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Times on the High Iron -
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October 17, 2010
Well we’re into October again which means my tragic anniversary of the 18th is just about here. This year will mark the twenty-first anniversary of that horrific collision. In keeping with the tradition started about ten years ago, we will take a detailed look at another train/motor vehicle collision.
Motorists frequently exercise incredibly poor judgment when parking their cars, trucks or SUV’s. In some instances they park in tow away zones and then scream bloody murder when their vehicle gets towed and it costs them hundreds of dollars to get it back. If they didn’t do that with such alarming frequency, you’d never see signs posted about the prospect of towing your unauthorized parked car at your expense. People have also been known to park at incredibly stupid locations. I knew a guy (didn’t say a friend, just some guy I knew) that parked his car in a vacant, unlighted lot between two burned out buildings in a higher crime area. He parked there for $2 as he was too cheap (and stupid) to pay the $3 or so fee to park at one of the ball park lots. He wasn’t alone as there were a few others that opted for the cheap way out as well. When he returned from the game, he found his car stripped. And not only was it stripped, it had fallen off the jack the thieves were using and landed against the car next to it. Well DUH! Guess he got what he paid for and a whole lot more. I wonder if you can put a price on aggravation.
Others will park or leave their cars on or too close to railroad tracks. And we all know what happens when they opt for this decision. I have two of those episodes under my belt and wrote previously about one of them. I’ve observed numerous times in my career where motorists have parked too close to or actually on the tracks and while I did not strike their vehicles, they got towed just the same. They were blocking progress and we were not about to wait around while the police tried to locate the owners. Why would do these folks do this? Why would they exercise such a complete lack of good judgment? Perhaps a quote from Frank Barone, a character of the TV show “Everybody Loves Raymond” places the proper perspective upon it; “People are idiots.”
Today’s story involves somebody I had met many years ago. This particular individual was friends with somebody I know. We’ll refer to the one I know as the “acquaintance. Such a description should distance me somewhat from a lawsuit. The acquaintance of whom I speak may or may not recall this situation. And the individual involved in today’s episode doesn’t receive these little diatribes as far as I know.
One Saturday I received a phone call from the acquaintance inquiring as to who would be the responsible party if a train collides with a car. Figuring some sort of episode had transpired my response was “Why?” They went on to relate the following scenario; this friend of theirs and an accomplice had been out the previous evening. Apparently they spent a good portion of it getting over served. Imagine that occurring with young people on a Friday night. So now the hour is late and they on their way home. As luck would have it, the road they needed to use was blocked by a train that was stopped on the crossing. They wanted or really needed to get home and had no desire to wait for the train to start moving. So, they decided to take a short cut around. Before I go on I should mention that the next true alternate crossing was several miles away and would take them literally, miles out of their way. The phrase that pays here is “true alternate.”
The driver was familiar with a private crossing about a mile or so away. This particular crossing was the entrance to a private facility and the one and only access. I’ll bet you can see where this is going. So they driver opts to motor on down to the private crossing and head across. The train was still stopped so they didn’t have a race to the crossing episode. They used the private crossing to get to the other side. Only problem was, there was no way to get from where they now were to where they needed to be.
“Ya can’t get there from here.”
Not a problem. They opted for the shoulder of the right of way along side the main track. It was kind of wide enough for the car to fit, kind of. One issue civilians fail to comprehend is that the ballast used along the right of way tends not to be conducive for the operation of automobiles. In some instances, it is barely suitable for a trainman to walk on. And it also had a slight downward slope to it as well. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway; the driver successfully managed to get their car stuck in the ballast. And not only stuck, but in the foul of one of the main tracks. An approaching train could not see what was unfolding as there was a curve before the crossing and the car was beyond that curve. So with the car good and stuck, the motorist and accomplice decide to hoof it home instead figuring they would come back later that morning after sobering up and procuring some sort of assistance to help them extricate said stuck vehicle.
Did I mention that the right of way at this location was elevated about eight or ten feet from the property around it?
With the sun now high in the sky the motorist along with some assistance sets out on the quest to get their car back. When they returned to the scene of the crime, the car is gone, vanished, missing, not there. They assume that it was stolen and head home to call the police. Well, we all know what happens when you assume. So the police pay a visit to the motorist’s home to take a stolen vehicle report. From what I was told by a friend on this police force, they already knew who the owner was. It is not hard to garner that information from such trivial items as license plates and VIN’s carried upon the vehicle. It is reasonable to say they were waiting for the owner to come forward, possibly claiming the car was stolen in order to remove any possible blame from them self for what had transpired after they had abandoned the vehicle. Ya sure, the police have never heard that excuse before.
