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My parents and a younger brother got it that way. Crossing on a curve in winter.

Dang,

that's the scheidts.

All the road engines have a forward facing camera with external audio that records onto a removable hard drive. That drive also records data showing pretty much everything the engineer does before and during the incident, and a lot of other stuff. A crossing incident is by law a trespassing case, and local law enforcement has no authority over the data recorder. That belongs entirely to the carrier. After an incident, there is a secure chain of custody protocol regarding that hard drive because it will be evidence for the defense (the carrier) in a lawsuit if necessary.

As much as the local LEOs are accustomed to their authority, in these incidents they have none regarding the train, the crew, or the evidence (though a lot of them seem to have not got the memo). And this is why when your survivors try to sue the railroad (UP, at least) over a crossing accident, the plaintiff almost never wins.


My condolences, las. [bleep] deal, all the way around.

Mine was the Notus crossing. Last I was there, 3rd just had a stop sign.
Between Notus and Nyssa, we seemed to hit a lot of trucks during harvest time. But it's not like you can't see us coming if you bother to look.

I think it was only a week after I hit the truck at Notus, another crew hit a loaded stock truck just east of Parma. Don't these drivers talk to each other? That was a smelly mess.

That happens more often than most would imagine...

Semi hit by train in Webster Co.

Notus, Idaho...don't blink as you drive through town or you won't notice it.
Lived there back in the '70s. Quite a town. The cultural center of town was Moore's Market. You could buy ANYTHING, legal or otherwise, there.

I wasn't doubting what you said. I was saying what the law is. My 'I don't think so' was aimed at the driver. It didn't come out that way very well in print. Sorry about that.

I live in the Twin Falls area. A couple years ago, the county replaced all the rail crossing stop signs on county roads with yield signs. Now nobody looks. It's only a matter of time before someone gets nailed. The tracks here are all local spurs and Eastern Idaho RR is the only user, moving cars to warehouses in the area. The tracks don't get much use.

This morning's news has nothing about this. I assume the driver is ok.

I am no legal expert and I am sure these regulations change by locality but this makes no sense to me.
Law enforcement can’t request a court ordered search warrant for that evidence? FAA Investigators can and do for the black box pertaining to aircraft accidents but I guess I have never heard of one not being voluntarily handed over.

That doesn’t seem to be an attorney-client privilege situation, which is about the only route I know of to withhold evidence when under a subpeona.

Hell if I know….

True story ......

A few years ago there was a truck full of wood chips headed to the mill that got t-boned by a train. There was wood chips everywhere around the crossing.

Later, I was telling my wife about it and told her about the chip truck that got hit by a train and there was chips everywhere around the wreck.

She replied that the kids in the area must have loved finding that mess.

Wait for it .........

Freight trains are often an inconvenience but Amtrak seems to fugk up on a whole different level.

I got stuck on i5 4 or 5 years back when some dumb azz train operator tried to take a curve way to fast. Ran off the rails right onto the highway and into the trees.

Well, sure - if there's reason to believe that a crime was committed then I suppose that a warrant could be obtained after the fact. But I'm struggling to think of one example of a crossing collision even looking like an actual crime. Not saying it's impossible, but highly unlikely. In any case, that hard drive goes into a locked case and goes to the corporate legal department, where the only key to that case is held. That data is not allowed to be tampered with by anybody, including local law enforcement.

Your problem here is that (just like some first responders) you are conflating a civil matter with a criminal or traffic enforcement matter. Local law has no authority to enforce any imagined traffic control over interstate railroads or their train crews. They wouldn't even know where to start. Sure, it's been tried - but they always get slapped down, and for good reason.

One of the things an experienced rail learns is how to tell an officer "no" without getting tasered, tackled, or shot. We (the smart ones) don't even hand over our ID when requested for very important reasons. Heck, I wouldn't even give my name. It's fun to watch their faces when you respectfully don't comply.

I know the case you're talking about, and there's far more to the story than "some dumb azz train operator". But yeah - that was a clusterfork. A group effort, that was.

I guess I’ll take your word for it but an investigation doesn’t have to be in response to a crime.

