A sobering reminder of the dangers of railroading...

[roadkill]

Kind of surprised no one started a thread about the woman killed this past Saturday when she was struck by UP 844:

trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2018/07/22-up-no-844-involved-in-pedestrian-fatality-locomotive-will-not-run-on-scheduled-sunday-trip

There is drone footage of her demise (since taken down) showing that she was standing on the end of a tie videoing the oncoming train on her smartphone. People need to understand that trains are MUCH wider than the distance between the rails!

[valenciajim]

This is the first I heard about it. People simply do not respect trains' ability to run them over.

[riogrande]

Dangerous but often lack of common sense causes some people to be their own worst enemy. I've ready about quite a few people taking selfies on a cliff edge and falling off or a very tall building and falling off or next to a bear and getting killed by the bear.

I didn't read about the referenced event, but the fatality sounds like yet another situation where people end up dying needlessly because they aren't exercising common sense.

The title of this topic really isn't about dangers of railroading really but dangers of lack of common sense. Railroading in and of itself has dangers, and I've talked to a number of engineers who say that if you drive trains, it's only a matter of time before you hit a car or truck and sometimes it can be bad if the truck is a gasoline tanker. As a kid, if you asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I wanted to be a train engineer, but I never dreamed in my tender years that it was as dangerous as it can be.

[brakie]

While sad it does not surprise me. I saw the video and the woman was standing by the end of the ties taking a photo.

I am fed up with seeing railfans  sitting in lawn chairs 2-3 feet from the edge of the ballast with no hope of escape if a load strap is flapping in the breeze or a derailment happens.

Stay back at least 50' with a escape route and view the train at 3/4 view for any sign of immediate danger like ballast dust-a sign of trouble like wheels bouncing on the ties .