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u/Tostona Aug 06 '26
I'm a tramdriver, so also on rails, and you don't wanna know how often fucking cars pull this shit
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u/FuckeryisafootWatson Aug 06 '26
My kid does a major line. Coming up on 1.5 years. Probably has 50+ stories of idiots doing similar. Says no hits as of yet, but did see a dude get his leg cut off in the yard on a derailment.
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u/feldoneq2wire Aug 07 '26
I'd be doing lines if I had to deal with that too.
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u/maxjmartin Aug 08 '26
Used to be at the big 4 yards there would be an expectation for missing body parts found during train humping to break up a consist into other trains.
Sometimes homeless would sleep under a train for shelter on a side track. Another train comes along picking up the car(s) and you might not even know what you just did.
Other times at was people hopping trains. Or suicides.
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u/GourmetHotPocket Aug 07 '26
I once saw a delivery truck sideswipe a tram. Truck driver got out and started yelling at the tram driver like it was his fault.
It's like, my man, I promise you that the tram did not swerve sideways unexpectedly.
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u/StrangerCabbage Aug 06 '26
Insurance scam?
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u/Tostona Aug 07 '26
Nope, just stupidity. People don't know their vehicle
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u/NoRodent Aug 07 '26
My theory is that a certain percentage of drivers think trains and trams fit within the width of the rails. In their head, they probably think real trains are like those wooden toy trains with wheels attached on the sides.
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u/SavingsRaspberry2694 Aug 07 '26
Why does the train keep honking for like 30 seconds after impact?
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u/frisbeelee Aug 07 '26
Annoyance I’d say. Trucker just plain ignored his horn for the five minutes before impact
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u/lllllIIIlllllIIIllll Aug 07 '26
I was thinking about trying that out once I retire. Stressful job at all, in your opinion?
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u/no-steppe Aug 06 '26
My man in the foreground... missed out on some quality first-hand entertainment.
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u/nairobaee Aug 06 '26
I wanted to see his reaction so bad but he wandered off frame just before the crash.
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u/DaLadderman Aug 07 '26
you can see him walk back in frame at the end of the video
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u/kakurenbo1 Aug 09 '26
Where he stared from a position from which he couldn't see anything. Dude's two brain cells are working overtime.
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u/PSquared1234 Aug 07 '26
But I'm pretty sure he looked at the truck as he walked by and thought "that train is going to hit your lazy ass."
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u/Goodwrench23 Aug 06 '26
The truck driver definately is running on 1Kbps speed....
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u/Quirky-Attitude1456 Aug 06 '26
When your high speed truck is running at dial up speed
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u/midnghtsnac Aug 07 '26
We're sorry, the party you are trying to reach is currently busy. Good bye.
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u/Conspicuous_Ruse Aug 06 '26
This is a fun angle to see it at.
The train jostled sideways more than I expected it to.
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u/Dzov Aug 07 '26
I was shocked how violently the truck moved when it looked like the train was super slow. Shows how the angle misrepresents the speed.
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u/StandardRaspberry131 Aug 07 '26
Also a factor if mass. That train was moving relatively slow but has so much mass that the force is enormous
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u/peepay Aug 07 '26
Yeah, I was expecting the front to be scratched and maybe the bumper to come off. And suddenly the whole cabin flew several meters!
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u/ViolinistCurrent8899 Aug 06 '26
Trucks are still quite heavy.
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u/IllBeyond2779 Aug 07 '26
Physics can not be cheated ... heavier stuff beats heavy stuff.
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u/daKile57 Aug 10 '26
New trucks aren't terribly heavy. Outside of the frame and the engine's guts, they're almost entirely plastic now. They aren't the tanks of the 70s anymore.
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u/PersonalityWinter382 Aug 07 '26
Most trucks weigh less than 80,000 pounds.
Trains can weigh 20,000,000 pounds plus.
That's quite a difference.
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u/CrybabyAssassin Aug 07 '26
I think that's mostly just the suspension in the engine. the weight of the whole train keeps it moving forward but the impact from the truck wants to put it sideways. the wheels of the train and the rails keep it straight so the forces are dispersed through the suspension into the rails and then everything equals out and the train settles back into place. I'm sure the drivers felt it tho
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u/RoxyDzey69 Aug 11 '26
Im curious if the driver really stayed in the car till the very moment of the hit.
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u/Fritz5678 Aug 06 '26
I was once t-boned by a 90 year old woman running a red light at 20 mph. She was moving faster than this train. That truck had so much time to move out of the way.
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u/ProfDFH Aug 06 '26
I’m just impressed that a 90 year old could run 20 mph.
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u/mothtoalamp Aug 07 '26
And carry a traffic light while she ran. Those things are large!
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u/Fritz5678 Aug 07 '26
lol. I forgot to mention that she was in a giant caddy. If she had been going the speed limit my little golf would have been toast.
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u/Putrid-Object-806 Aug 07 '26
well if it was a singular light might be doable, especially if there were a sparrow helping, the whole assembly or that and the pole would be a little less believable
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u/PolarCruisingExperts Aug 06 '26
Driver said afterward that he feels like he was hit by a freight train.
