Auto Train hit and killed someone on Sunday

[RedSox68]

My girlfriend and husband were on the auto train Sunday night to Sanford and she said around the Richmond area the train hit someone and they died. She said they were held up for three hours and (unfortunately) a lot of people in their train car were making a scene about being delayed and some were even making jokes about the accident.

Anyone hear anything about whether it was a suicide or an accident? So sad.

 

[bcla]

Happens fairly often unfortunately. They have a euphemism for this, which is "trespasser incident". I've been stuck on a train while the investigation happened. No staff would say exactly what it was, although the police vehicles outside made it pretty obvious.

I guess they can be suicides, but strangely enough quite a few are people just walking on or near the tracks who don't hear the horn because they've got headphones on. For suicides, I've heard that commuter rail is generally the epicenter. They run on schedule and tend to be close to population centers. There was that rash of suicides among high school students in Palo Alto, California, and the method of choice was the Caltrain commuter rail system because they run on regular schedules are are easy to get to. Many would jump off a tree onto the tracks to reduce the chance of an engineer stopping the train in time. They also had a law enforcement detail of San Mateo County Sheriff deputies, who unfortunately spent a lot of their time dealing with attempted and completed suicides.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

My girlfriend and husband were on the auto train Sunday night to Sanford and she said around the Richmond area the train hit someone and they died. She said they were held up for three hours and (unfortunately) a lot of people in their train car were making a scene about being delayed and some were even making jokes about the accident.

Anyone hear anything about whether it was a suicide or an accident? So sad.

Yep. People will make jokes about it.

 

[Marchand63]

Honestly either way it is disgusting people complain about being delayed over the death of another human being. Heck roll the body I f the tracks & let them go through.

 

[sonnyjane]

My girlfriend and husband were on the auto train Sunday night to Sanford and she said around the Richmond area the train hit someone and they died. She said they were held up for three hours and (unfortunately) a lot of people in their train car were making a scene about being delayed and some were even making jokes about the accident.

Anyone hear anything about whether it was a suicide or an accident? So sad.

Multiple articles game up when I searched on Google. They say accident. As BCLA said, this is actually fairly common - so much so that it almost never makes national news which is why many people don't realize how often it does in fact occur. DH has only been a cop for 2 years, yet he's already responded to half a dozen of these "train v. pedestrian" incidents at our local track, some accidents, some not.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

It would seem that most people that are hit by a train are impaired in some way. Or a child.

They just aren't that quiet, and they don't normally leave the tracks.

It should be pretty simple to keep your ears open and stay off of the tracks.

 

[bcla]

It would seem that most people that are hit by a train are impaired in some way. Or a child.

They just aren't that quiet, and they don't normally leave the tracks.

It should be pretty simple to keep your ears open and stay off of the tracks.

It's actually illegal to walk along railroad tracks. It's legally the right of way of the railroad and when they call them "trespassing incidents" it's because it's legally the case that it's trespassing. It's also a violation of the railroad's right of way to cross the tracks when there's a train approaching.

Even so, there have been attempts to remove at-grade crossings. It wouldn't take care of people illegally walking along the tracks, but it might reduce the number of stupid people getting run over.

 

[RedSox68]

So sad -- thanks for all the responses. Anyone walking along the tracks with headphones on is not only irresponsible but maybe slightly suicidal!

 

[mjkacmom]

I live close to NYC, lots of trains, it seems like there is a fatality once a month or so.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I think a lot of people like to use tracks for photo backdrops too---this leads to some of the accidents as well. It's sad that so many people underestimate the danger from trains and pay with their lives

 

[kerry1379]

NHdisneylover, I agree, but photographers should know that that is absolutely illegal and refuse to take such pictures.

 

[dclpluto]

I live close to NYC, lots of trains, it seems like there is a fatality once a month or so.

With trains and subways the death total is pretty high.

