Brightline train and fire truck collide in Delray Beach 12/28/24

[MARC Rider]

It'll be 30 years I've been living here and here is my take. The roads now have gotten worse then when I first moved here. Problem is FDOT has to bare the blame. Look at how many accidents and wrong way incidents have happened on I-4, after the I-4 Ultimate project completed.

FDOT will not fund such a project to remove grade crossings on the Brightline corridor, because they simply don't want too. They don't have a serious plan to address congestion on Florida's roads either, other then to add more lanes of highways. Look at the state of public transportation in each county in Florida that has transit, and ask yourselves, if that's a serious way to provide relief from the congestion on Florida's roads.

I took my car down on the Auto Train last year, then drove to Miami Beach and drove around the greater Miami area a bit. I agree that the traffic has gotten worse (than my last trip in 2015), but it was bad then, too. What I noticed was a sizeable minority of drivers making knucklehead maneuvers, excessive speeding, disregard of traffic controls, etc. That in addition to the congestion. At first, I thought it was a "Florida Man" phenomenon, then we returned home, and I'm seeing similar stunts on the road in Maryland. I suspect it's a mental health issue wrapped up in the lingering recovery from the Covid pandemic.

As for the traffic congestion, there's nothing one can do, except getting people out of their cars, but that means getting rid of suburban sprawl, which has a much of a chance of happening as a Communist candidate winning the next presidential election. I'm not sure Florida is any worse than Maryland or Virginia in this regard.

It's not clear to me exactly who funded the removal of the grade crossings on the NEC South in the early 1980s, nut I suspect it was taxpayer money of some sort or another. I would seem to me that one task for Florida's representative and senators in Washington is to get a nice little pork-barrel project funding grade crossing elimination on this stretch of track. If they have problems with giving taxpayer money to a private corporation like FEC, then they can fund the local highway departments to build road bridges over the tracks.

But, thinking more, maybe this is a Florida thing. Back in circa 1975, they were running frequent passenger trains on the NEC at 90+ mph (Metroliners did 110), commuter trains, and even freight, there were grade crossings, there must have been crashes, but I really don't remember them being that frequent.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

I took my car down on the Auto Train last year, then drove to Miami Beach and drove around the greater Miami area a bit. I agree that the traffic has gotten worse (than my last trip in 2015), but it was bad then, too. What I noticed was a sizeable minority of drivers making knucklehead maneuvers, excessive speeding, disregard of traffic controls, etc. That in addition to the congestion. At first, I thought it was a "Florida Man" phenomenon, then we returned home, and I'm seeing similar stunts on the road in Maryland. I suspect it's a mental health issue wrapped up in the lingering recovery from the Covid pandemic.

As for the traffic congestion, there's nothing one can do, except getting people out of their cars, but that means getting rid of suburban sprawl, which has a much of a chance of happening as a Communist candidate winning the next presidential election. I'm not sure Florida is any worse than Maryland or Virginia in this regard.

It's not clear to me exactly who funded the removal of the grade crossings on the NEC South in the early 1980s, nut I suspect it was taxpayer money of some sort or another. I would seem to me that one task for Florida's representative and senators in Washington is to get a nice little pork-barrel project funding grade crossing elimination on this stretch of track. If they have problems with giving taxpayer money to a private corporation like FEC, then they can fund the local highway departments to build road bridges over the tracks.

But, thinking more, maybe this is a Florida thing. Back in circa 1975, they were running frequent passenger trains on the NEC at 90+ mph (Metroliners did 110), commuter trains, and even freight, there were grade crossings, there must have been crashes, but I really don't remember them being that frequent.

I hate to go off topic and I do hope the mods will be lenient on this, because it does tie into Brightline. Accidents did happen in the 1970s with trains, but they were not as frequent as they are now. Plus 1975, Disney World had only just open and it wasn't what it is now. The population had not grown and Orlando use to be a destination for older folks to travel too, so they can get away from Winter.

A lot of Florida was grassy land with many two lane highways and roads. Some roads didn't even exist as roads back then. Part of the issue now is that too many people are moving to Florida, many of which came from cities with robust transit. Instead of getting on public transportation, everyone drives. Public transportation it's either very poor or it doesn't serve as many people as it should. So the congestion is as bad as it is, because no one wants to ask the serious questions about public transit.

As for Brightline and removal of grade crossings, the only way I see any of that happening is if there is a serious change at FDOT from the top down. I want to be optimistic, but 30 years again is a long time to wait for improvements on anything outside of road projects in this state. We'll see what happens. Oh and the Florida Man thing, while is it is a defining thing in Florida, accidents like this could've happened anywhere in the world. The firefighters should've known better and they're supposed to be responding to emergencies at that.

