Alpo Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 I was just out walking the dog, and I heard a siren start up. It was coming closer so I watched, and it blew past the intersection. It appeared to be one of those fire rescue EMT trucks. It went past the intersection and two blocks later it crossed the railroad tracks and went on it's merry way. In about 5 minutes later I heard the 3:30 train come by. And that just got me to wondering. My house is on fire, and the quickest route goes down this street. But just before the five fire trucks come charging down the street a train starts crossing. And the trucks for stopped for at least 5 minutes. Not good. Or there's an active shooter at the school, and the police get held up by a train. That siren and the flashing lights gets cars to pull over and let you by, but the trains wouldn't pay any attention. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 Depends on the city of course but anything bigger than a town would at least have a station on either side of the tracks. Plus mutual support from neighbors if any. Those mile long freights can really bollux things otherwise. my city of about 100,000 has 13 stations. Cambridge, Mass has only 8 but I bet because of the overall population, they can rely on mutual support. Whereas I think towns near me have a plan that if needed, we’ll lend a hand if their crews are overwhelmed, and they’ll come to aid in the fringes of the city. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 Not that I know of. Our Medieval re-enactment group held an event at the county fairgrounds; a short line runs through the grounds, and we were told recent Federal anti-terrorism laws prohibit divulging train schedules. Our local village has a fire station north of a pair of tracks; they built a second station below the tracks because the squad couldn't get to a scene in time, and there were structures lost because of a train either stopped on the crossing, or running warp slow, and mutual aid from an adjacent village got there after it burned through the roof. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Riot Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 At every transit agency I have worked at including the FRA railroad in OR the police and fire depts are given schedules. But they truly pay no attention to them. Why should they? It is not their jobs to know train schedules. What they are interested in and keep track of is train headway times. How often will trains pass through at any given time. Trains have the right of way over emergency vehicles. They do not stop for them in most cases. Why? Because they cannot stop in time. Be it a Light Rail System or a Freight / Passenger Railroad. Emergency services know this yet every year a train collides with a police, fire or medical response vehicle because the driver chose to either beat the train or assumed their flashing lights should get the train to stop because of ignorance. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 We never got train schedules, but a good beat cop got to know when the train was going through his area on a daily basis. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pulp, SASS#28319 Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 (edited) Here in small town Oklahoma emergency vehicles often have to wait for over an hour for tracks to clear. Either wait or drive an extra 8 or so miles to get around. The BNSF line that roughly parallels I-35 causes issues in just about every town it goes through. Not so much from a single train, but when one is on a siding waiting for another to pass on the main line. Some of the towns started issuing citations to any train that blocked highways for more than 15 minutes, but that didn’t work out. Edited September 12 by Pulp, SASS#28319 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Riot Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 42 minutes ago, Sarge said: We never got train schedules, but a good beat cop got to know when the train was going through his area on a daily basis. I’ll bet your management did. I have been in more than one meeting where the Transportation types (former train operators with inflated egos) handed a police or fire chief a train schedule and when the meeting was over that schedule or schedules was either left on the table or dropped in the trash near the room exit. I actually watched a police chief use a post card type schedule to clean his teeth as the meeting went on. I couldn’t help but laugh. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rip Snorter Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 The city where I was in law enforcement had heavy industry at the time and quite a lot of tracks crisscrossing the city, including the center. I can recall being caught on one side by a long freight train with another squad involved in a violent arrest on the other side of the train / tracks. We could see what was going on under the train, no way to help. We did not have schedules, though it was a very professional department and I'd bet they were available at the dispatch station. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Sun Posted September 12 Share Posted September 12 Has anyone ever seen a train on schedule, especially a passenger (Amtrak type) train? I would think that a train schedule would be useless and even if EMS had schedules, they have other priorities to contend with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.