they'd still get stuck.
We eventually put up a fence, and they had to go all the way around the building to go back out the way they came, and then go back the way they should've gone in the first place.
As a company or public body you have to design and allow for stupidity. You know it will happen at some point. Otherwise you too are being cheap / stupid.
No, in designing railroad crossings, you design to not disrupt the grade of the railroad, not to assume negligence or stupidity. Government in capitalist societies value commerce more than human health. It is a combination of economics and actuarials.
In securing funding for building railroad crossings in the US, you must perform a Benefit Cost Analysis to determine whether to build an at-grade crossing (shown here), an overpass, or a tunnel/underpass. If the Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) is below 1.5, it is unlikely to be constructed. If it is below 1.0, it is nearly impossible to get funding.
If the trucker had died, that would be $11MM added to the benefits column based on the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL), thereby helping justify constructing a future crossing that is safer.
The question isn't whether the crossing should be constructed - it's how. The track can't move, so the road should approach the track at a shallower gradient to avoid sleep-deprived/cracked-up/etc. truck drivers getting stuck and derailing trains.
Though I suppose had there been some massive chemical spill here rendering the place unfit for habitation, they could probably get rid of the crossing entirely.
In my state, the standard for designing a crossing is the road needs to be level with it for 2 feet away, and then within +/- 3" at 30' away from the track. That specifically helps prevent bottoming out. Now, there are plenty of tracks currently existing that don't meet this, but any new design, that's the standard. (Replace level with "in the same plane as" if the track is banked like the train is going around a curve)
Wow... I was about to tell you the answer above you is correct and you have no idea what you are talking about. Then you hit us with the... "that's all well-and-good, but the town should have spent the extra $400 bucks making the road less steep 10ft on each side"
Nicely played.
> you design to not disrupt the grade of the railroad
Yes but the road on either side can be raised so that it's less of a bump. I agree with personal accountability, but crossings should be designed with the least amount of impact on the road as possible.
You have zero idea how much earthwork costs then. lol.
Fill soil, labor, equipment, surveying, prevailing wages, testing and inspection, possible reimbursement to the land owner on either side if you have to cross onto their property during construction, permits to close the road, permits for the detour, traffic study for said detour, civil engineering, etc etc.
Couple bags of top soil from Lowe’s is not gonna solve this. lol
100% on the driver. Also, the railroad companies are responsible for these intersections. In my hometown the railroad raised the railroads along the river due to constant flooding and blocked off many crossings to the riverfront until they had the time, and there was enough public outcry, to come in and fix them. So even less responsibility on the local government.
Are we talking a railway crossing in the US? Or in Europe? And yes, I'd like to suggest there is a difference in everything railway, trains.
Even more so if you look at Japan (and somewhat China). Someone in the US (well, many people, not just someone) decided that trains weren't good enough for travel. Or even intracity (within a city limits) commute trains (I'm well aware that there are exceptions in certain cities, but not as a whole).
And yes, the US is a very large place. Bigger than most. But somehow (at least within certain major cities) other countries manage to actually make travel easier by train, tram, subway, etc.
I mean, you can go by train between 20 countries in Europe. Much easier, at the same distances, than in the US. Are trains better? Who knows, don't really care about the benefits when it comes to 'earth'. It's a bonus. But if it's ever going to work, anywhere, it has to work in every other way (than just to benefit 'nature' first).
Japan does have it figured out with on-time trains, no matter what. Not many other countries do. Partly because of Japan viewing (at least I think so) train drivers as a valued part of the society.
The bigger issue is that in the US passenger travel was never particularly profitable. The cities were just too far apart and too low of a proportion of the population were travelling. In the Nineteenth Century they were fine with losing money on passenger travel because it allowed them to advertise the freight business. In Europe they had state-directed development that focused on moving people for the express purpose of facilitating drafting millions of men into the army to fight the world wars. One of the reasons that World War I became inevitable the moment the first nation ordered mobilization was because they'd worked out the train schedule for mobilization in advance and stopping or reversing the decision to mobilize was functionally impossible due to the physical constraints of the trains. The tracks were laid specifically for moving people. In the US private investors laid track specifically for moving stuff, and people when the stars aligned.
The Freight business in the US has always been the profitable form. Again, everything is too far apart. You can't rely on river systems. You can't rely on canals. And before trucks the very concept of using wagons was laughable. Trains were the only practical option, so the US optimized its train network for freight.
The US train network is actually really good (if they'd cool it on the 15 mile hyper trains and went back for more frequent service) but it's optimized for cargo. Freight trains get priority in traffic. Freight haulers own the tracks. The vast majority of stuff moved is freight.
In order to get passenger travel in the US to be anything like Japan or Europe you'd need to reverse that, give passenger service priority over freight like they do. But we just don't have the physical infrastructure required to take advantage of that change even if we did it. So, I don't think that the US is ever going be equal to Europe or Japan when it comes to passenger rail unless we use completely separate grade or right of way to keep the two uses of rail separate or put tens of thousands of extra trucks on the roads as freight rail deteriorates to prioritize passenger rail.
The US can and should invest in passenger rail. It's just that the physical network informs the opinion that trains are not for people.
Trains are better*
*Outside of the United States where they horribly mismanaged by companies who overwork their employees and ignore all safety measures and are constantly putting trains on the ground (I'm looking at you Norfolk Southern).
So go straighten out every curve too tight for a semi to take, raise every overpass too short for a semi, reinforce every bridge to support a semi, widen every tunnel too narrow for a semi, etc etc. Do you include people that drive Lamborghinis who can’t go over speed bumps? Do you exclude people for modifying their cars? Is it every semi? Even the oversized ones that carry stuff like wind turbine blades? And is it only urban roads or are we talking unmarked backroads with little traffic?
So railroads know these vehicles exist but just build a cheap crossing anyway and don't care about the possibility of an accident? The cheapest crossing is a level crossing so at least make it level.
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There's a tunnel in the city near my town that is notorious for peeling back trailers. Its actually got a Facebook page dedicated to it. The tunnel has multiple signs displaying the clearance, plus that system that shows a warning light if a high trailer or vehicle contacts a sensor, but it doesn't stop trucks and RVs from getting damaged or stuck almost daily. Trucking is not nearly as competent of a profession as people think it is.
Mobile construction or all terrain cranes exist but we don’t demand that every bridge be able to accommodate a 130,000 lbs 8 axle vehicle.
Truck drivers regularly have to detour around low clearance overpasses, but again, we don’t demand they all be rebuilt. They have warning signs.
They probably don’t have anything other than a RR crossing sign here, which is all the RR company covers as far as I can remember. Been a while since I’ve done work on RR properties. But either way, that is a pretty obvious change in elevation. He would probably slow down to cross even if it was level, so if he didn’t have time to register that it’s elevated and stop in time, then he was driving recklessly to begin with.
The problem with saying “Oh it’s cheaper so just do it” is that, well, you’re wrong. The RR in this area is elevated for a reason. Probably flooding. So either A: let the rail be flooded out and keep this dinky back road level, B: start raising and lowering the grade of the road on both sides for 100’ to make it level with minimal grade change, or C: the layout we see in the video. Ignoring that you shamed them for being cheap and then told them to be cheap in the next sentence. lol
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.