 

[jpakala]

Emergency braking occurred as I recall, so that may explain some reduction in locomotive damage. If I'm not mistaken, Brightline equipment, operators, and passengers have been spared a lot because collisions mainly have been with pedestrians and automobiles, unlike this fire truck situation, although directly hitting the center of it likely would have been worse. As to crossings, those with gates completely blocking vehicles from going around them should have fewer problems, though greater installation expense occurs presumably. The following may not be happening or, if it is, may be in some jurisdictions but not others, and what I'm referring to is local planning of emergency routes that avoid grade crossings and, if there are no such options (over or under the tracks with Brightline type of service) then they should be built. Federal, state, and local attention is suggested as a major priority.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

The following may not be happening or, if it is, may be in some jurisdictions but not others, and what I'm referring to is local planning of emergency routes that avoid grade crossings and, if there are no such options (over or under the tracks with Brightline type of service) then they should be built.

A) One town has build a Station 2 on the other side of the tracks (Hudson, Colorado). This way a stopped or derail train doesn’t prevent emergency equipment from servicing the community.

B) Another community in KC metro gets notified if there a train traveling on a bypass cutting off a portion of a residential neighborhood. The bypass was reactivated a few years back, when traffic has very high, and after the residential section moved in.

Emergency services are sometimes brought in for assessment of new projects. There demands may or may not be included in the final project.

 

[railiner]

Just a thought…
What if, the State of Florida, would build an entirely new railroad, with maybe four passenger and a freight track in one right of way either on a new aligmnent, or the existing one that Amtrak, Tri Rail and CSX use, and offer to let Brightline and FEC share it free, in exchange for giving up their current line?
Perhaps the real estate value of the FEC and Brightline properties would fund the cost of building it. If an entirely new alignment would be deemed the better way, than the existing value of both current routes could contribute to the cost of the new one, plus possibly increased value of real estate along the new route.

Again, just a “what if” thought, that most likely would never be taken seriously…

 

[George Harris]

In the meantime, why can't vehicles just not stop on the tracks, or if they must cross like the fire truck, not do so until it's confirmed clear in both directions?

In Taiwan, the RR crossings are marked extremely clearly and it's obvious to all that you should never stop on the tracks.

I lived and worked in Taiwan 1990 to 2007, with a hole in the middle for me but my family stayed there. The extreme protection shown was not general but, to the best of my memory, primarily in Taipei City where they had a four track main line through the city. There were upwards of four trains per hour in each direction through the city. Ninety percent or thereabouts of the trains were passenger trains varying from around 8 cars up to around 16 cars. On one occasion I was on a city bus stopped at a crossing watching four trains go by before the gates went up. Also, many of these crossings were manually controlled by an operator at each crossing when we first got there. Due to the high frequency of trains people seldom stopped on the tracks. Despite all this protection I have seen cars stop on the tracks, but usually they managed to get out of the way before a train came through. Outside the major urban areas, grade crossing was not much different from the lights and gates we see in the US. The four track line through Taipei City was placed in a cut and cover tunnel while we were there. That would not be practical in Florida. There was one occasion of flooding in Taipei. Typhoon Nari stalled over the Chilung River basin and covered an area about the same size as said river basin, which meant flooding throughout the city, including the underground portions of the railway. There was a picture published showing standing water in Taipei Main Station about two feet deep over the platforms. If you think that is bad, underneath the railway is the MRT Red Line station which meant it was flooded to the ceiling.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

Brightline trains go by quickly, but people are used to freight trains with longer passing times. Also, fire trucks are extremely expensive. Chicago has a grade crossing leaving the station northbound, it's in videos by Trains Are Awesome.

I used to wait for very long coal trains when I was a small kid. Maybe N&W was built that way, as opposed to the B&O or Chessie? The low-lying cities in southeastern Virginia have a mix of road tunnels and grade crossings. Very occasionally the tunnels, embossed in concrete with the N&W logo, flood and you go around. A different major crossing, for containers to the port, is more difficult to go around. It has a phone text message alert service. The trains go slowly and sometimes stop and back up! Everyone's used to it, along with bridge openings, not that it brings happiness.

South Florida is a series of railroad towns à la Ashland VA or LaGrange KY, with the mainline sometimes right in the middle of the main street. But it's busier, and the FEC is more or less the center of things. South Florida also has the state's only two road tunnels, one under a river in one of those railroad towns, the other under the bay on the way to Port Miami. It can all be done with money and policy. Brightline doesn't even pay for expansion stations, and the FRA spends mainly on mitigation, so don't look there. Brightline did pay quite a lot to reconfigure the 528 highway exits for twenty miles, to make that 120mph run crossing-free, as well as two major underpasses at Cocoa and a long bridge over I-95. Must have been a billion right there, along with the endless bridges over waterways that needed rebuilds.

