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Man with suitcase killed by commuter-rail train whle trying to cross tracks in Hyde Park
By adamg on Tue, 01/30/2024 - 9:22pm
WCVB reports a man trying to get from one side of the Hyde Park train station to the other around 3:10 p.m. was hit and killed by a commuter-rail train on one of the busiest stretches of train tracks in the Boston are - used by both commuter-rail and high-speed Amtrak trains. A fence separates the two sides of the station to try to keep people from attempting to cross the tracks.
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Comments
Can't teach stupid
That's 120 mph territory for Amtrak … Commuter Rail would only be pulling about 75. This was on the No 1 Track (No 3 track is 80). Even the slower trains come up real fast.
Because the T refuses to electrify the Fairmount Line, Amtrak had to terminate service at Route 128.
Also, many commuter trains pass through here without stopping
so, even in the absence of Amtrak, crossing here is quite dangerous.
January 31, 2000
I remember the first electrified Amtrak train that ran past us in Hyde Park. I was waiting for the 6:25 to South Station when it whipped right past us at 120mph. Then the Acelas came and they were even faster - I'd stand in the vestibule and feel the pressure of the train whiz by.
I'm sure you'd change your
I'm sure you'd change your tune if this was someone you knew.
Rage Against the Machine.
Rage Against the Machine. Also should be ghost shoes like ghost bikes are placed. This needs to be seen and acknowledged by all. Would it make us think? Would it reduce such tragedy? This sucks.
The investigation into the
That's dumb. Move the corpse over and continue running the trains so everyone can get home.
Your accident investigation credentials
Noted.
The thing is
When there's a deadly highway accident, the most important thing is to get the cars out of the way and to get the roadway moving. Eventually maybe they come back and reconstruct the accident scene, but the cars must be kept moving. They never do seem to make changes which reduce the number of crashes, to the road, of course, because the cars must be kept moving.
Meanwhile when a person walks in front of a train, the cause of the accident is pretty clear, but people are inconvenienced for hours because everything is shut down.
I'm not saying one is the right way and the other is wrong, but it does show our priorities.
(Something that would help here: level boarding platforms. It's a lot less tempting to run across the tracks when you have a four-foot gap to jump down from and climb up versus being able to step off some decaying asphalt. Oh, it also makes the train accessible to people with disabilities. But the T drags its feet on Commuter Rail accessibility. A higher fence which is not easily hopped might help too. Given that there are frequently 120 mph trains coming through there and that there's a slight curve north of the station, a train could go from invisible 1000 feet away to in the station in less than 6 seconds.)
No, it's not. Someone died.
No, it's not. Someone died. An investigation is merited, at a minimum.
Train
This happened at 3:40. I was on this train and heard the thump when the person was hit. We were at a standstill until 6pm when another train arrived to take us. RIP to the deceased.
As I was told as a child, if
As I was told as a child, if you don't be going on the tracks, you won't be getting hit by the train.
I see this at west Medford.
I see this at west Medford. People
Frantically trying to cross to get to the outbound or inbound platform, depending on which they need.
It’s north worth it! Just take the L and grab the next train. Get there alive
Ditto
I'm really at a loss as to why people are so casual about the trains there. I was always taught that trains can't stop very fast.
Time management matters.
Drivers are similarly oblivious at that crossing. I've been stopped to keep the tracks clear and had Special Luxury SUV Royalty Children illegally pass me, horns ablaze, so they can sit on the tracks like a special privileged sitting duck. The city took out that slip lane from Playstead to High after a Downeaster came extremely close to punting a garbage truck into the Dunks.
And trains there are a bit slower!
40 mph vs 120 mph.
West Medford would be a terrific grade separation.
They come through slower than that
There are two crossings close together, both with in overlapping school zones for Brooks and St. Rafe's.
I was waiting one morning on a crowded platform when a downeaster ripped by at what I later found out was 57 mph. The driver thought it was a 60mph zone. I reported it to the feds, as did the crossing guard at canal street where people were actively crossing and the train was moving so fast that there was no time for the gates to come down. That came very close to very ugly.
I was surprised a month later when I got a report back that the driver had been sanctioned - it is a low speed zone (25 mph) for the reasons noted (100+ folks on the platform and double school zones) and the driver completely ignored it.
West Medford is where rail safety was drilled into my head
My father grew up on the corner of Walcott and High St and his family owned a funeral home in Medford Square. His father, as a rule, shielded him from the realities that that job entails when he was young, but there was one exception: the morning he brought him along to collect the body of one of his classmates, who after waiting for a northbound local train to pass walked into the path of the overnight express from Montreal that went through there at full speed. The assumption was that victim, who was deaf in one ear, didn't hear the train on the other track approaching as he attempted to cross. So as kids, he would bring us to West Medford station and relay the story in order to drill it into out heads to stay off railroad tracks (even though Wilmington Depot was the closest station to us).
Put a pedestrian walkway from
Put a pedestrian walkway from each raised platform.
Never been to Hyde Park?
There is a bridge that connects the two platforms.
Are there warning sounds and lights at Hyde Park?
When a train is approaching, are there warnings, like we see at the larger stations? I feel so bad for this person, as avoidable as this was. And I can't imagine what the engineer and conductors on that train are going through.
I was part of the group at Ruggles that had to race to South Station. A good refresher in how to use the Orange Line.
Yes
I've taken the train from there a couple of times, but I've run by there enough times that the call of "train approaching, stand behind the yellow line" from the platform is familiar to me.
This was in so many ways avoidable- there are ramps up from platform to the bridge across the tracks. It's a shame, and I pray for all those who know the deceased and for those who witnessed it.
I feel badly for the victim
But there's a fence between the tracks which is meant to discourage people from walking across the tracks. No one deserves to die because of a stupid decision but sometimes that's what happens.