# Metra engineer(s) let teen drive trains



## fizzball (Oct 24, 2008)

links a-plenty:

Tribune initial

Trib followup

Sun-Times


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## Green Maned Lion (Oct 24, 2008)

I don't see the big deal with letting kids ride in the cab if it happens to be ok with the engineer. Assuming they are willing to keep quiet and stay out of the way, of course.


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## fizzball (Oct 24, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> I don't see the big deal with letting kids ride in the cab if it happens to be ok with the engineer. Assuming they are willing to keep quiet and stay out of the way, of course.




I know there's safety to consider, but...

It's gotta be just a great feeling to have people -- kids especially -- show a genuine interest in, and a desire to know all they possibly can about, what you do. I had a little taste of that in a long-ago time as a sportswriter, and in a summer job driving an ice-cream truck. But that was more envy about fringe benefits (free courtside seats! knee deep in Choco Tacos!) than interest/curiosity about _the work_.

Anyway, it's nice when teens show an interest in a vocation [get off my lawn] that isn't playing video games or pirating music [/get off my lawn], and it's unfortunate when the penalty for an easy way of encouraging that interest is a local scandal and loss of job.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Oct 25, 2008)

Actually, I have to wonder if a well-designed program that allowed and encouraged non-railroad employees to get some experience in the cab could improve safety.

One of the biggest safety problems railroads have is grade crossing accidents where people failed to appreciate how poorly the brakes on a train work. If every high school student who has a license to drive an automobile had either had a chance to try to stop a train a few times or at least had a friend around their age who had, people might have a better appreciation of the importance of waiting for the train. Though this experience would probably be better gotten with freight trains than passenger trains.

I get the impression that most of the things that happen in a cab don't happen very quickly, in general, either, which would help if a student engineer does something wrong that the supervising engineer needs to correct. I get the impression that it may not be as dangerous as an automobile, where a second or two of bad steering can cause a collision.


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## GG-1 (Oct 25, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> Actually, I have to wonder if a well-designed program that allowed and encouraged non-railroad employees to get some experience in the cab could improve safety.


Aloha

What Joel has said here is the key, "well-designed". How often does the generation in power, consider anyone else.

Mahalo for your 2 cents times infinity.

Eric


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## Alice (Oct 25, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> Actually, I have to wonder if a well-designed program that allowed and encouraged non-railroad employees to get some experience in the cab could improve safety.
> One of the biggest safety problems railroads have is grade crossing accidents where people failed to appreciate how poorly the brakes on a train work. If every high school student who has a license to drive an automobile had either had a chance to try to stop a train a few times or at least had a friend around their age who had, people might have a better appreciation of the importance of waiting for the train. Though this experience would probably be better gotten with freight trains than passenger trains.
> 
> I get the impression that most of the things that happen in a cab don't happen very quickly, in general, either, which would help if a student engineer does something wrong that the supervising engineer needs to correct. I get the impression that it may not be as dangerous as an automobile, where a second or two of bad steering can cause a collision.


There is a crushed car on a trailer at UP's No. Platte yard that they use for education, kind of like the crushed cars that are used to educate high schoolers about drunk driving. (Photo) 

I think you can get the message to a lot more kids this way.

For in-cab views that show how long it takes between seeing a car on the tracks and stopping (or hitting the car and stopping), how about an interactive computer game?


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## MrFSS (Oct 25, 2008)

There is a dandy exhibit in Northern Ohio at the rail museum at Bellevue. At least it was there about 10 years ago when I took this one.


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## Neil_M (Oct 25, 2008)

A motoring show on the BBC did this a year or so ago...... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ekpD06P7kiI

As for letting random youths drive trains then it is asking for trouble, especially if everything some people do ends up on a website of some sort.

In the past I have driven trains at up 110mph on the mainline, under instruction, normally on test runs after repairs, but the level of paranoia around these sorts of things these days means I wouldn't do it now, not worth all the attendant bother that might follow.

When I was a lot younger it was common practice for drivers to let young railfans have a quick look in the loco cab at stations, maybe even let them ride from one platform to another, but in recent years drivers have been disciplined for that sort of thing, so if the rule states no unauthorised people in the cab then thats what you do.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Oct 25, 2008)

MrFSS said:


> There is a dandy exhibit in Northern Ohio at the rail museum at Bellevue. At least it was there about 10 years ago when I took this one.


From looking at that photo, I'm not convinced that the driver of that automobile would have been killed by that locomotive.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Oct 25, 2008)

Alice said:


> There is a crushed car on a trailer at UP's No. Platte yard that they use for education, kind of like the crushed cars that are used to educate high schoolers about drunk driving. (Photo)  I think you can get the message to a lot more kids this way.


If that was my entire education, I'd expect a train at any time, and assume the train would need approximately two seconds more to stop than an automobile approaching from the same speed and direction, when I was deciding whether to pull out in front of that train.


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## amtrakwolverine (Oct 26, 2008)

some kids just laugh at the display and say i got 1000HP under my mustang i can outrun a train anyday. i'll never get hit. some people you just can't reach.


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## Green Maned Lion (Oct 27, 2008)

I've seen a lot of people sitting on tracks waiting to make left turns and such- they could move a bit and not put themselves in harm way. Videos of trains taking a large truck or bus and exploding it aside like a hand swats a gnat go a long way to convince people, trust me.

I completely agree that kids driving trains is unacceptable, especially on a mainline or such. Riding in the cab and driving a train are different.


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## birdy (Nov 17, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> I've seen a lot of people sitting on tracks waiting to make left turns and such- they could move a bit and not put themselves in harm way. Videos of trains taking a large truck or bus and exploding it aside like a hand swats a gnat go a long way to convince people, trust me.
> I completely agree that kids driving trains is unacceptable, especially on a mainline or such. Riding in the cab and driving a train are different.


Saw an absolutely GREAT feature on local news show about ten years ago. The railroad had the film crew in the cab filming all kinds of harrowing events with kids darting out across the crossing on their bicycles and whatnot. Then they had a clock on the lower part of the screen showing how close they came to impact. The thing was, it looked like they made only one pass through town to get all the footage they needed. Its terrific TV and every line ought to do it once a year.


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