http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/train-hopping-couple-buried-alive-under-coal-162959769.html
I saw that. I sure wouldn’t pick a coal car to ride, empty or full.
Always sad when an adventure becomes fatal.
Ralph
Very sad. This is becoming a popular adventure. If you have Netfix Streaming watch “The American Hobo” It’s a little dated but good.
Culling the herd. Hard to work up any sympathy.
We refer to that as natural selection around here. It is very sad to see two lives cut so short, but that is frequently a consequence of inappropriate, dangerous and illegal behavior.
My real sympathy is with the police, fire, medical and other emergency responders who have to clean up the remains, along with the railroad and plant operators who will no doubt be subjected to lots of second guesses along with increased restrictions on how they conduct their operations.
As to the mother who seems to be proud of her progeny’s actions and early demise, I just hope she doesn’t have any other children that will clog up the coal chutes in the future.
Happy RRing,
Jerry
Jerry…very well put…my feelings exactly…
Same goes for the cretins here in UK who dare each other to touch the railroad catenary wires.
In fact, all they need, on a dry day, is to be about 8-10" from it, reaching out - that 33,000V just LEAPS across the air into their little bodies.
Two 12-year-olds died last year - the one kid almost touching the wire, and the other moron holding him over the bridge parapet. Both ended up welded to the platework.
tac, ig & The Dalles Dam Boys
Jerry-
You isolated the key point in the story: likely more regulations/procedures imposed on the plant workers and corporation. Litigation is the big game. However, the mother would have a hard time, based on her comments, to claim pain and suffering damages from the lack of signage on the coal cars professing the implicit danger in riding in them. The company’s insurance corp. would find her quoted comments helpful in defending the coal company’s claim they demonstrated reasonable behavior in the use of their coal cars.
Wendell
Culling the herd & natural selection ?
I guess neither of you did anything stupid in your younger days. Never race your car on a public road ?
Cross an active railroad trestle, bridge or walk a tunnel ?
Myself, I did plenty of dangerous and stupid things when I was young.
I understand I was lucky to survive my stupidity. So, I can have a little sympathy for those that don’t.
Ralph
"He made so many bad decisions " Wow, sad to say this was the biggest. Why in gods name would anyone who knows anything about trains choose to ride in an open coal car? There was a story a couple years ago about a train hopper who rode in an open gondola full of metal pipes which shifted during transit moving him to the bottom crushing him. Trains are not things to be taken non chilantle. They can easily maim and kill the unwary rider.
Do Stupid Stuff… And Even Stupider Stuff will Happen To You!