# Almost An Eye Witness



## MrFSS (Oct 6, 2007)

My wife and I were in a small South Central Kentucky town yesterday checking out the antique stores. This little burg sits on the CSX line between Louisville and Nashville, old L&N line.

I had seen a number of freights blow by at 50+MPH most of the afternoon. Then, as I was standing close to the tracks a large semi-truck started to cross. At the same time the gates started down and he had the front of his hood almost up to the tracks. The gate landed on his hood just in front of the windshield. He started to back up, but smoething on the hood caught the gate. He made it back this far.







He jumped out of the cab and tried to lift the gate. Amazingly it lifted some and stayed in that position long enough he could back up further.






But, it still wasn't far enough. A fellow on the other side pushed the gate up, again, from the center of the road. All the while the train is bearing down on the scene. Finally, he was able to get the truck back enough to clear the gate.






By this time I realized the train had slowed some, but still came by doing 20-30 MPH. As the engine passed the truck, the engineer gave a wave to the truck driver, or at least it looked like a way. May have been another gesture.






By now the engine is almost up to where I'm standing. Then it dawned me - I wasn't standing in the best place if that truck hadn't have gotten off the track!






I waved at the engineer, too.


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## GG-1 (Oct 6, 2007)

Aloha

Guess it's time for your Merit badge in photo journalism, but it wouldn't surprise me that you already have one from seeing your other pictures. 

From the first shot it looks like you and the truck were safe, barely. What seems strange is, it looks like the truck makes a 90 degree corner as it crosses the tracks, as the oppisite side looks like some train display, so why was the truck going too fast to stop before the gate or was there some other factor.

Lastly what a greate collection of pictures and comments.

Mahalo


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## MrFSS (Oct 6, 2007)

GG-1 said:


> Aloha
> Guess it's time for your Merit badge in photo journalism, but it wouldn't surprise me that you already have one from seeing your other pictures.
> 
> From the first shot it looks like you and the truck were safe, barely. What seems strange is, it looks like the truck makes a 90 degree corner as it crosses the tracks, as the opposite side looks like some train display, so why was the truck going too fast to stop before the gate or was there some other factor.
> ...


If the gate hadn't have come down, the truck would have gone straight over the track - no turns, Those cars you see are parked in a little parking area for a shop on the other side of the tracks.
Thanks for the comments, Eric.

Tom


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## George Harris (Oct 8, 2007)

> By now the engine is almost up to where I'm standing. Then it dawned me - I wasn't standing in the best place if that truck hadn't have gotten off the track!


To put it mildly. If the train had hit the truck it would probably have landed on you and your pancaked body would probably not have been found until well into the clean up process.


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## Grandma B (Oct 8, 2007)

Great pictures! Thank goodness you're still with us!  And people blame Amtrak and the freights for human/car/truck accidents! The freight was on the tracks where it's suppose to be....the stupid truck driver wasn't where he should have been! Question: how close was the freight to the crossing gate when it came down?


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## MrFSS (Oct 8, 2007)

Grandma B said:


> Great pictures! Thank goodness you're still with us!  And people blame Amtrak and the freights for human/car/truck accidents! The freight was on the tracks where it's suppose to be....the stupid truck driver wasn't where he should have been! Question: how close was the freight to the crossing gate when it came down?


He was quite a distance back - far enough he almost came to a stop by the time he reached the truck on the road. If the gate hadn't have caught on the truck hood and the truck could have backed up faster than he did and there wouldn't have been anything to take pictures of.
FYI - I only moved into the place where I took the pictures from when I knew the truck wasn't going to get hit. That's really the first thing that came to my mind. I was just trying to be humorous about it all.


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