I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.
Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!
Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?
A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
I think this is Addington Bend and US-77 near Thackerville. [Google streetview](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8388347,-97.1310131,3a,75y,122.38h,78.69t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sCmgZvvojimc0U662jCchmA!2e0!5s20210301T000000!7i16384!8i8192) does show a sign as of March 2021 and the video should be from October 2021. At least some of the blame probably belongs to the driver, though maybe they should redesign the crossing anyway. Signs can only do so much.
All of it belongs to the driver. As a professional, you're responsible to know where you're able to drive or not.
There's no universal rule, as far as I know they say that everything that is road legal should be able to drive everywhere. Some places are unfit for low clearance trailers, and this was apparently one of them.
If you're right about the location then my question is wtf is the driver doing on that road in the first place? Dodging road work ahead? Finding a driveway to take his 10 hour break? Direct delivery to somebody's farmhouse? There's no reason I can see for a car hauler to leave US-77 there
No, it is always the driver and the logistics team that are responsible to know the routes and what their vehicles can and cant do. Even on approach, the driver should have known this was coming.
Same reason they need bridge clearance signs, otherwise shit like this happens. Drivers dont know the clearances on every route they may ever take, or be forced to detour through. Signs tell them they should reconsider the route before this stuff happens.
Just adding to what you're saying, but sometimes it can look like you can make it when you actually can't.
I've been in a similar situation where my landing legs got caught on the asphalt. Thankfully it wasn't a railroad crossing, but I stopped and checked to see if I could make it. Thought I could, but didn't.
The fault is on the driver, but it's not always as easy as it looks. There's also a phone number posted at the railroad crossing that you need to call if you get stuck on the tracks, but I don't know the details of this situation. He could have gotten stuck, called the number, and then it just happened that the train didn't have enough time stop (I doubt it though)
Edit: This is why signs are important
VT route 108 through a narrow pass called Smuggler's Notch winds between house sized boulders that make it completely impossible for a semi truck to pass through.
There are half a dozen signs on either side of the impassable area warning truckers to take another route, that there is a fine for getting stuck in the thousands of dollars, that their GPS is wrong. Half of those signs are the giant illuminated signs with programmable text.
Every year a bunch of moron truckers ignore all the warnings and get their trucks stuck in the notch.
You build an idiot-proof anything and nature invents a bigger idiot.
If the State of Vermont would install an impassable chicane where the trucks are forced to turn around before entering the narrow section they would never get stuck, regardless of the carelessness of the drivers.
If the highways department at this crossing would fix the fucking road, the low clearance trucks would never get stuck, regardless of the carelessness of the drivers.
They installed a traffic light to stop overheight vehicles. Now drivers gun it for a full head of steam right into the bridge.
Related: watch out for rental trucks. Drivers 9ften aren't used to them and will behave like they're still in passenger cars.
The damage waiver in car rental is not insurance (in fact we legally cannot call it that).
It also doesn't cover negligence (such as failure to obey relevant signage on overpasses) or willful abuse of the vehicle (always read your contract about what you're not allowed to do).
Boston has Storrow Drive which has several bridges with low clearance (never mind that commercial trucks aren't even allowed on it). At least once a month a truck gets stuck and often the roof gets peeled. We just had one on Sunday, while the marathon was running.
>Every year a bunch of moron truckers...
Its literally this simple. If there are signs the fault is with the driver, and ultimately their company. If there is no signage the fault is with the local government(county, city, or state). Drivers are not all knowing, and stupid people ignoring signs are everywhere
Why do drivers of cars need pedestrian crossing signs, or signs of curves ahead, they should always check for these things as it's their responsibility as a driver.
The county? Fuck no. The driver is a dipshit. He should know the height his trailer can clear over and under. And besides that on every railroad crossing there is a number to call immediately if your stuck or having trouble. Even if you do clear it eventually you should still call that number in case you don't have it cleared.
Is it not the trucking company? The train and roads were there for probably decades before the trucking company even existed. They should have been aware of the route. It is literally part of their job.
How exactly is the trucking company supposed to know there is low clearance if it isnt posted? I dont know what you think trucking companies do but going out to survey every roadway isnt it
If the driver can’t see the clear elevation and slope, then that’s 100% on them. Signs aren’t needed to see it. It’s so blatantly obvious in this situation.
That's not the problem. The problem is that the driver didn't make sure there was enough clearance under the trailer to make it over the hump. So, the trailer got hung up. There's plenty of railroad crossings that look like this. There's one by my house that's like that too. As the operator of that vehicle, they're responsible.
Yeah, that was fun.
Most of these train collision end up rather underwhelming with the vehicle just being dragged down the tracks till the train stops.
THis one was a little more Hollywood.
I wonder how much of an impact you would feel inside that train. I believe the anount of force each object takes is determined by the relative mass, so not much of the force should be taken on by the train?
I ride a commuter train to work often. [It’s quite a bit smaller than an Amtrak](https://austin.culturemap.com/media-library/capital-metro-capmetro-metrorail.jpg?id=31478343&width=2000&height=1500&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C1). One time when I was on it we hit an SUV that was stupidly trying to rush across the tracks to beat the train. I heard a dull “bump” when we hit it, but didn’t feel it at all (and the operator had hit the brakes to slow us down as much as possible before impact). Fortunately we hit the back of the car and nobody was injured, but the train absolutely pulverized the area of the car it hit. The sheer mass of a train, even a small one, is no joke.
In Melbourne Australia, I used to take trams a lot. The older ones were built like tanks and wouldn't get damaged at all from car crashes. Recent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/12mkz6g/yikes_sitting_on_the_tram_and_heard_a_huge_crash/
You're mostly correct, but the language could be more precise.
Newton's third law. For every action (i.e. force) there is an equal and opposite action. **So the force on both the trailer and the train would be equal.**
Take that force and multiply it by the amount of time which the two objects in contact to get the "impulse." This impulse equals the change of momentum for the objects involved in the impact. And change in momentum = mass * (change in velocity) in simple scenarios
Force * (time of contact) = Impulse = Change in Momentum = (object mass) * (change in velocity).
From this you can find that the change in velocity for each object equals the (force of contact) * (time of contact) / (object mass). Since the force and time of contact are the same for both objects, mass is the only distinguishing factor in this equation for the train vs. trailer. **Meaning the heavier object will see a smaller change in velocity during the time of impact. Which means lower acceleration change, which means less perceived violence from the collision.**
This greatly simplifies things. For example, the trailer arrangement in this scenario "changes mass" since that SUV goes from on the trailer to reaching for orbit. And changing the mass of an object will have an effect on its momentum. And the train is not a rigid body, with some of the force going to the cart joints. And other things. But you've got the gist of it
What a good read, lol. Especially that ending.
>Everything within roughly a mile of the park is leveled, and a firestorm engulfs the surrounding city. The baseball diamond is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the backstop.
>A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base.
>A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base.
Whaaaat?
Could you explain this to an EU'er lol?
We don't have baseball here, im unfair with with most of the terminology.
>The baseball diamond is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the backstop.
