New fence to end access to railroad tracks

Stephen Kalayjian is like a lot of parents who worry themselves about the dangers children face each time they leave the house, whether it is poor security at the park or speeders on neighborhood side streets.

But Kalayjian also spins his energy into results, reasoning that any stir his agitation causes is worth it if it saves a life.

So it was not unusual for Kalayjian, a Somers father of two, to seek out his local county legislator, Michael Kaplowitz, about the stretches of Metro-North Railroad tracks that are accessible to kids.

[the rest of the story is available through this link]

http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/ ... fence.html

There goes my favorite photo angle in Katonah.

-otto-

As far as I am concerned, it's a waste of money. The tracks have been electrified for years. The best solution is also the cheapest - TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO STAY AWAY FROM THE TRACKS.

LIRR has a program where they go to local schools and teach school kids about train safety -- I would be surprised if MN did not have a similar program.

The tried this "sky is falling" -crap when they electrified the Ronkonkoma line in the '80s, and forced the MTA to spend millions on fences. Kids still die by the carload each year when they think they can outrun the train at the grade crossing and lose. Once again, the taxpayer is forced to foot the bill for bad parenting.

Nester

Nester...I totally agree
I am out of high school a year, and nowhere in my 13 years of schooling were we ever taught of the potential dangers of the railroad. While in the Boy Scouts, we took a camping trip to Tenmile River up on the Delaware river, it happens a freight line runs on the PA side of the river, then crosses onto the NY side, we took a hike, and despite the warnings, one of the younger kids made his way up onto the tracks, and got hurt. He got his foot caught under the rail and twisted his ankle. Later on in my schooling, I attended Drivers Education. Most of the kids I went to drivers ed with came down to my school from areas around the upper Harlem line, and the teacher really didnt cover or state the obvious about railroad crossings. We were given a choice for a Drivers Ed project, we could either make a newspaper collage of newspaper articles of car accidents, or make a presentation to the class. I took a video camera, went to the Croton-Harmon open house, took video from the head end of an M1 going down the upper Harlem to show the engineers view and how fast the trains can travel. The idea behind the video of Harmon was to show how massive railroad equipment is...I also made a fact sheet including active railroad crossings in Westchester and Putnam counties, laws and regulations regarding going around the gates, and general facts and statistics. I am unsure if my efforts broke through to my audience, but I hope they at least listened. As a student, friend and for the day, teacher, I hope I did make a difference...

Tim
Yonkers, New York

People just don't understand the dangers of a railway. They don't even realize that trains these days move a lot faster than you think. Also, lets say you are standing at Cold spring or even Princeton Jct, and you see a light. You think its moving too slowly. Wrong, it is here and gone before you know it. Being a resident of Montclair, NJ, I know this has been a big game along transit. I knew the kid that was killed on the Valley Road trestle. Very unfortunate. Just think about it, you wouldn't walk across I-95, so don't even try it on a rr.

In regard to my previous post, I forgot to add in the mentality teens have, and njt/mnrrbuff brought it up. The fact that though the train seems far off in the distance and it appears to be moving slowly. Even the students I commuted with who took Metro-North every single day had the same mentality. And there were a few who thought that because their car stopped on a dime, a train can do the same (I am guessing that maybe it wasnt the physics teachers teaching methods that caused a majority of the school to fail the physics regents and finals) and what really got me is these kids lived in areas where grade crossings are common. Maybe the railroad shouldnt have to spend money to educate people on what is COMMON SENSE. Railroads have been around for 150 years, why is it all of a sudden this happens and people are complaining? I feel bad when I hear about someone getting struck by a train, but I also feel bad for the train crew. It took the teen who commited suicide in Tuckahoe for the Journal News to bring up the point of view from the other side-the train crew.

I agree that many people don't understand the physics of trains and have the misconception that a train can stop like a car, when, in fact, a freight train can require well over a mile of stopping distance. Education would be best solution, not fences.

Newspapers often only tell the story of the "victim" and not the person who was just minding their business and working -- the crew -- since the sad victim mentality seems to sell more newsapapers. Since news folk are in the business of selling papers and not telling the entire story, there is no chance of this changing anytime soon.

Nester

I don't know what school you all went to, but the Metro-North safety department visited my school every year, with M-1 MetroMan faithfully in tow...

I find that many people who want fences are not "natives" to the area and often come from places where there are not a lot of trains or from places where trains don't run at grade (read: NYC and other non-RR locales).

I did not grow up in Westchester/Dutchess/Putnam so I am happy to know that MN does have a school safety program.

Nester