Boston Globe article on engineers and fatalities 6/6/05

Today's Boston Globe has a suprisingly good front page article about train engineers and fatalities. Very interesting to read, but also rather sad. It tells about an MBTA engineer who has so far hit 3 people in his career. There is also a chart showing fatalities in the last decade or so, which were suicide and otherwise. Supposedly there is a lot more help for rail employees than in years past to deal with the trauma of unintentionally killing someone with their train. That is good to know, because I bet 99% of the time, they can do absolutely nothing to avoid such a horrible thing...

Of course, you have to register to read the online version of the article. Go to www.boston.com. Or grab the paper if it is still Monday!

JD

This is also happening in the Red Line, with jumpers especially. At the MBTA forum, this is also being brought up as well.

I couldn't imagine having to live with that. Especially since there's not much they can do to avoid hitting them, it's not like a car where you can swerve to miss them.

It's good to know that they're getting help... that's actually something that's never crossed my mind until now...

That's true, Malibu. Trains, unlike buses, autos and trucks, can't swerve to avoid jumpers, or motor vehicles at crossing, or pedestrians. That's why would-be suicidists go to trains rather than cross a highway with cars that can swerve.