 

[NHdisneylover]

NHdisneylover, I agree, but photographers should know that that is absolutely illegal and refuse to take such pictures.

but many ametuers do not, even many professionals do not (or don't care, or think they know tracks are not in use but are wrong or or or) And many people are just taking photos of their friends or family. I think people underestimate the spped trains travel, how hard it is to move quickly on railroad ties, how far way they need to get to be safe, etc

Heck, it wasn't all that long ago that people were killed when professionals had them filming on active rail lines--that was just 3-4 year ago if I recall correctly. I want to say even a major actor--Kevin Costner or William Hurt perhaps? was involved in that shooting, so it ought to have been a completly professional crew, ---and yet there it was.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

Happens fairly often unfortunately. They have a euphemism for this, which is "trespasser incident". I've been stuck on a train while the investigation happened. No staff would say exactly what it was, although the police vehicles outside made it pretty obvious.

I guess they can be suicides, but strangely enough quite a few are people just walking on or near the tracks who don't hear the horn because they've got headphones on. For suicides, I've heard that commuter rail is generally the epicenter. They run on schedule and tend to be close to population centers. There was that rash of suicides among high school students in Palo Alto, California, and the method of choice was the Caltrain commuter rail system because they run on regular schedules are are easy to get to. Many would jump off a tree onto the tracks to reduce the chance of an engineer stopping the train in time. They also had a law enforcement detail of San Mateo County Sheriff deputies, who unfortunately spent a lot of their time dealing with attempted and completed suicides.

I agree with this - I live in a metropolitan area where we have commuter trains pass through the downtown section of our village. They are FAST, and the express trains do not stop at our stop. About a year ago, a guy on a bike with headphones in his ears disregarded the flashing lights and crossing gates and crossed anyway. The first train had stopped and was letting off passengers so he thought it was safe to cross. As he crossed, a second express train zoomed down the middle track and dragged him so far they almost reached the next station before the train stopped. His headphones were still in his ears when they got to him. So senseless. He was a father and husband. And all of those people getting off the train had to witness his horrifying death because he made a bad decision.

Besides that, I have lived here for 7 1/2 years and there have been at least 3-4 suicides on this same train line between downtown and the suburbs close to me, so yes, it is a very real thing.

One more story - don't ever try to "beat" the train, either, in your car. My mother's best friend from high school called one day, completely devastated. Her 19 year old daughter was driving home from work one night and they believe from the witness accounts that she tried to beat the train, went around the gates and was hit. She died instantly. I was about 23 at the time - our families grew up together. When I saw her mother at the funeral, I was shocked - the mom was literally GRAY, and was being held up by her relatives because she couldn't even stand by herself. It took years for her to get back to a semi-normal level of functioning and my mom says she still isn't the same. I think of her every time I am close to a train track and have to make the decision to go or wait if I see a train coming in the distance. So sad.

 

[bcla]

but many ametuers do not, even many professionals do not (or don't care, or think they know tracks are not in use but are wrong or or or) And many people are just taking photos of their friends or family. I think people underestimate the spped trains travel, how hard it is to move quickly on railroad ties, how far way they need to get to be safe, etc

Heck, it wasn't all that long ago that people were killed when professionals had them filming on active rail lines--that was just 3-4 year ago if I recall correctly. I want to say even a major actor--Kevin Costner or William Hurt perhaps? was involved in that shooting, so it ought to have been a completly professional crew, ---and yet there it was.

There have been some higher profile cases recently. I think the one you're thinking of was for Midnight Rider about Greg Allman. They requested permission from CSX to film on their tracks, but when they didn't get permission they did it anyways. The director did one year in prison and the family of the camera assistant who died still managed to convince a jury that CSX was partially negligent. And yeah it was William Hurt. I think it was supposed to be some sort of dream sequence where in his dream he wakes up on railroad tracks.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/RAB1501.pdf

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life...39m-for-train-death-of-film-worker/103790804/

Jeffrey Harris, the Jones family's attorney, also noted that the train's brakes weren't applied until after the locomotive struck a hospital bed the filmmakers had placed across the tracks. Actor William Hurt, hired to play Allman, had been lying in the bed before the train came upon the crew at 53 mph (85 kph). Hurt escaped unharmed.​

Still not as bizarre as the case of Greg Plitt. Various accounts are that he thought he was on an adjacent track or that he might have even been trying to outrun a train or that he was pretending to and wanted to jump out of the way at the last second to make it look like he was outrunning it.

http://latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-greg-plitt-image-20150119-story.html