Originally published at: Kids who have to crawl under freight trains to get to school | Boing Boing
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NS is a freaking hazard!
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Sounds like a job for a heavy duty cutting torch and a bulldozer.
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“Uphill both ways” doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
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Unfortunately, this generation of kids with active shooter drills will have stories to tell that no one can beat. 
Let’s hope things improve so much that their children can listen to those tales with the same level of disbelief we had at that age.
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Not their life or injury. If I couldn’t drive my kid to school they would be instructed, under no circumstance, to not cross a track if it means climbing under a train. If they couldn’t do that they should return home.
Sounds like that wouldn’t change anything but I would be sure my child wasn’t penalized at school or with thier life or injury due to a corporation violating laws that authorities refuse to enforce.
That being said, I’m not living the situation so I have no idea if my plan would be feasible.
Maybe the school should send busses to pick these kids up. No money in the district? Bill the people creating the situation.
Isn’t this exactly what elected representatives should be doing instead of the other nonsense they’re up to?
It looks like Hammond Indiana is represented by a democrat, they should be all over this.
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The buses arrive late because of how far they have to drive.
The trains, which can stretch across five or six intersections at a time in this working-class suburb of 77,000, prevent students and teachers from getting to school in the morning. Teachers must watch multiple classrooms while their colleagues wait at crossings; kids sit on school buses as they meander the streets of an entirely different city to be dropped off a half-hour late. Brandi Odom, a seventh grade teacher, estimates that at least half her class is delayed by trains multiple times a week.
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These train operators need to be sued every time someone’s house burns down or someone dies or is disabled because the emergency services are blocked by a train.
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Trains stop and block streets all the damn time here in Indiana. Around here they call getting delayed by a train that stops blocking the road “getting railroaded.”
A couple summers ago I was riding my bicycle on the outskirts of town and a train with only 3-4 cars was just stopped blocking the road and I had to walk my bike around it instead of going a couple miles out of my way.
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The US is a poor country with a few rich folks pulling up the average.
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How about every time someone is late for work or school?
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Aside from the train companies’ obvious negligent attitude about the problem, I’m still wondering where the footbridges are? I’ve done a little traveling, and in other countries I’ve been to, there’s always an elevated footbridge over the tracks.
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Start with arresting engineers and confiscating trains and suing the company for a few hundred million to start.
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Individual train drivers are not responsible for the problem, and treating them as if they are simply shifts blame away from the railroads.
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Leave it to the free market to solve this problem.
(Note: I am not condoning this “market correction” but this may be the nudge needed to keep the trains moving. /s)
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Laws do not apply to certain companies. They just pay to ignore them, or pay to change them. They often write their own laws, then pay to get them enacted.
This will not change any time soon. Publicity is not a factor.
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On a related note, this is one of the problems Amtrak has where they don’t own the track, but must pay a freight rail company to use their lines. Along the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak owns the rail, and is rarely late for access-related issues. Elsewhere, Amtrak always gets second billing to freight trains, and often ends up waiting for them to clear the track.
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i find this a strange take. your position is that information about the state of the world, and activism based on that information doesn’t change anything? what would be the point of representative government then?
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Jesus Christ.
Me, every time I read about US train companies and infrastructure: “Could this story get any worse?!”
Train companies, handing off their beer: “Surprise!”
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Good point, and thanks for calling that out.
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