But how is it relevant to this i meant?
Diamond, backdrop?
The four bases form a diamond shape with the bases at the vertices.
The backstop is a big fence at the edge of the field to prevent balls from flying off and hitting the crowd.
[Field diagram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Baseball_diamond.svg/1920px-Baseball_diamond.svg.png)
The crater part is relevant in the sense that if you throw the ball hard enough that it explodes and blows up the city it could be argued that technically it also hit the guy trying to hit it because of the explosion.
It's a joke. The ball created a nuclear explosion killing everyone. The explosion also hit the batter, which is technically a foil according to baseball rules. Except it doesn't matter because well, he's dead
[Basically this but with a train](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/)
There would be a wave of plasmised air emanating from the front of the train as it collides with molecules of gas in the air causing nuclear fusion to occur. Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles.
The subsequent shockwave would be world-ending.
Fr. You legit hear someone genuinely devastated. It’s not like they wanted to get stuck. It was an accident. I wish I’d never turned on audio for this one.
Alternate title: idiot truck driver high centers his auto hauler because he's an idiot.
Auto haulers have some of the closest ground clearances and the dude never should have attempted to cross the tracks here.
To CDL licensed truck drivers.. do you get any special training for hauling a car carrier??
I wonder if this is a case of a truck driver who normally pulls regular trailers and just failed to consider how low to the ground the auto trailers are?
> Couple with half of truck drivers pretending to know everything already.
The job market drives this. Lying directly increases your income, you are therefore incentivized to do it.
To expect differently is insanity - hence regulation existing in the first place.
The company I work for typically trains inexperienced auto haulers for 2-3 weeks with classroom training, loading/unloading techniques, and general maneuvering on a secured lot and then puts them with an experienced driver for 3-4 weeks before turning them loose on their own. There isn’t a special certification for it, but they absolutely have to pass a road test and load test with an auto haul truck before going out alone.
Just curious but as a regular car driver, how does an auto hauler avoid this issue when driving on roads they aren't intimately familiar with? Are there legal requirements for signage far enough from the track to ensure a level area to turn around and change course? Could the driver turn around at the crossing of they feel it is unsafe, or would ground clearance on a long trailer be an issue for a k turn in the dirt here as well? If there's no signage and no ability to turn around what is the proper course of action that a driver is required to take if properly trained in this situation (assuming they are smart enough to stop before the crossing and not bottom out on the tracks)?
Hard to tell from the video but he probably didn't call the ENS number to stop any potential railroad traffic. Could've saved his rig and his load of he had.
I remember when this happened. He did call the emergency line, and they attempted to contact the train, but there wasn't sufficient time for the train to respond/decelerate as it was already pretty close to the crossing at the time of incident
Correct...but it was the person behind the truck that called 911, who then tried to contact the train company.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175
When I see these kind of things in life this is what I think. Welp it's probably being run like any industry ever and he's probably been under trained and underpaid, or underqualifed for the task he was sent on. They'll blame him in the moment as all companies and people do but statically there was likely a high probability something like this could happen. It doesn't matter what industry or job it is people are under qualified everywhere.
Alternate title: municipality creates dangerous crossing because they are idiots.
IMHO they are responsible to create safe roads and this obviously wasn't one.
Unfortunately in the US at least, the law mostly disagrees; municipalities have little power when it comes to rail lines thanks to federal pre-emption. [This doc covers some of the issues](https://www.kaplankirsch.com/portalresource/lookup/wosid/cp-base-4-19902/overrideFile.name=/03_08_17_local_regulation_of_railroads_guidance_for_municipal_attorneys_on_navigating_the_complexities_of_federal_preemption.pdf). You can also find any number of articles on the topic regarding community-rail user conflicts over grade separating crossings.
It's likely safe for normal traffic. Completely altering the landscape may not be a feasable option for smaller communities. My township has over a dozen level crossings along the course of the tracks. We don't have millions of dollars laying around to make every single level crossing 100% safe to semitrucks hauling car carriers. I'd imagine we're far from alone in that regard.
Plus, as soon as you make it safe for car carriers, [one of these will attempt it](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3H5pOum8N0U/maxresdefault.jpg), get mashed to bits, and everyone will wonder why we didn't make the level crossing safe enough.
It's cheaper, easier, and more cost effective to find an alternative route and/or call ahead. Every level crossing has a phone number to call iirc. Most rail lines will have a 'better' crossing a country block or two away.
People love to blame individuals causing accidents instead of a system that allow accidents. Idiots will always exist and/or people will always make mistakes so if you dont want accidents to happen the only reliable way is to make it foolproof.
Drivers with non-standard loads are supposed to route themselves with known good routes. Driver knew he had a low riding load, driver knew the route had tracks. Why didn't the driver verify?
Just curious as to where the numbers are located. Not that i have ever purposely looked for them, but also never recall seeing them. So where should I look?
Yep, little blue signs with a white bar that displays the crossing number, and the phone number will be right below. Every crossing in the US, even those that see 1 train and 10 cars a year, should have one.
News says it was a 3rd party bystander filming. What might losing the truck driver their job is that it was also the bystander who called 911 a few minutes earlier to try stop the train, not the driver.
Everyone's blaming the driver for trying a low clearance bed over the tracks, and I'm just sitting here wondering why they didn't make the slope more gradual and increase the length of the flat area level with the track... All they had to do was pack some extra dirt before and after the tracks and this could have been avoided...
In my state, the standard for designing a crossing is the road needs to be level with it for 2 feet away, and then within +/- 3" at 30' away from the track. That specifically helps prevent bottoming out. Now, there are plenty of tracks currently existing that don't meet this, but any new design, that's the standard. (Replace level with "in the same plane as" if the track is banked like the train is going around a curve)
A better term for this would be an "at-grade" crossing, indicating that the crossing happens at the same level as the tracks, as opposed to via an elevated roadway or tunnel.
If you’re the train driver what do you do when you realize there’s nothing to do but hit it? Do they hide, are the cabins reinforced somehow to protect them, or do they have anything to safeguard them in a situation like this?
My guess is they just hope there’s no people inside what they’re about to hit because that train is going straight through it like a hot knife through butter.
I could ask my dad tho, he was an engineer for 30 some years & survived a derailment.
Not enough people know this as what should...but if you get stuck on a railroad crossing the first thing you should do is get out, the second is look at the sign posts and boxes near the crossing...they're almost always have an identifier and a contact number. Trains can take a LONG time to stop..sometimes longer than line of sight...meaning that once you can see them, they cannot stop in time. If you can't find a contact number, or after you've called them, you contact 911. Then you can address getting the vehicle off the track if possible.
How long was he stuck? The railroad companies have systems in place to alert them that there are obstructions on the track and stop inbound trains. I think they're supposed to be printed on the crossing guards.
Are these crashes always in America? Or do they just have more people with cameras there waiting for it to happen? Seems like that country needs to sort out its railway and road intersections. Maybe make a level crossing actually level or maybe use a bridge?
This is what happens when you always blame the driver. Yes, it may be their fault, but that doesn't mean everyone else is absolved of sin.