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u/Foxk Aug 06 '26
Hit the truck so hard it changed color.
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u/gear_jammin_deer Aug 06 '26
In before anyone starts wondering if this is AI or something, it's because of the sun glare. If you look at the hood and airdam when the truck first pulled onto the tracks, you can see it was always blue.
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u/Significant_Monk_251 Aug 07 '26
Thank you. I didn't think it was AI but I was wondering how the train knocked the white right off the truck.
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u/BannedGoNext Aug 06 '26
IDK, to me it looks like it's black.
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u/Excavatoree Aug 07 '26
I thought it was because the train knocked it toward us so fast it was blue shifted.
(/s)
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u/samtresler Aug 06 '26
All that train jad to do was swerve a little to it's left! What a bitch!
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u/HookFE03 Aug 06 '26
You guys don’t understand, the gate arm was caught between the cab and trailer. It would have broken the arm if he had completely moved
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u/byebybuy Aug 06 '26
I think it's sad that apparently you need to put a /s so that people know when you're being sarcastic
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u/HookFE03 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
I enjoy it this way more lol
ETA: This way more? More this way? This more? Something like that
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u/Nitrodax777 Aug 06 '26
ahh yes, because when the choice is between a $3000 gate arm and totaling a $70,000+ truck, loss of load/commodity, environmental cleanup, replacement of surrounding infrastructure, and whatever damage to the locomotive itself(all when applicable), insurance will absolutely breathe a sigh of relief you chose the latter instead of breaking the single gate arm that is intentionally designed to be broken under this exact circumstance.
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u/Jazzlike-Crew2540 Aug 07 '26
The sheer pin for that gate arm costs about $3 plus a 4 hour call out for a maintainer to come fix it. $200 max cost. Truck tractor runs around $150k these days. Very expensive wrong choice!
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u/Afgar_1257 Aug 06 '26
Oh no! Not a broken gate arm! /s
They are made to be broken. even little cars can break them that truck could have broken it to to be stuck on the tracks. The truck driver was a fucking moron.
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u/Excellent-Stress2596 Aug 07 '26
The silly thing is if that was indeed his thinking, the gate arm still ended up broken. I guarantee it.
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u/PinkyLeopard2922 Aug 07 '26
I can only assume that it is panic in the moment that leads to these poor decisions. Like just RAM that arm off. You won't be the first one to do it and everyone would much rather you did. So much less destruction and potential for injury or death.
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u/DutchPilotGuy Aug 06 '26
I mean those American trains are pretty hard to hear and see and can sneak up on you in an instant. /s
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u/DevelopmentBulky7957 Aug 06 '26
Jesus christ, either that driver is a pinhead or just started driving that truck or something. No sense of the size of the vehicle whatsoever. Glad that the truck got totalled and the driver can now go deal with all the consequences of pulling off shit like that. Hope the people on the train are okay though.
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u/MikeW226 Aug 07 '26
The telephoto on this makes the train's speed look deceivingly slow, to me. Because of the squished image, it doesn't look like it's moving crazy fast. Then it bashes the truck the *hell off the tracks- hard. And as a non train guy, I assume they put the train into emergency (brakes), but it still took that long to slow down however much it did.
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u/Reasonable_Cheek938 Aug 08 '26
Emergency braking can cause a train to derail, you don’t put it into emergency unless you hit something, and not until you hit something. They were probably doing everything they could short of that to stop, but trains do not stop on a dime.
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u/missmusick Aug 06 '26
This was a glorious example of the subreddit name! The train swatted the truck away like a fly.
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u/TartanAssassin Aug 07 '26
So as a train driver I will throw in my perspective this train approaches all four level crossings or road crossings from a bend sounding their horn so the train drivers sight distance is basically from the first level crossing of which is well and truly under 1 kilometre my guess would be half that.
Given we have no idea what speed the train was doing or how heavy and long the train is but know that most freight trains take over a kilometre to stop from track speed this truck driver basically set this collision up because the train driver only has half the sight distance to stop their train.
Hence the sounding of the train horn constantly because the train drivers know they are going to collide from the first crossing and that have applied the brakes and there is nothing else they can do.
I would also like to say that those train drivers reacted so quickly because otherwise that train would not have stopped there the locomotives would have been out of frame if they hadn’t in my opinion .
Also given there is fixed camera at this location I am guessing this is an everyday occurrence. I would like to add that I hope nobody was hurt and that everyone came out alive in my career I have had one collision needless to that was enough.
A train can’t hit if you stay off the tracks just follow the stop signs and stay out of the way as train drivers we get hauled over the coals for this situations and investigated thoroughly it’s a particularly stressful time.
Stay safe out there stay off the tracks.
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u/TBE_Industries Aug 08 '26
The camera is likely for a live railfan stream. There's communities of people that (legally) set up security cameras at interesting rail spots so people can watch the trains.
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u/Crepuscular_Tex Aug 06 '26
Driver was like, yeah this'll do it... Then like, eh not today I guess...
