Bad week for Metra

So, this week has seen several accidents involving trains (Metra trains – the commuter ones) and people or cars. It’s really a very tragic thing, because I know that at least one of these people was killed, but it’s made even more sad when you stop and think about how easily these accidents could have been prevented.

Monday morning Trey called me to make sure the train I was on wasn’t the one that hit someone (don’t know what happened to that person). It wasn’t. Yesterday, however, the train directly in front of the one I was riding home did hit a pedestrian. It resulted in an hour delay (thank God there are bathrooms on these trains) and we learned this morning that the person who was hit was, in fact, killed. Ironically, we learned that the person from yesterday was killed because of a woman who ran across the tracks right in front of the train this morning - the conductor came on the intercom and made the announcement that she was not let on because she cut it too close, and mentioned that yesterday someone died trying to do the same thing.

I know people don’t want to be late for work, but come on! Is it better to be 30 minutes late because you had to wait for the next train, or be dead because you tried to run across at the last second and couldn’t quite make it? You have to feel bad for these Metra folks because you know they’re going to be hit with and have to deal with all of this, but in all reality, there’s only so fast you can stop a train. They’ll put on emergency brakes and everything, but when all is said and done, something that weighs that much and is going that fast can only slow down so much in a given amount of time.

This morning there was one more accident, this one involving a car and a Metra train. I don’t know the story there, but I’d imagine that the car stalled on the tracks. Hopefully no one was hurt. One other day this week, either Tuesday or Wednesday morning, someone was hit by a freight train, too. I hope this is the last of all of that…