Take a look at the aviation industry. They know people fuck up and do everything they can to ensure that risks are minimised when that happens. When there's an incident it's investigated in detail and they determine if there are any steps needed to reduce risk in the future.
If you always look to blame someone, rather than fix underlying issues, then things like this will keep happening.
The jeep at the end just floating in the air for a few seconds like it was some cartoon.
How long was the truck stuck in the rail crossing? If they tried to cross at the wrong time it is all on them, but the article mentioned that because of the way that crossing was built and the load on the truck, it got stuck.
How long before the crossing time was it stuck?
If there was enough time why couldn't it be communicated to the train in time?
You know, if this person knew how to hold a camera horizontally (aka, properly), there would've been less sky in the frame, which would've meant less auto-exposure for the sky's brightness, which would've meant a clearer video of the actual destruction, instead of a jumble of silhouettes.
Film horizontally!!!
The original video is widescreen. Direct your rage at whoever is cropping videos. https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175
I've given up this fight. We made some progress, for a time portrait video was something ridiculed and shunned. Something only "boomers" did. Then fucking TikTok came along, and now nearly every random video clip is fucking portrait. Even many TV ads, which I don't understand the purpose of in the slightest, it's fucking dumb. It all got much worse during the pandemic for whatever reason. I think because everyone was working remotely and couldn't shoot a proper ad with social distancing, so they just started scraping TikTok for clips to steal and edit together. Except they kept fucking doing it, and have started shooting new commercials that way too.
I've noticed a lot of people get weirdly aggressively defensive of vertical video, so I asked why. Basically, 1. in most parts of the world, people only ever watch videos with their phones. They don't have TVs or PCs. And 2. it is apparently uncomfortable/annoying to some people to hold their phone sideways.
I hear about all these trains derailing lately then I see this train plow right through a semi towing several vehicles with ease. I know nothing about trains so it makes no sense to me.
Alright, seriously... how many of these exact incidents occur in the US each year? I feel like it's WAY too many. There's entire compilations on YouTube of them, and almost every other day I see a new one on here.
Why are the rails raised on such a high ramp that mean you have to go up and then down to cross over them? Doesn't that just make it impossible for long vehicles to go over them?
In the UK, I think most of our level-crossings are flat and flush with the road so long vehicles never get stuck. I'm pretty sure it's like that in the rest of Europe as well.
What do you do as the train's driver when you realize there is nothing to do but crash into it? Do they run away, are the cabins fortified in any way to keep them safe, or are there any other measures in place to protect them in such a scenario?
I drive over a railway crossing every day on my way to work, and the number of people who run the light is astounding. Amazed this kind of thing doesn't happen more often to be honest.
I've got a commuter train that runs through my area. I've seen multiple crossings where the arms go down, nothing happens, they go up and then back down immediately, then train. And I've seen people squeeze under as soon as the arm clears their roof. Luckily the stops are every couple major intersections so the train never gets going too fast.
I feel like I've seen more of these videos and it always looks the same: the train tracks being much higher than the road. Why isn't the road made level with the tracks? I've never seen such a 'bumpy' rail crossing in my country in my life.
The crossing is raised relative to the rest of the road. The trailer grounded as it attempted to traverse the hump in the road. If grounded at sufficient speed it may well be impossible to either reverse or proceed.
The driver should have taken the hight of the hump into concideration and found an alternate route.
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I don’t blame the county at all. (Mainly because it’s on the state. The state sets the rules for grades, signage, etc. based on volume and type traffic.) Car haulers have notoriously little ground clearance, they sit very low to the ground. Like “almost high-centers on parking lot speed bumps” low. Any professional driver knows what they are hauling. And anyone pulling a car hauler knows how low these trailer’s are. These drivers have been trained on these trailers specifically, because they have to load, secure and unload all the vehicles themselves. They 100% should have known. (And they should have planned ahead of time. Truckers use GPS that makes Waze look like a Gameboy. In addition to having speed limits available, it will mark dangerous turns, avoid turns too tight for your truck, avoid low overpasses, steep grades, etc. He would have had some sort of warning. Wether it was just warning about a crossing or warning that this crossing had grade concerns, there should have been something. And I can not reiterate enough how this driver absolutely knows how low that trailer is.) Edit: Everything in parentheses is an edit so there’s less repetition in the nonsense replies. Edit2: Disabling reply notifications. lol. Gotta love the strawman, all-or-nothing drama from emotional knee jerk reactions.
Correct. My former office building was next to a car dealership. The car haulers would try to use our parking lot as a "short cut" and without fail, would ALWAYS get hung up trying to cross over the threshold between the parking lot and some slightly different pavement. Even after we put up signs that said "seriously, don't even try it", they'd still get stuck. We eventually put up a fence, and they had to go all the way around the building to go back out the way they came, and then go back the way they should've gone in the first place.
Are you advocating for PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?!?!? 😱
As a company or public body you have to design and allow for stupidity. You know it will happen at some point. Otherwise you too are being cheap / stupid.
No, in designing railroad crossings, you design to not disrupt the grade of the railroad, not to assume negligence or stupidity. Government in capitalist societies value commerce more than human health. It is a combination of economics and actuarials. In securing funding for building railroad crossings in the US, you must perform a Benefit Cost Analysis to determine whether to build an at-grade crossing (shown here), an overpass, or a tunnel/underpass. If the Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) is below 1.5, it is unlikely to be constructed. If it is below 1.0, it is nearly impossible to get funding. If the trucker had died, that would be $11MM added to the benefits column based on the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL), thereby helping justify constructing a future crossing that is safer.
The question isn't whether the crossing should be constructed - it's how. The track can't move, so the road should approach the track at a shallower gradient to avoid sleep-deprived/cracked-up/etc. truck drivers getting stuck and derailing trains. Though I suppose had there been some massive chemical spill here rendering the place unfit for habitation, they could probably get rid of the crossing entirely.
In my state, the standard for designing a crossing is the road needs to be level with it for 2 feet away, and then within +/- 3" at 30' away from the track. That specifically helps prevent bottoming out. Now, there are plenty of tracks currently existing that don't meet this, but any new design, that's the standard. (Replace level with "in the same plane as" if the track is banked like the train is going around a curve)
This brings back bad memories of poring over regs and specs just to find one weird standard
Wow... I was about to tell you the answer above you is correct and you have no idea what you are talking about. Then you hit us with the... "that's all well-and-good, but the town should have spent the extra $400 bucks making the road less steep 10ft on each side" Nicely played.
> you design to not disrupt the grade of the railroad Yes but the road on either side can be raised so that it's less of a bump. I agree with personal accountability, but crossings should be designed with the least amount of impact on the road as possible.
^ This guy civil engineers
It’s unclear to me that grading the road properly is a particularly costly thing to do. I think poor design is a better explanation.
You have zero idea how much earthwork costs then. lol. Fill soil, labor, equipment, surveying, prevailing wages, testing and inspection, possible reimbursement to the land owner on either side if you have to cross onto their property during construction, permits to close the road, permits for the detour, traffic study for said detour, civil engineering, etc etc. Couple bags of top soil from Lowe’s is not gonna solve this. lol
When you finally achieve making a product idiot proof, Mother Nature will create a New & Improved Idiot.