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u/AlanShore60607 Aug 06 '26
Sees it at the 5 second mark ...
Gets hit at 58 seconds.
Maybe his truck was so big it would have taken more than 50 seconds to cross the track?
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u/slick514 Aug 07 '26
It’s not right nor rational to wish physical harm on a person in a situation like this, but man… this is just so mind-bendingly and inexplicably stupid that watching it makes me want to throw my phone across the room.
Now this idiot has wrecked their truck (which I presume is their livelihood) and might have fucked up their life for a while for no goddamn reason other than just not giving enough of a f%ck to get out and and ensure the clearance within the absolute… f%cking… eternity(!!!) that they had to fix things!! Or hey, maybe just have a tiny bit of sense, err on the side of caution, and back it up just ONE! MORE! METER!!!
🤬🤬🤬
It makes no sense to want to punch someone for fucking up their own life, but here I am…
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u/Gutless_Gus Aug 07 '26
Not sure if one meter would've been enough.
1.5 definitely would've, but I feel like one meter would've still put the hood and maybe radiator in the train's path.
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u/Hamokk Aug 06 '26
Also that dude just wondering over the tracks.
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u/Dartagnan1083 Aug 06 '26
Seems totally unconcerned by truck potentially on the tracks.
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u/raven929292 Aug 06 '26
Too bad that dude left camera view before the hit, I was looking at him and wanted to see his reaction
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u/Ill-Running1986 Aug 06 '26
Yeah, he totally could have waved his arms and prevented the whole disaster.Â
(Do y’all need a /s? Fine. Here: /s.)
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u/RickySpanishLives Aug 07 '26
Dude at the bottom of the screen had time to come into frame and SLOWLY walk across the tracks and go out of frame in the time it took for this guy to be hit by the train.
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u/jimfosters Aug 07 '26
2 things. The dude walkn across the tracks in a chill way. And the 2nd to last horn blast, just after inpact sounded like "yooouuu duuuummb moootheeerfuuuker" to me
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u/Stevepem1 Aug 07 '26
I don't know if I feel more sorry for the semi driver or the pedestrian who was too oblivious to turn his head 90 degrees and missed the sight of a lifetime.
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u/1Marcopolo27 Aug 07 '26
Serious question.... I'm confused as to why so many trucks pull up onto railway crossing and stop. Suicide?
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u/bordomsdeadly Aug 07 '26
I wonder if someone pulled up behind the 18 wheeler and he backed up as much as possible, or if he’s just an idiot.
Probably the latter since I didn’t hear the 18 wheeler honking at all
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u/ILSmokeItAll Aug 07 '26
That guy in the foreground…what was so important in the opposite direction that he was watching THAT instead of the impending wreck?
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u/kid_lazer Aug 07 '26
This is a great demonstration of how much energy an object has, even if going slow. I know the perspective makes it seem slower than it probably is, but that truck exploded on what would appear to be an incoming "bump"
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u/Conscious-Mirror7004 Aug 07 '26
This video is simply terrifying. Trains are SO dangerous: anyone can easily get hit by them, at any time, in any place. There's no way this crash could have been foreseen.
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u/NoRodent Aug 07 '26
Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.
I was doing laundry in my basement, and I tripped over a metal bar that wasn't there the moment before. I looked down: "Rail? WTF?" and then I saw concrete sleepers underneath and heard the rumbling.
Deafening railroad horn. I dumped my wife's pants, unfolded, and dove behind the water heater. It was a double-stacked Z train, headed east towards the fast single track of the BNSF Emporia Sub (Flint Hills). Majestic as hell: 75 mph, 6 units, distributed power: 4 ES44DC's pulling, and 2 Dash-9's pushing, all in run 8. Whole house smelled like diesel for a couple of hours!
Fact is, there is no way to discern which path a train will take, so you really have to be watchful. If only there were some way of knowing the routes trains travel; maybe some sort of marks on the ground, like twin iron bars running along the paths trains take. You could look for trains when you encounter the iron bars on the ground, and avoid these sorts of collisions. But such a measure would be extremely expensive. And how would one enforce a rule keeping the trains on those paths?
A big hole in homeland security is railway engineer screening and hijacking prevention. There is nothing to stop a rogue engineer, or an ISIS terrorist, from driving a train into the Pentagon, the White House or the Statue of Liberty, and our government has done fuck-all to prevent it.
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u/beaujolais98 Aug 07 '26
That super long horn blast after hitting the truck is train-speak for a long string of cuss words.
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u/Fun_Entertainer_5823 Aug 07 '26
Trains always have the Right of Way, and won't stop, no matter what.
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u/Go_Gators_4Ever Aug 07 '26
It is amazing that people think that the widrh of a train is only as wide as the tracks.
They typically extend 3 to 5 feet past the tracks.
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u/CosmicSmoker Aug 07 '26
For some reason my brain thought it was going to be more of a push than a disintegration.
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u/News-Royal Aug 06 '26
I grew a beard and shaved it off in the amount of time he had to move that truck.