That Amtrak vs Truck video has sent me down the "street-running train" rabbit hole

"Dusty Ventures" (dustyventures) 08/08/2018 at 23:45 • Filed to: None

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I love that this is still a thing

Possibly the coolest street-runner is the CSX line down Main St in La Grange, KY. Apparently the line gets up to 30 trains a day, right down the center of town.

Also there’s a livestream which will surely take too much of my time over the next week

interstate366, now In The Industry > Dusty Ventures 08/08/2018 at 23:51

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Ashland, VA is another one with a CSX line through the town center. A dual-track line at that.

DC3 LS, Fuck Hyundai, now and forever > Dusty Ventures 08/08/2018 at 23:55

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All of these places are places I would never want to live. It’s bad enough being a couple miles from a train, much less in the same town. Although maybe the sound from them doesn’t travel as far in the city? Still wouldn’t wanna get stuck in the traffic they’d cause. 

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Dusty Ventures 08/08/2018 at 23:58

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It’ s one way to thin the herd...

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:03

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There’s line here on the Cape that cuts through one of the busiest intersections in town. Every time the light i s red cars line up a cross the track. People are just too stupid/clueless to leave the tracks clear. Luckily the station is a few hundred feet away so any trains approaching this mess would already be at a crawl.

shop-teacher > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:03

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Wow, that would be a huge PITA.

facw > DC3 LS, Fuck Hyundai, now and forever 08/09/2018 at 00:09

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Seriously, in Austin I lived a qua rter mile from a rail line and it shook my apartment when a train went by. In Houston, I lived 1.5 miles from the nearest line, but could still hear trains with my windows open.

LOREM IPSUM > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:11

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Charming little downtown areas. Traffic and noise aside, seems like a nice place to be.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:12

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Boston has trams mixing it with traffic and it always freaks me out when I have to drive near them.

facw > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 00:12

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Wow that’s dumb. That said it does feel like some sort of “Don’t stop here, moron!” marking might be good, especially with the way the tracks separate, instead of being immediately parallel.

Dusty Ventures > interstate366, now In The Industry 08/09/2018 at 00:14

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Ashland is where the mentioned truck-train video is from. Close proximity, but that technically doesn’t qualify as street running. A street-running rail line is a line where the tracks run along part of the road itself. As in cars use it when there’s no train.

Here’s some examples:

Dusty Ventures > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 00:14

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Pictured: not street running

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > facw 08/09/2018 at 00:14

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It’s a dead end seasonal terminus that only sees like three trains per day and only in the summer so it’s not as dangerous as it seems.

Dusty Ventures > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 00:16

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Driving around the green line trains: still less scary than riding them

interstate366, now In The Industry > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:22

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Ah, yeah. I’m about 40 miles south of Ashland, and the same line runs about half a mile from me. I see the Juice Train, intermodal containers, all kinds of stuff on a regular basis.  Even heard a train pass by just now.

facw > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 00:23

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Even infrequent trains can be dangerous. If anything they may be more dangerous because they encourage people to do stupid things. In high school they had us walk across this open bottomed (no floor beyond the railroad ties) rail bridge to reach the golf course :

We normally only got one or two trains a day, so I guess they figured it wasn’t a problem. That ended after a girl tripped on the bridge with a train coming (she was able to get up and get off the bridge, but it highlighted that maybe this was not the best idea).

Urambo Tauro > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:31

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I’m conflicted. Part of me is fascinated by these, while the other part insists that sharing the road with a friggin TRAIN (beyond your run-of-the-mill perpendicular crossings) is a terrible idea.

smobgirl > interstate366, now In The Industry 08/09/2018 at 00:53

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Came here to mention Ashland. My dad works for Amtrak :)

Dusty Ventures > Urambo Tauro 08/09/2018 at 00:54

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A train just went through on the La Grange live stream. I counted two engines and 106 cars, though I may have missed a few. That’s insane to me.

smobgirl > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 00:57

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I can’t remember if the tracks were for a train or streetcar, but I was legally street- parked in Salt Lake-ish and some asshole hit-and-runned my rental because he didn’t know what to do when a train came down the road when he was driving. It took months to resolve.

facw > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 01:02

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In Houston, people the trams are still pretty new (unlike Boston where they’ve been around for over a century), and people still get hit by them fairly frequently. They just don’t get that no, making a left turn in front of the tram (normally ignoring a no left turn arrow) is not going to work out for them. Many of the traffic lights had to be tuned so that when the tram is going through, they are red in all directions, because people couldn’t be trusted to not drive in front of the trams.

DipodomysDeserti > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 02:25

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I kind of miss living near a rail line. My first apartment was about a mile from a line in Tucson. Hot summer nights with the soundtrack of thunder and train horns   rumbling through the city...good times.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 03:56

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https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/5576555/woman-killed-after-being-struck-by-train-in-wendouree/?cs=62

2km from my house

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 06:48

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Street cars never made sense to me, your stuck in traffic and stuck on a dedicated line . If you need to go with traffic just get a bus, dedicated lines should be for light rail where it’s separate from traffic.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 06:50

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I love the white SUV “between” the tracks, like they’ll be good if a train comes by because they aren’t directly over the tracks.

OPPOsaurus WRX > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 08/09/2018 at 07:57

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Wurrwulf > Dusty Ventures 08/09/2018 at 09:07

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I used to live a few blocks off of this (admittedly infrequently used) line. It runs right through the busiest foot traffic section of town. There was a big stink a couple years ago about the proposal to use the line for coal transport. The neighbors didn’t want car after car of uncovered coal-carrying cars travelling through their continually-rising-property-value neighborhoods. This is in (Old Historic) Gretna, Louisiana. It runs past restaurants, bars, farmers markets, and government buildings as well as houses.

Milky > DC3 LS, Fuck Hyundai, now and forever 08/09/2018 at 09:34

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I’ve lived by 3 train lines, really dont think of it as a problem. Around me the lines are mostly raised and the ones that aren’t are easily avoidable if there is a train blocking the road.

Sirens, trains, loud cars, etc, all drown out eventually.

f86sabre > Dusty Ventures 08/11/2018 at 21:40

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I want a train horn.

Streettrain > Dusty Ventures 10/08/2019 at 04:30

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The USA is street running train country no. 1 ! 1200 locations !! In 600 towns ! The list on wikipedia is nog complete . There is a much longer, completer and more current list on : www.coasttram.info/street running trains !  Also about 74 other countries !  Have fun with it !