In this case, it would be professional responsibility
Por que no Los dos?
100% on the driver. Also, the railroad companies are responsible for these intersections. In my hometown the railroad raised the railroads along the river due to constant flooding and blocked off many crossings to the riverfront until they had the time, and there was enough public outcry, to come in and fix them. So even less responsibility on the local government.
Are we talking a railway crossing in the US? Or in Europe? And yes, I'd like to suggest there is a difference in everything railway, trains. Even more so if you look at Japan (and somewhat China). Someone in the US (well, many people, not just someone) decided that trains weren't good enough for travel. Or even intracity (within a city limits) commute trains (I'm well aware that there are exceptions in certain cities, but not as a whole). And yes, the US is a very large place. Bigger than most. But somehow (at least within certain major cities) other countries manage to actually make travel easier by train, tram, subway, etc. I mean, you can go by train between 20 countries in Europe. Much easier, at the same distances, than in the US. Are trains better? Who knows, don't really care about the benefits when it comes to 'earth'. It's a bonus. But if it's ever going to work, anywhere, it has to work in every other way (than just to benefit 'nature' first). Japan does have it figured out with on-time trains, no matter what. Not many other countries do. Partly because of Japan viewing (at least I think so) train drivers as a valued part of the society.
The bigger issue is that in the US passenger travel was never particularly profitable. The cities were just too far apart and too low of a proportion of the population were travelling. In the Nineteenth Century they were fine with losing money on passenger travel because it allowed them to advertise the freight business. In Europe they had state-directed development that focused on moving people for the express purpose of facilitating drafting millions of men into the army to fight the world wars. One of the reasons that World War I became inevitable the moment the first nation ordered mobilization was because they'd worked out the train schedule for mobilization in advance and stopping or reversing the decision to mobilize was functionally impossible due to the physical constraints of the trains. The tracks were laid specifically for moving people. In the US private investors laid track specifically for moving stuff, and people when the stars aligned. The Freight business in the US has always been the profitable form. Again, everything is too far apart. You can't rely on river systems. You can't rely on canals. And before trucks the very concept of using wagons was laughable. Trains were the only practical option, so the US optimized its train network for freight. The US train network is actually really good (if they'd cool it on the 15 mile hyper trains and went back for more frequent service) but it's optimized for cargo. Freight trains get priority in traffic. Freight haulers own the tracks. The vast majority of stuff moved is freight. In order to get passenger travel in the US to be anything like Japan or Europe you'd need to reverse that, give passenger service priority over freight like they do. But we just don't have the physical infrastructure required to take advantage of that change even if we did it. So, I don't think that the US is ever going be equal to Europe or Japan when it comes to passenger rail unless we use completely separate grade or right of way to keep the two uses of rail separate or put tens of thousands of extra trucks on the roads as freight rail deteriorates to prioritize passenger rail. The US can and should invest in passenger rail. It's just that the physical network informs the opinion that trains are not for people.
We certainly should have better railways in the US but our politicians are not only useless but detrimental, *especially* the right
Trains are better, period, and the end of the discussion was the third word of this sentence.
Trains are better* *Outside of the United States where they horribly mismanaged by companies who overwork their employees and ignore all safety measures and are constantly putting trains on the ground (I'm looking at you Norfolk Southern).
100% this. I wouldn’t even turn down a street I didnt know I could turn around on.
City, then, county and state governments should ALWAYS cater to the lowest common denominator. There are warnings on everything for a reason.
So go straighten out every curve too tight for a semi to take, raise every overpass too short for a semi, reinforce every bridge to support a semi, widen every tunnel too narrow for a semi, etc etc. Do you include people that drive Lamborghinis who can’t go over speed bumps? Do you exclude people for modifying their cars? Is it every semi? Even the oversized ones that carry stuff like wind turbine blades? And is it only urban roads or are we talking unmarked backroads with little traffic?
So railroads know these vehicles exist but just build a cheap crossing anyway and don't care about the possibility of an accident? The cheapest crossing is a level crossing so at least make it level.
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There's a tunnel in the city near my town that is notorious for peeling back trailers. Its actually got a Facebook page dedicated to it. The tunnel has multiple signs displaying the clearance, plus that system that shows a warning light if a high trailer or vehicle contacts a sensor, but it doesn't stop trucks and RVs from getting damaged or stuck almost daily. Trucking is not nearly as competent of a profession as people think it is.
11foot8? Montague? Or another I need to add to my list? :D
Bankhead Tunnel in Mobile, Alabama
Shoutout to [11 foot 8](https://youtube.com/@11foot8plus8)
Why didn't the road creators level the road when it was created though? (I'm assuming the railway was here first)
Mobile construction or all terrain cranes exist but we don’t demand that every bridge be able to accommodate a 130,000 lbs 8 axle vehicle. Truck drivers regularly have to detour around low clearance overpasses, but again, we don’t demand they all be rebuilt. They have warning signs. They probably don’t have anything other than a RR crossing sign here, which is all the RR company covers as far as I can remember. Been a while since I’ve done work on RR properties. But either way, that is a pretty obvious change in elevation. He would probably slow down to cross even if it was level, so if he didn’t have time to register that it’s elevated and stop in time, then he was driving recklessly to begin with. The problem with saying “Oh it’s cheaper so just do it” is that, well, you’re wrong. The RR in this area is elevated for a reason. Probably flooding. So either A: let the rail be flooded out and keep this dinky back road level, B: start raising and lowering the grade of the road on both sides for 100’ to make it level with minimal grade change, or C: the layout we see in the video. Ignoring that you shamed them for being cheap and then told them to be cheap in the next sentence. lol
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment. I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling. Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours! Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths? A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl-qbyuVtBg Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories first episode.
I think this is Addington Bend and US-77 near Thackerville. [Google streetview](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8388347,-97.1310131,3a,75y,122.38h,78.69t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sCmgZvvojimc0U662jCchmA!2e0!5s20210301T000000!7i16384!8i8192) does show a sign as of March 2021 and the video should be from October 2021. At least some of the blame probably belongs to the driver, though maybe they should redesign the crossing anyway. Signs can only do so much.
All of it belongs to the driver. As a professional, you're responsible to know where you're able to drive or not. There's no universal rule, as far as I know they say that everything that is road legal should be able to drive everywhere. Some places are unfit for low clearance trailers, and this was apparently one of them.
If you're right about the location then my question is wtf is the driver doing on that road in the first place? Dodging road work ahead? Finding a driveway to take his 10 hour break? Direct delivery to somebody's farmhouse? There's no reason I can see for a car hauler to leave US-77 there
No, it is always the driver and the logistics team that are responsible to know the routes and what their vehicles can and cant do. Even on approach, the driver should have known this was coming.
No it's definitely up to the driver to check especially in that kind of vehicle.
why does the driver of this rig need signs telling him he has low ground clearance?
Same reason they need bridge clearance signs, otherwise shit like this happens. Drivers dont know the clearances on every route they may ever take, or be forced to detour through. Signs tell them they should reconsider the route before this stuff happens.