The motorist informs the law their car had been stolen overnight. But, in an unusual turn of events, they didn’t claim it had been stolen from in front of their house, they told the truth. The truth being of course, that the car had been left on the right of way. But they left out the part about the car being in a position where it could be struck be an oncoming train. When they returned to retrieve it, the car was gone. Therefore, it must have been stolen. Hmm, can you say busted!
As it would happen, the right of way and the train involved were those of my employer. Therefore, I was able to obtain a more comprehensive look as to what had transpired in those wee hours of the morning with regards to the train and the abandoned car fouling the right of way. A train comes rolling around the curve (most likely moving at a fair rate of speed) to find this automobile staring at them. And they met, right there in the middle of the night. Now being that a six axle locomotive weighs in around 200 tons and an automobile in the one plus ton range guess who won that battle? The train struck the car knocking it off the right of way and down the embankment. Of course they had to stop, notify the necessary parties and then await the police and others that needed to be on the scene. So now this train was also being delayed and depending upon the length of it, possibly be blocking the same road crossing the motorist was trying to get around earlier. So now as a result of their stupidity, they provided for the opportunity to block other motorists from getting where they needed to be. Sort of rolls downhill, don’t it?
A tow truck was summoned to remove the now greatly altered automobile from the bottom of the right of way, probably some eight or ten feet below the level of the tracks. And whenever a collision of this nature occurs, the vehicle tends to get hauled off to the impound facility contracted by the municipality. This situation proved to be no exception that procedure. And of course, there was not only the damage from the train striking the car; there was the additional damage from sliding down the hill and rolling over on its side. And then having to be pulled up by the tow truck, and then dragged along the right of way to the private crossing where the tow truck operator could then properly hook up the car and haul it to the pound. For those of you that might be unenlightened as you have never been in such a situation, there is more than just a towing charge involved here. There are additional fees for extricating the car from the ditch, dragging it to a location where it can now be hooked up. Then there is the storage charge. Most impounds charge a minimum of one day storage, even if you follow the tow truck to the pound and immediately pay to retrieve your vehicle. And storage at a pound isn’t cheap. And to top it all off, when motor vehicles have to be extricated in a manner such as this, it generally renders still more damage to them. It is not simple or easy to pull a car out of this situation without increasing the damage to it. They take a beating and I’ve witnessed as much in more than one instance over the years. Fortunately not to any of my vehicles though.
And it goes without saying there were likely moving violations involved. I had heard what the driver was given, but don’t recall them now as it has been quite a few years. But whatever it was, I’m reasonably certain they walked out of the courtroom with a much slimmer billfold.
So now the not quite so proud owner of the automobile thinks that somebody else should pay for their lack of good judgment. Knowing that I work for the railroad, they contacted the acquaintance to check with me and see if the railroad is responsible for demolishing their car. When explained the circumstances on the phone, after I quit laughing hysterically, I clearly explained how it is not the railroad’s fault for damaging their car, it is the driver’s fault. They had very clearly trespassed onto railroad property and then got stuck and has luck had it, got stuck in the way of a train. There were where they shouldn’t have been in the first place. Not only is the railroad not responsible, the driver could be held financially responsible for any damage to the locomotive or the train. In many instances when there is a car/train collision, there is damage to the locomotive as well. While they are big huge machines, locomotives are still subject to damage.
You may recall the damage I had indicated that occurred to the locomotive from my tragic episode in Antioch in 1989 or the one where I hit the parked car after that. Locomotives are by no means indestructible. And when they get damaged, the railroad is likely to come after the errant motorist. Why should they pay for somebody else’s lack of good judgment?
When all was said and done, I would love to have heard this driver explaining the chain of events that transpired that early morning to their insurance agent or claim adjuster.
“You did what?! What are you people, on dope?!”
And then there would be the exponentially increased rates for continuing their coverage or worse, the letter that says, “We regret to inform you that we will not be renewing your policy.” And should that be the case, trying to explain to some other insurance company the details of this event that got them dropped. They’d probably have to wind up going with some high risk outfit like Ike’s of Idaho or some company of that caliber whose specialty is covering the high risk motorists at high risk rates.
While nobody was injured or killed in this particular event, somebody’s bank account and finances were pretty badly beaten, perhaps placing them on life support.
And so it goes.
Tuch
Hot Times on the High Iron and the HTOTHI initials, ©2005 by JD Santucci.