Truck Driver Killed By Commuter Train

I would argue that it is a pretty significant emergency, trains have been derailed by vehicle collisions before. Plus, there is a lot of damage, and cleanup involved after the fact. A truck is less bambi and more like an idiot 4 wheeler in this analogy.

 

All I can say is "WOW!" Reading through this is illustrative, to say the least. @Pedigreed Bulldog isn't known for mincing words, yet he makes a valid point as he usually does, if I may paraphrase:

And @not4hire hits the nail as well:

Did any of ya'll look at the aerial view before you started the idiocy of blaming the railroad and/or the warehouse? In 10 seconds I saw multiple alternatives to backing across the tracks, which quite frankly shouldn't be on anyone's list of valid options.

I frankly don't care if you think me a heartless SOB, but the blame for this lies in one place and one place only, and sadly his poor critical thinking skills has removed any chance he had to defend his poor choices. A crappy dock setup is part of trucking, sooner or later you'll deal with one. What is required in those situations is using your brain for more than just filling the empty space between your ears.

SMDH!

 

How about you clean the wax out of your ears and listen? NOBODY is advocating laying a chain across the tracks to obstruct a train. By the time I'm recommending a person do this, the tracks are ALREADY blocked by their vehicle. Maybe the grade was just a little worse than they expected and their landing gear caught one of the rails. Maybe their truck simply shut off, and they didn't have enough momentum to coast out of the way. Perhaps the driveshaft snapped and took out an air line. Whatever caused the unfortunate situation to occur, they are stuck on the tracks. You can waste time on the phone and then watch as your truck is obliterated and hope nobody dies, or you can create a dead short between the tracks to immediately send a signal up and down the line that there is a problem, tripping signal lights to red and stopping train traffic before it smashes through your truck.

 

Before.... when i was agreeing with MJD, i did not realize we are talking about electric trains...

Does this same process work at any railroad crossing?

 

Read that post you quoted again. I'll repeat the part you seem to be missing:

If you're stuck on the tracks, the crossing is blocked. Your #1 concern at that point is signaling the trains to stop so your truck doesn't get hit. The FASTEST way to do that is to lay an electrically conductive object (such as a winch bar or chain) across the tracks which signals a blockage and trips the signal lights to red up and down the line. THEN place your calls. Otherwise, while you're on the phone with the railroad and they are trying to identify where you are in order to signal the trains to stop, those trains are still racing in your direction unaware of any problems. The 20 minutes it takes the railroad to answer your phone call and stop the trains might be 15 minutes too late. Congrats...your truck has been torn apart, load scattered over a mile, and hopefully nobody died. All of that could have been avoided if the trains got the stop signal in a timely manner.

Nobody is saying to go out and block the tracks on purpose...but #### happens, and when it does, you can either use your head and minimize the damage, or you can bury your head in the sand and let the situation go from bad to worse. You're the only one who seems to think burying your head in the sand is a good idea.

 

You're really, really myopic.