I don't have any details on this particular incident, but, as someone who has long been involved with Operation Lifesaver, I may be abble to add a little background.

It is entirely possible that the first train's crew did not know what happened. There are a number of reasons why. One is that on many engines, the crew does not have direct downward
visibility in front of the engine, and the person may have darted in front of the train at the last moment.

Another possibility is that the person involved may have been trying to hitch a ride on the train and fell while trying to climb aboard. Or, he may already have been aboard the (freight, presumably) train and fallen off or have fallen while trying to get off.

Still another possibility is that the first train was either stopped or moving slowly and the person thought he could cross between cars, either by climbing over the couplers or by crawling under the cars.


I was on an Operation Lifesaver train about a year ago, where the engine had a live video feed to the passenger cars. The camera was mounted low on the front of the engine.

As the train was moving slowly around a wye at its turning point, a pedestrian walked across the tracks something like 20-30 feet in front of the engine. Yes at the very slow speed, the woman made it across. But, had she slipped, even at that slow speed, the engineer would not have been able to react in time and it would probably have taken the train 40-50 feet at least to stop.

The woman was standing at trackside, looking like she was going to wait, then darted across at the last minute. Needless to say, this was not a place where a pedestrian should have been.

-- Ernest