Civil matters can have investigations too and I am having a difficult time imagining a car insurance claim involving a train wreck not requiring a police report, which I am guessing normally involves a criminal investigation to see if the driver was at fault.

In any accident, someone, maybe more than one, is a fault and all the legalities hinge on an investigation to find out who done it.
Does a railroad have the authority to issue citations to truckers who drive in front of trains?

Not that I know of but hell if I know. It seems to me it’d be whomever’s local jurisdiction it is, as to who would conduct the accident investigation. Highway patrol, city police, county sheriff, etc.

The big railroad operations do have internal law enforcement (I think under the federal DOT) but I was under the impression they concentrated more on things like theft or damage to the rail cars or tracks, etc. I guess it is possible that since RR are often treated differently than roads, a “crime” committed there would fall under the RR’s law enforcement jurisdiction. I still don’t see how there wouldn’t be a criminal investigation to see who was at fault in an accident and I don’t just mean between the driver and train operator.

Oh, the police can report and investigate all they want. They just can't walk away with the train data recording. But the police aren't going to "investigate" a crossing accident. They'll make a report. The car insurance company may choose to investigate, I suppose, but that's unlikely. An ambulance chaser may demand the evidence in court. That should be fun to watch.


What usually happens when a crossing accident lawsuit is filed (last I heard) is the carrier shows the video and data to the plaintiff's side, and the lawsuit goes away. The reason this evidence is so powerful is partly because of the documented strict chain of custody regarding the hard drive. There are unusual exceptions where maybe there was a signal failure and someone actually has a case, but the vast majority of these incidents are cut and dried cases of trespassing. Yes. Every time you cross the tracks you are trespassing. Permission is implied, except when you get hit by a train. You (as a car or truck driver) are required to be vigilant and to obey the traffic controls at the crossing. The basic railroad crossbuck sign is a legal traffic control that has a definition and attached requirements. Same as stop signs and yeild signs. No one has a right to be on the tracks in front of an approaching train. Cut...and...dried.

Train operation is so closely controlled and monitored that the odds of a crossing accident showing any fault of the carrier or crew are extremely low, but it has happened. The carrier can be liable if there is a claim and the carrier fails to prove the claim has no grounds. The video and data record is irrefutable proof, precisely because of how closely it is guarded.

Funny thing about police reports. That's just another one of those things they're so used to that some of them can't wrap their mind around exceptions either. My last incident, the responding deputy handed me a report form to fill out. He said he was required by the Idaho State Police to have me fill it out. It told him it was required by my employer to say nothing and write nothing, and handed it back to him. Your problem - not mine.
Every crossing accident gets a visit from the local RR manager before the train moves again, and the LEO gets whatever limited information is required from him/her. But not the digital record. The LEA can request access to that from the carrier's legal department at a later date if they deem it necessary. I'm not privy to whether that's ever been a thing.

All the first responders need to know from a train crew is - are there any injuries that need immediate attention and is there any hazmat leaking or spilled? Everything else is internal matters, and UPRR crews are instructed as much in training.

Technically, I think yes. The class 1 railroads have their own police, and they have all the rights and responsibilities of the agency in whos area they're operating.

But why would they bother? I've never heard of them doing so.

Again - a crossing accident "investigation" is almost always as simple as, "here's your driver in front of our train. Here's the whistle blowing. Here's the speed. Here's the headlights. Here's the train brakes being applied before the impact." End of story.

It still boils down to authority. In a crossing accident, the only authority the LEO has is over the car driver. Maybe an analogy is in order. If you drive across an airport runway and get hit by an airliner, does the local PD investigate? No. They respond, and probably even make a report - but investigation is done by the DOT. Same with trains.

Now, if I, while operating the train, shoot some passing car driver out the window - then the local PD gets to have their way with me. It's all about the operation of the train. Locals have zero authority over that.

In answer to my "why would they bother?" Question....

Perhaps the reason I haven't heard of it is because so often there's no survivor to accept the ticket. I suppose it might look like a way to strengthen a defense, but I can't see it being necessary. And it would be adding insult to injury. Anyway - a question I never asked, because frankly, I don't care.