WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — Police say a teenager spray painting graffiti on an abandoned building in Worcester has been struck and killed by a train.Reports indicate the young genius was on the track at the time with several friends. How on earth one does not hear - or feel - a train traveling at 50 MPH is beyond me; that he was engaged in illegal activity just puts the icing on the stupid cake. It's a shame that a young person has lost their life - I know I did a lot of stupid stuff that could have killed me when I was 19 - but sometimes stupid can be fatal.
I drive by an MBTA commuter rail train every day. I can feel the vibration from the train inside my truck as it passes by - at speeds roughly the same as the one that struck and killed our young urban artiste. I simply cannot imagine how he could have missed a train traveling at that speed *and* applying its brakes *and* sounding the horn. That's not condition white, that's condition freakin' opaque here.
With any luck our budding Einstein hadn't bred yet, making him a prime Darwin Award candidate.
That is all.
5 comments:
Jay - asking that the budding artist not have bred yet is probably asking a bit much from stupid of that level...
I had to link this.
All I can say is: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Go easy on the lad. If the line was re-done with the one-piece (continuous) rail and it was a passenger train, there is little lieklyhood he would have heard it coming. Modern rail technology is pretty quiet. Freight, mind you, can still be plenty loud.
I ran an exercise recently along a portion of the Downeaster rail inside the R.O.W. near where it picks up to 70 mph. One of my guys who had his back to the line and did not see the train coming was shocked for the rest of the day at how quiet the approach was.
Nonetheless, if one was in the way - accidentally, on purpose, or just plain too far to the left of the bell curve - the results for a human body would be pretty conclusive, in favor of the train.
Perhaps our young artist was using some reality enhancing medicinals to spur his creativity?
Take two steps to your left, lad. Too late.
Powerful though the call of Darwin is, I'll have to second Ancient Woodsman that trains, especially passenger, can be absolutely crap-your-pants-OMG-I-could- have-died quiet. If it approached around a curve, there could have only been a few seconds warning before he came into view and the horn was sounded. He might have tripped on the rail (very common) while trying to scramble away. Though he was obviously stupid to be where he was doing what he was doing, the result may be more simply tragic than it might appear at first.
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