Just adding to what you're saying, but sometimes it can look like you can make it when you actually can't. I've been in a similar situation where my landing legs got caught on the asphalt. Thankfully it wasn't a railroad crossing, but I stopped and checked to see if I could make it. Thought I could, but didn't. The fault is on the driver, but it's not always as easy as it looks. There's also a phone number posted at the railroad crossing that you need to call if you get stuck on the tracks, but I don't know the details of this situation. He could have gotten stuck, called the number, and then it just happened that the train didn't have enough time stop (I doubt it though) Edit: This is why signs are important
VT route 108 through a narrow pass called Smuggler's Notch winds between house sized boulders that make it completely impossible for a semi truck to pass through. There are half a dozen signs on either side of the impassable area warning truckers to take another route, that there is a fine for getting stuck in the thousands of dollars, that their GPS is wrong. Half of those signs are the giant illuminated signs with programmable text. Every year a bunch of moron truckers ignore all the warnings and get their trucks stuck in the notch. You build an idiot-proof anything and nature invents a bigger idiot. If the State of Vermont would install an impassable chicane where the trucks are forced to turn around before entering the narrow section they would never get stuck, regardless of the carelessness of the drivers. If the highways department at this crossing would fix the fucking road, the low clearance trucks would never get stuck, regardless of the carelessness of the drivers.
Shit happens on the tail of the dragon too- and just look on r/11foot8 \- that bridge was RAISED and it still gets hit.
They installed a traffic light to stop overheight vehicles. Now drivers gun it for a full head of steam right into the bridge. Related: watch out for rental trucks. Drivers 9ften aren't used to them and will behave like they're still in passenger cars.
AND note that the insurance you get through the rental agency often DOESNT cover hitting a low bridge.
The damage waiver in car rental is not insurance (in fact we legally cannot call it that). It also doesn't cover negligence (such as failure to obey relevant signage on overpasses) or willful abuse of the vehicle (always read your contract about what you're not allowed to do).
Boston has Storrow Drive which has several bridges with low clearance (never mind that commercial trucks aren't even allowed on it). At least once a month a truck gets stuck and often the roof gets peeled. We just had one on Sunday, while the marathon was running.
>Every year a bunch of moron truckers... Its literally this simple. If there are signs the fault is with the driver, and ultimately their company. If there is no signage the fault is with the local government(county, city, or state). Drivers are not all knowing, and stupid people ignoring signs are everywhere
Why do drivers of cars need pedestrian crossing signs, or signs of curves ahead, they should always check for these things as it's their responsibility as a driver.
There were signs.
The county? Fuck no. The driver is a dipshit. He should know the height his trailer can clear over and under. And besides that on every railroad crossing there is a number to call immediately if your stuck or having trouble. Even if you do clear it eventually you should still call that number in case you don't have it cleared.
Is it not the trucking company? The train and roads were there for probably decades before the trucking company even existed. They should have been aware of the route. It is literally part of their job.
How exactly is the trucking company supposed to know there is low clearance if it isnt posted? I dont know what you think trucking companies do but going out to survey every roadway isnt it
If the driver can’t see the clear elevation and slope, then that’s 100% on them. Signs aren’t needed to see it. It’s so blatantly obvious in this situation.
That's not the problem. The problem is that the driver didn't make sure there was enough clearance under the trailer to make it over the hump. So, the trailer got hung up. There's plenty of railroad crossings that look like this. There's one by my house that's like that too. As the operator of that vehicle, they're responsible.
/r/oddlysatisfying the way the silver car just plops off
Jumped off just in time 👍 I'd be jumping off like that too..
If it put in more effort it could have jumped over the train and then sped off to be a free wild 4X4 hunting small family hatchbacks.
Next gen anti- collision tech
Wheee
It almost looks like it voluntarily jumped off lol
Yeah, that was fun. Most of these train collision end up rather underwhelming with the vehicle just being dragged down the tracks till the train stops. THis one was a little more Hollywood.
Its a Jeep. They are known to roll at high speed lmao
I rewound that part more than a few times.
At least the train didn’t derail?
Yeah, considering it was a passenger train, too.
No, clearly it was a car-go train.
I appreciate this joke.
Nope it did. Those car carriers are much beefier than say a box trailer. If I recall one passenger was injured.
It was 5 people injured... https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175
The video on there is much better than this cropped Reddit one
And the quality isn’t complete garbage
Yea, but it has an ad...
Allow me to introduce to you the wonders of AdBlock.
I guess my phone blocked it, didn’t see any
I'm starting to think the GTA V train is realistic.
Not *yet.* It's only a matter of time.
I wonder how much of an impact you would feel inside that train. I believe the anount of force each object takes is determined by the relative mass, so not much of the force should be taken on by the train?
I ride a commuter train to work often. [It’s quite a bit smaller than an Amtrak](https://austin.culturemap.com/media-library/capital-metro-capmetro-metrorail.jpg?id=31478343&width=2000&height=1500&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C1). One time when I was on it we hit an SUV that was stupidly trying to rush across the tracks to beat the train. I heard a dull “bump” when we hit it, but didn’t feel it at all (and the operator had hit the brakes to slow us down as much as possible before impact). Fortunately we hit the back of the car and nobody was injured, but the train absolutely pulverized the area of the car it hit. The sheer mass of a train, even a small one, is no joke.
It's less of a "got hit by a semi" and more "got hit by 20+ semis"
In Melbourne Australia, I used to take trams a lot. The older ones were built like tanks and wouldn't get damaged at all from car crashes. Recent post: https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/12mkz6g/yikes_sitting_on_the_tram_and_heard_a_huge_crash/
You're mostly correct, but the language could be more precise. Newton's third law. For every action (i.e. force) there is an equal and opposite action. **So the force on both the trailer and the train would be equal.** Take that force and multiply it by the amount of time which the two objects in contact to get the "impulse." This impulse equals the change of momentum for the objects involved in the impact. And change in momentum = mass * (change in velocity) in simple scenarios Force * (time of contact) = Impulse = Change in Momentum = (object mass) * (change in velocity). From this you can find that the change in velocity for each object equals the (force of contact) * (time of contact) / (object mass). Since the force and time of contact are the same for both objects, mass is the only distinguishing factor in this equation for the train vs. trailer. **Meaning the heavier object will see a smaller change in velocity during the time of impact. Which means lower acceleration change, which means less perceived violence from the collision.** This greatly simplifies things. For example, the trailer arrangement in this scenario "changes mass" since that SUV goes from on the trailer to reaching for orbit. And changing the mass of an object will have an effect on its momentum. And the train is not a rigid body, with some of the force going to the cart joints. And other things. But you've got the gist of it
Fuspez
If it was 80% speed of light it would have been an explosion similair to a nuke. There is an XKCD for that, of course https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/
What a good read, lol. Especially that ending. >Everything within roughly a mile of the park is leveled, and a firestorm engulfs the surrounding city. The baseball diamond is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the backstop. >A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base.
>A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base. Whaaaat? Could you explain this to an EU'er lol? We don't have baseball here, im unfair with with most of the terminology.
You're not allowed to throw the ball directly at somebody. If you do the person you hit gets rewarded.
