Things to Know In Order to Prevent Railroad Accidents

General Rail Safety Information:

Freight trains do not travel on a predictable schedule; schedules for passenger trains change. Always expect a train at every highway-rail intersection.
A train may extend three feet or more outside the steel rail, which makes the safety zone for pedestrians well beyond the rails themselves.
Trains cannot stop quickly. It is a simple law of physics: the huge weight and size of the train and the speed of the train dictate how quickly it can stop under ideal conditions. A 100-car freight train traveling at 55 miles per hour will need more than a mile to stop– that’s approximately 18 football fields — once the train is set into emergency braking.
Never walk down a train track; it’s illegal and it’s dangerous. By the time a locomotive engineer can see a trespasser or a vehicle on the tracks, it is too late. The train cannot stop quickly enough to avoid a collision.