RailRoadFan.com

It's certainly tragic that this person lost his life. When incidents like this happen, I always wonder how they never hear nor feel the vibration from an approaching train.
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/al ... -csx-train

It was the New Richmond bridge over the Kalamazoo River. Interesting that the person was walking on the train bridge considering there is a pedestrain bridge about 100 ft upstream! Sounds like the train in question was Q326-28. Looks like this tied up P371-28 as well, departed GRR on time, made Chicago 2 hours late. That explains Q326-28 eastbound into GR after 1pm today.

The man's body was found in the river.

Video of the Northbound (Timetable Eastbound) daily Amtrak #370, #371's couterpart going over that bridge:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2r7xx ... nd2_travel

Picture of the bridge with Amtrak #371 southbound (timetable westbound) over the bridge:



Both the video & photo are Jim Thias'

Really???

Must of been out fishing ? I'm not sure why you wouldn't jump off the bridge.

PM1946 wrote:It's certainly tragic that this person lost his life. When incidents like this happen, I always wonder how they never hear nor feel the vibration from an approaching train.

Unless he was deaf, there is no way possible that he didn't hear the train coming. At 7am, in New Richmond, it's usually so calm that you can hear trains coming from the west blowing at several crossings. Being in the river valley, the sound carries very far from the south (railroad west). Not to mention, there is a crossing a half mile west of the bridge that they blow like crazy for. Either deaf, or suicide.

J T wrote:

PM1946 wrote:It's certainly tragic that this person lost his life. When incidents like this happen, I always wonder how they never hear nor feel the vibration from an approaching train.

Unless he was deaf, there is no way possible that he didn't hear the train coming. At 7am, in New Richmond, it's usually so calm that you can hear trains coming from the west blowing at several crossings. Being in the river valley, the sound carries very far from the south (railroad west). Not to mention, there is a crossing a half mile west of the bridge that they blow like crazy for. Either deaf, or suicide.

...or just a duum move on their part.....

Could've just wanted to go do something "cool" or "interesting" and got stuck in the middle of the bridge as the train came by. But, it was obviously their fault they were on the bridge......bad move on their part.

sxbud138 wrote:Must of been out fishing ? I'm not sure why you wouldn't jump off the bridge.

With the lack of rain around here, even the depest part of that channel wouldn't be more than 6ft deep right now. Depending on where he was on the bridge jumping might not have been an option.

trnwatcher wrote:

sxbud138 wrote:Must of been out fishing ? I'm not sure why you wouldn't jump off the bridge.

With the lack of rain around here, even the depest part of that channel wouldn't be more than 6ft deep right now. Depending on where he was on the bridge jumping might not have been an option.

http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrogra ... gage=rcmm4

This is a graph of the K-zoo river near New Richmond. You can see that it's running right about 1,000 cubic feet per second, and about 9ft......whether 9ft is actually to the exact bottom....IDK.....

Chances are, the person heard the train, and was making a run for it, but was too late...

MQT3001 wrote: This is a graph of the K-zoo river near New Richmond. You can see that it's running right about 1,000 cubic feet per second, and about 9ft......whether 9ft is actually to the exact bottom....IDK.....

Chances are, the person heard the train, and was making a run for it, but was too late...

Usually that is the depth measured at that gauge. If its in a deep part of the river, then so be it, but 9 ft may not be a constant depth. I used the USGS hydro data when I want to go canoeing on Sugar Creek here in Indiana. Anything under 1.5 ft at the Crawfordsville Gauge means its going to be really low where we go canoeing further down stream. Some places down to 3 or 4 inches of water, so we'd be dragging bottom. At 1.5 ft and up at Crawfordsville, that usually means there is enough water for a hassle free ride. It may be 1.5' at Crawfordsville, but there are stretches of 8' and 20' water further down stream. On the flip side, there are places where the rocks get above the stream level if there isn't enough water dept and flow.

I've seen people say "Oh, I'd just jump into the river." You may say that, but stress causes funny reactions in people. There's a reason its called a 'deer in the headlights look', you freeze up, and may not react in a rational way.

Practice Safe CSX

CSX_CO wrote:

MQT3001 wrote: This is a graph of the K-zoo river near New Richmond. You can see that it's running right about 1,000 cubic feet per second, and about 9ft......whether 9ft is actually to the exact bottom....IDK.....

Chances are, the person heard the train, and was making a run for it, but was too late...