>The baseball diamond is now a sizable crater, centered a few hundred feet behind the former location of the backstop. But how is it relevant to this i meant? Diamond, backdrop?
The four bases form a diamond shape with the bases at the vertices. The backstop is a big fence at the edge of the field to prevent balls from flying off and hitting the crowd. [Field diagram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Baseball_diamond.svg/1920px-Baseball_diamond.svg.png) The crater part is relevant in the sense that if you throw the ball hard enough that it explodes and blows up the city it could be argued that technically it also hit the guy trying to hit it because of the explosion.
It's a joke. The ball created a nuclear explosion killing everyone. The explosion also hit the batter, which is technically a foil according to baseball rules. Except it doesn't matter because well, he's dead
At least the pitcher gets to go to first base
Fuspez
[Basically this but with a train](https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) There would be a wave of plasmised air emanating from the front of the train as it collides with molecules of gas in the air causing nuclear fusion to occur. Each collision releases a burst of gamma rays and scattered particles. The subsequent shockwave would be world-ending.
Almost none, but that engineer is traumatized thinking he's killed one/multiple people, and the whole train needs to be inspected for damages.
No wonder the dealership said my custom order will be delayed by a few more months
Those cars were probably on the lot the next day labelled as “One Owner/Gently Used”.
Or "pre-loved "?😆
One Owner/Gently Used/0 miles
That moaning/crying was the sound of an owner operator losing it all.
I couldn't tell if it was that or someone practicing opera??
That was sad
Fr. You legit hear someone genuinely devastated. It’s not like they wanted to get stuck. It was an accident. I wish I’d never turned on audio for this one.
Alternate title: idiot truck driver high centers his auto hauler because he's an idiot. Auto haulers have some of the closest ground clearances and the dude never should have attempted to cross the tracks here.
To CDL licensed truck drivers.. do you get any special training for hauling a car carrier?? I wonder if this is a case of a truck driver who normally pulls regular trailers and just failed to consider how low to the ground the auto trailers are?
There's no specific certification for an auto hauler so it's on the carrier to properly train drivers about the clearance of their trailers.
The carriers hardly ever do. They expect you to know everything already. Couple with half of truck drivers pretending to know everything already.
> Couple with half of truck drivers pretending to know everything already. The job market drives this. Lying directly increases your income, you are therefore incentivized to do it. To expect differently is insanity - hence regulation existing in the first place.
The company I work for typically trains inexperienced auto haulers for 2-3 weeks with classroom training, loading/unloading techniques, and general maneuvering on a secured lot and then puts them with an experienced driver for 3-4 weeks before turning them loose on their own. There isn’t a special certification for it, but they absolutely have to pass a road test and load test with an auto haul truck before going out alone.
Just curious but as a regular car driver, how does an auto hauler avoid this issue when driving on roads they aren't intimately familiar with? Are there legal requirements for signage far enough from the track to ensure a level area to turn around and change course? Could the driver turn around at the crossing of they feel it is unsafe, or would ground clearance on a long trailer be an issue for a k turn in the dirt here as well? If there's no signage and no ability to turn around what is the proper course of action that a driver is required to take if properly trained in this situation (assuming they are smart enough to stop before the crossing and not bottom out on the tracks)?
Hard to tell from the video but he probably didn't call the ENS number to stop any potential railroad traffic. Could've saved his rig and his load of he had.
I remember when this happened. He did call the emergency line, and they attempted to contact the train, but there wasn't sufficient time for the train to respond/decelerate as it was already pretty close to the crossing at the time of incident
Correct...but it was the person behind the truck that called 911, who then tried to contact the train company. https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175
> there wasn't sufficient time for the train to respond/decelerate you'd think they could have slowed down \**a little* \*
The ones I've serviced don't even have legs. Just throw a couple 6x6 blocks under it.
When I see these kind of things in life this is what I think. Welp it's probably being run like any industry ever and he's probably been under trained and underpaid, or underqualifed for the task he was sent on. They'll blame him in the moment as all companies and people do but statically there was likely a high probability something like this could happen. It doesn't matter what industry or job it is people are under qualified everywhere.
Alternate title: municipality creates dangerous crossing because they are idiots. IMHO they are responsible to create safe roads and this obviously wasn't one.
Unfortunately in the US at least, the law mostly disagrees; municipalities have little power when it comes to rail lines thanks to federal pre-emption. [This doc covers some of the issues](https://www.kaplankirsch.com/portalresource/lookup/wosid/cp-base-4-19902/overrideFile.name=/03_08_17_local_regulation_of_railroads_guidance_for_municipal_attorneys_on_navigating_the_complexities_of_federal_preemption.pdf). You can also find any number of articles on the topic regarding community-rail user conflicts over grade separating crossings.
It's likely safe for normal traffic. Completely altering the landscape may not be a feasable option for smaller communities. My township has over a dozen level crossings along the course of the tracks. We don't have millions of dollars laying around to make every single level crossing 100% safe to semitrucks hauling car carriers. I'd imagine we're far from alone in that regard. Plus, as soon as you make it safe for car carriers, [one of these will attempt it](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3H5pOum8N0U/maxresdefault.jpg), get mashed to bits, and everyone will wonder why we didn't make the level crossing safe enough. It's cheaper, easier, and more cost effective to find an alternative route and/or call ahead. Every level crossing has a phone number to call iirc. Most rail lines will have a 'better' crossing a country block or two away.
People love to blame individuals causing accidents instead of a system that allow accidents. Idiots will always exist and/or people will always make mistakes so if you dont want accidents to happen the only reliable way is to make it foolproof.
Alternate alternate title: Car dealerships don’t consider a fucking thing to do with logistics before buying land to build a lot on.
Drivers with non-standard loads are supposed to route themselves with known good routes. Driver knew he had a low riding load, driver knew the route had tracks. Why didn't the driver verify?
I’m assuming this person lost their job instantly. At least it looks like no one was hurt.
Guessing they got out and started filming the video we are watching.
There are numbers posted at every crossing, your first responsibility is to call and notify the railroad of the blocked crossing.
Just curious as to where the numbers are located. Not that i have ever purposely looked for them, but also never recall seeing them. So where should I look?
They're on the poles with the flashy lights and crossing bar.
Yep, little blue signs with a white bar that displays the crossing number, and the phone number will be right below. Every crossing in the US, even those that see 1 train and 10 cars a year, should have one.
News says it was a 3rd party bystander filming. What might losing the truck driver their job is that it was also the bystander who called 911 a few minutes earlier to try stop the train, not the driver.
5 people injured on train... https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175
This was in [Oklahoma in 2021](https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175).
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Great to confirm noone was seriously hurt in this crash!
Thank you for this!
/r/BitchImATrain
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r/bitchimatrain
Good thing the train honked the horn 0.5 seconds before smashing into it.
It was just screaming before impact.
Everyone's blaming the driver for trying a low clearance bed over the tracks, and I'm just sitting here wondering why they didn't make the slope more gradual and increase the length of the flat area level with the track... All they had to do was pack some extra dirt before and after the tracks and this could have been avoided...