Florida Man is in trouble this time I suspect, though fire departments are famously independent. Saw a lot of small departments in Louisiana and dense parts of NY State, some with their own bands and, of course, parade contingents. They were reputed to be hardly controlled politically. I have also seen their very large conventions, as a vendor. Quite a scene. Takes a certain way of thinking to do that job. The trade mags are safety-first and informative. This incident will be written up I'm sure.

 

[Qapla]

Not just in Florida, many sets of tracks were installed years ago passing through sparsely populated areas. Later, developers bought up the land and built housing creating neighborhoods. While doing so, they built road-after-road across the tracks that were there long before the houses, roads and traffic.

Now, they want to tell the railroad to fix the problem the developers created - after all, why should the people who moved in and created the problem and stop on the tracks have to fix it.

Yes, there are many, many grade crossings in Florida, especially in the area where Brightline is using FEC tracks ... but the tracks were there long before those roads with grade crossing were.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Lots of Chicago suburbs have a similar setup with a street on either side of the tracks and their downtown and denser areas around the tracks since that's where land became most valuable. Seems like it's similar on the FEC. Problem is those streets are now major highways and the high water table along with rapid development - this is all in reference to grade separating the tracks.

 

[George Harris]

Going up and over is not near as difficult as it is made out to be. For reference, out of their own pocket CSX predecessor replaced the roughly two mile long wood trestle with drawspan over Escambia Bay, which is just east of Pensacola with a high level concrete bridge. Don't know what the approach grades are, but this line is/was used by long heavy freight trains plus the Sunset East when it was running. (Wish I had gotten a picture of that.) Nor is it the operating difficulty some make it out to be either. The additional energy consumed going up the relatively low difference in elevation, usually from about 10 feet clear to about 50 feet clear of the water is usually returned by the momentum gained on the down grade off the rise in elevation. There is probably less additional fuel consumed than is consumed by accelerating from the usual slow speed required over a drawspan.

 

[Stevenz]

There are two grade crossings two blocks apart in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb where I live. One is a very low traffic street, the other a two lane street that carries a modest amount of traffic. The Borealis and EB whiz by but the freights are another matter. They’re long - one train I counted 154 cars - and I’ve timed them at 30-32 mph. I don’t know how long the average container car, tank car, etc are but guessing 50 feet that makes a 7,700 foot long train, or a mile and a half. I don’t know how long it takes for a train that long to go by at 32 mph but sitting in the car needing to go somewhere it seems a long time. (How do you calculate the time?)

There has been one fatality at the busy crossing. A boy with earphones - not an uncommon factor nowadays. As for emergency services dealing with trains, I’m not sure. I don’t know where the fire houses are or their response areas. But with maybe four trains a day it has to be something they think about, or just accept.

These crossings will never be separated. Traffic volume doesn’t justify it and the geometry would obliterate some nice housing and commercial. Best to think of them as neighbourhood character.

 

[west point]

Roads that go up and over the tracks seems the best. I would suggest that the method that FL DOT used on Tri Rail & I-95 is the best solution. Run a ramp parallel to the RR tracks until drivers can cross over the tracks and then a parallel ramp down to street level. One ramp set can apply for 2 crossings that are close together.

 

[BlackDiamond]

There are two grade crossings two blocks apart in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb where I live. One is a very low traffic street, the other a two lane street that carries a modest amount of traffic. The Borealis and EB whiz by but the freights are another matter. They’re long - one train I counted 154 cars - and I’ve timed them at 30-32 mph. I don’t know how long the average container car, tank car, etc are but guessing 50 feet that makes a 7,700 foot long train, or a mile and a half. I don’t know how long it takes for a train that long to go by at 32 mph but sitting in the car needing to go somewhere it seems a long time. (How do you calculate the time?)

32 mph is 47 feet per second. So a 7700 foot train would take 163 seconds or about 3 minutes to pass at 32 mph.

 

[bonzoesc]

Roads that go up and over the tracks seems the best. I would suggest that the method that FL DOT used on Tri Rail & I-95 is the best solution. Run a ramp parallel to the RR tracks until drivers can cross over the tracks and then a parallel ramp down to street level. One ramp set can apply for 2 crossings that are close together.

That’s not really workable for the urban areas that grew around the railroad. Up in Brevard, there was a lot of earthwork done to elevate the approach to Pineda Causeway over the tracks, but a few miles south the Downtown Melbourne district would be destroyed by the same level of effort to move the roads to suit the rails.

Further south, some the historic Flagler right-of-way that went from downtown Miami to the Keys has the Miami Metrorail running on an elevated viaduct, and it does work well, but I’m not sure if it could support a freight train.