Usually that is the depth measured at that gauge. If its in a deep part of the river, then so be it, but 9 ft may not be a constant depth. I used the USGS hydro data when I want to go canoeing on Sugar Creek here in Indiana. Anything under 1.5 ft at the Crawfordsville Gauge means its going to be really low where we go canoeing further down stream. Some places down to 3 or 4 inches of water, so we'd be dragging bottom. At 1.5 ft and up at Crawfordsville, that usually means there is enough water for a hassle free ride. It may be 1.5' at Crawfordsville, but there are stretches of 8' and 20' water further down stream. On the flip side, there are places where the rocks get above the stream level if there isn't enough water dept and flow.

I've seen people say "Oh, I'd just jump into the river." You may say that, but stress causes funny reactions in people. There's a reason its called a 'deer in the headlights look', you freeze up, and may not react in a rational way.

Practice Safe CSX

Oh, not to mention all the old trestle pilings that are exposed due to the low water....on of JT's shots a few weeks ago showed the old pilings exposed....

J T wrote:Beautiful morning in New Richmond for a photo. And in all the years I've been going there, I have never seen the Kalamazoo River this low. I was standing on sand where there is normally 2-3 feet of water:

CSX_CO wrote:I've seen people say "Oh, I'd just jump into the river." You may say that, but stress causes funny reactions in people. There's a reason its called a 'deer in the headlights look', you freeze up, and may not react in a rational way.

I was thinking the exact same thing, CSX. Personally I have not always made the right choice when faced with stressful situation but still got out unhurt or alive by dumb luck (or my guardian angel helped).

The loss of life -- any life -- is always tragic. Sad as the situation may be, it will likely become sadder, as the decedant's estate will likely sue the railroad for "negligently operating their trains such that they cannot stop on a dime" or some other convolution.

The subject bridge has NO TRESPASSING signs plainly visible to any non-illiterate on each end.

The fact is that trespassing upon railroad property -- which is not only illegal -- is just plain risky.

The guy had plenty of time to run off the bridge or get to a spot where the water would be deep enough to jump in from the time he would have first heard them blowing at crossings to the west. But hey, what's the alternative...yeah, get hit by a train. I could easily run the entire length of that bridge in 30 seconds, and if you watch my video above of 370, you can see it takes longer than that for the train to get to the bridge after first blowing at the New Richmond grade crossing. I really doubt this was a common accident. Something else was likely at play here...either deaf, mentally challenged or suicide.

...or under the influance of drugs or alchohol......

Jumping would always be an option to getting run over by a train.

It boggles my mind how a news outfit like WOOD TV can post a small blurb about the death of someone and then not have a follow up to the story. A guy just doesn't get hit by a train and it's shrugged off as an accident. SOMETHING put him there and I want to know. Maybe I'm overly interested because it happened in a place that is special to me (yeah, i know, that sounds sappy), but it just seems very odd to me that someone could get hit and killed on that bridge and there is NO explanation how and why. WTF?

J T wrote:It boggles my mind how a news outfit like WOOD TV can post a small blurb about the death of someone and then not have a follow up to the story. A guy just doesn't get hit by a train and it's shrugged off as an accident. SOMETHING put him there and I want to know. Maybe I'm overly interested because it happened in a place that is special to me (yeah, i know, that sounds sappy), but it just seems very odd to me that someone could get hit and killed on that bridge and there is NO explanation how and why. WTF?

Same story for me too. I see sometimes they even say they will post an update and never do....

MQT3001 wrote:

J T wrote:It boggles my mind how a news outfit like WOOD TV can post a small blurb about the death of someone and then not have a follow up to the story. A guy just doesn't get hit by a train and it's shrugged off as an accident. SOMETHING put him there and I want to know. Maybe I'm overly interested because it happened in a place that is special to me (yeah, i know, that sounds sappy), but it just seems very odd to me that someone could get hit and killed on that bridge and there is NO explanation how and why. WTF?

Same story for me too. I see sometimes they even say they will post an update and never do....

I'll go out on a limb here and say that only one person could provide all those details you are asking for, and he is dead.

Todd

Todd Cline wrote: I'll go out on a limb here and say that only one person could provide all those details you are asking for, and he is dead.

Todd

But somehow they surmised he was taking a short cut (which is completely absurd if you know anything about the area). Someone knows something and WOOD TV has failed to follow up the story.

J T wrote:

Todd Cline wrote: I'll go out on a limb here and say that only one person could provide all those details you are asking for, and he is dead.

Todd

But somehow they surmised he was taking a short cut (which is completely absurd if you know anything about the area). Someone knows something and WOOD TV has failed to follow up the story.

They manage to make massive stories off bits of nothing. amazing how they cant come up with one here