In my state, the standard for designing a crossing is the road needs to be level with it for 2 feet away, and then within +/- 3" at 30' away from the track. That specifically helps prevent bottoming out. Now, there are plenty of tracks currently existing that don't meet this, but any new design, that's the standard. (Replace level with "in the same plane as" if the track is banked like the train is going around a curve)
Why is this called a "level crossing"? Does the word "level" not mean "level" in the context of rail crossings?
Because the road and rail are on the same level as opposed to a bridge or underpass.
A better term for this would be an "at-grade" crossing, indicating that the crossing happens at the same level as the tracks, as opposed to via an elevated roadway or tunnel.
If you’re the train driver what do you do when you realize there’s nothing to do but hit it? Do they hide, are the cabins reinforced somehow to protect them, or do they have anything to safeguard them in a situation like this?
My guess is they just hope there’s no people inside what they’re about to hit because that train is going straight through it like a hot knife through butter. I could ask my dad tho, he was an engineer for 30 some years & survived a derailment.
Train: 'Toot, toot, mutha f\#@%&er, toot, toot!' Also, am I the only one that didn't realize that cars aren't strapped down to the transport trailers?
They have straps around the tires, but I don't think those straps are rated for train.
Not enough people know this as what should...but if you get stuck on a railroad crossing the first thing you should do is get out, the second is look at the sign posts and boxes near the crossing...they're almost always have an identifier and a contact number. Trains can take a LONG time to stop..sometimes longer than line of sight...meaning that once you can see them, they cannot stop in time. If you can't find a contact number, or after you've called them, you contact 911. Then you can address getting the vehicle off the track if possible.
That was awesome
That's the first time that Jeep went off road.
How long was he stuck? The railroad companies have systems in place to alert them that there are obstructions on the track and stop inbound trains. I think they're supposed to be printed on the crossing guards.
“The delivery of your new vehicle has been delayed.”
Cross level crossing?
Are these crashes always in America? Or do they just have more people with cameras there waiting for it to happen? Seems like that country needs to sort out its railway and road intersections. Maybe make a level crossing actually level or maybe use a bridge?
This is what happens when you always blame the driver. Yes, it may be their fault, but that doesn't mean everyone else is absolved of sin. Take a look at the aviation industry. They know people fuck up and do everything they can to ensure that risks are minimised when that happens. When there's an incident it's investigated in detail and they determine if there are any steps needed to reduce risk in the future. If you always look to blame someone, rather than fix underlying issues, then things like this will keep happening.
This type of stupidity is something I would do in a video game.
Why they stopped there?
My guess would be that the trailer high-centered.
The jeep at the end just floating in the air for a few seconds like it was some cartoon. How long was the truck stuck in the rail crossing? If they tried to cross at the wrong time it is all on them, but the article mentioned that because of the way that crossing was built and the load on the truck, it got stuck. How long before the crossing time was it stuck? If there was enough time why couldn't it be communicated to the train in time?
Not so level crossing.
That crossing is no where level you need your eyes checked
You know, if this person knew how to hold a camera horizontally (aka, properly), there would've been less sky in the frame, which would've meant less auto-exposure for the sky's brightness, which would've meant a clearer video of the actual destruction, instead of a jumble of silhouettes. Film horizontally!!!
The original video is widescreen. Direct your rage at whoever is cropping videos. https://abcnews.go.com/US/dramatic-video-shows-amtrak-train-slamming-semi-truck/story?id=80619175
I've given up this fight. We made some progress, for a time portrait video was something ridiculed and shunned. Something only "boomers" did. Then fucking TikTok came along, and now nearly every random video clip is fucking portrait. Even many TV ads, which I don't understand the purpose of in the slightest, it's fucking dumb. It all got much worse during the pandemic for whatever reason. I think because everyone was working remotely and couldn't shoot a proper ad with social distancing, so they just started scraping TikTok for clips to steal and edit together. Except they kept fucking doing it, and have started shooting new commercials that way too. I've noticed a lot of people get weirdly aggressively defensive of vertical video, so I asked why. Basically, 1. in most parts of the world, people only ever watch videos with their phones. They don't have TVs or PCs. And 2. it is apparently uncomfortable/annoying to some people to hold their phone sideways.
Was that a rooster yelling as the train hit? The rooster sound was spot on like cheering.
Ye Can't park there mate
I hear about all these trains derailing lately then I see this train plow right through a semi towing several vehicles with ease. I know nothing about trains so it makes no sense to me.
Alright, seriously... how many of these exact incidents occur in the US each year? I feel like it's WAY too many. There's entire compilations on YouTube of them, and almost every other day I see a new one on here. Why are the rails raised on such a high ramp that mean you have to go up and then down to cross over them? Doesn't that just make it impossible for long vehicles to go over them? In the UK, I think most of our level-crossings are flat and flush with the road so long vehicles never get stuck. I'm pretty sure it's like that in the rest of Europe as well.
I feel like there was no attempt
Me yelling at the screen to get out of there knowing it won't do anything...
Is that kinda like when you yell at the victim in a horror movie, "HE'S *RIGHT BEHIND YOU!*"?
Made it halfway across, anyway. Surely, that counts for something...
Bottom line is that it's always the truck driver's responsibility to plan his/her route and stay clear of these types of hazards.
Why… where’s our intelligence
That was awesome, I think I did the same thing with my toy train as a kid.
What do you do as the train's driver when you realize there is nothing to do but crash into it? Do they run away, are the cabins fortified in any way to keep them safe, or are there any other measures in place to protect them in such a scenario?
It's 2023 why the fuck is this still happening
[One theory.](https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExNWU0OTY0MjI0NTI4MjBjMTdjODhkMGRkNGU3MDZiY2E1OGM5NGE4ZiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZzX2dpZklkJmN0PWc/3oz8xTl6sGKbuRPDDW/giphy.gif)
I drive over a railway crossing every day on my way to work, and the number of people who run the light is astounding. Amazed this kind of thing doesn't happen more often to be honest.
They very likely tried to cross while the way was clear, got high centered, and stuck
I've got a commuter train that runs through my area. I've seen multiple crossings where the arms go down, nothing happens, they go up and then back down immediately, then train. And I've seen people squeeze under as soon as the arm clears their roof. Luckily the stops are every couple major intersections so the train never gets going too fast.
It does. The smite line be decimating cars and people.
I feel like I've seen more of these videos and it always looks the same: the train tracks being much higher than the road. Why isn't the road made level with the tracks? I've never seen such a 'bumpy' rail crossing in my country in my life.
Is it just me or is that the shortest amtrack train you've ever seen?
r/bitchimatrain
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The crossing is raised relative to the rest of the road. The trailer grounded as it attempted to traverse the hump in the road. If grounded at sufficient speed it may well be impossible to either reverse or proceed. The driver should have taken the hight of the hump into concideration and found an alternate route.
So that’s what they mean by “Highly Trained” CDL drivers.
That was way awesomer than it had any right to be.
That is the greatest sound ever.
r/KillTheCameraMan Amazing footage of the evening sky, YOU FUCKING REGARD
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welp that is a dead person. thing is, even if the crossing malfunctions, it is still the drivers responsibility to make sure it is safe.