151–160 of 206 posts
One way to see rural MO is on the Katy bike trail: https://mostateparks.com/park/katy-trail-state-park It's a 240 mile protected bike path.
And ironically one of the most popular ways to “do” the Katy trail is to take the Amtrak to Kansas City since that train has bike stowage, and riding the trail from west to east is (generally) all downhill.
For some reason this reminded me of the Ray Bradbury story, "The Town Where Noone Got Off" which is a dark little story indeed about two men and a small town on a railroad line. This one is a bit more positive. However, it turns out this whole incident was apparently due to the lack of a railroad crossing guard system of any kind at the intersection. The most basic system has flashing lights warning of oncoming train…
I can find you a dozen such crossings within an hour of my house. If you care to head into the properly rural part of any state, you'll find they're everywhere. There ought to be flashing lights and arms at every one, but no one wants to foot that bill. Was the truck actively crossing the tracks when it got hit or was it disabled? I haven't found any explanation of why it was there.
Local residents had apparently been warning of the danger of this particular crossing for some time [1]. A mockup of the accident scene is at [0].
The lawsuits have begun [3]. One of the suits alleges that the trucking company failed to properly maintain its equipment, which suggests to me the possibility that the truck stalled on the tracks.
[0] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article263060...
[1] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article262969...
[2] https://goo.gl/maps/n7WNSFMiqYgbEQQp9
[3] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article263084...
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I believe that this is incorrectly simplistic, if only because these sorts of situations by definition exist at the interface between a railroad and either a private or government road. Having the line operator (which I'm taking to mean railroad owner, in this case BNSF) bear 100% of the burden of providing full crossing protection creates an unbalanced situation (in terms of the cost to be borne). I'm not an expert,…
This cost sharing hot potato is itself part of the problem. It's ridiculous to have privately-owned infrequently-used tracks having precedence over well-used public roads, and then making mitigating the resulting contention into a shared responsibility. It's akin to someone putting up a yield sign on the road next to their driveway, and then just pulling out without caring because they technically own up until the ce…
Also, I don't know if you were applying the term to the road of the crossing involved in this crash, but this road is not one I would characterize as "well used"; more like "exceedingly rarely used" (thus the lack of active crossing protection).
Finally according to the previously referenced Trains Forum thread ("Posted by blue streak 1 on Wednesday, June 29, 2022 11:32 AM"), the railroad existed 60-70 years prior to the road in question. I believe it is this circumstance which places the onus on MODOT to defend the users of their later-arriving road from hazards associated with rail traffic on the preexisting BNSF line (with BNSF being an involved party).
I understand citing posts another public forum does not necessarily meet the gold standard of citations, but all of these facts align with my preexisting understanding of the situation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Transcon calls out Mendon, MO as a station on the Marceline subdivision
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Given that I grew up near there, and remembered the Skidmore murder story, what would you have me do? Not add material to the discussion? Arm I supposed to just stay silent about some things? If so, how should I know whether or not to stay silent. Give me a method, and I'll use it next time.
How would "sometimes bad things happen" be relevant in the least? Missouri is a large state and the two communities aren't close. Besides, you should read the link you posted rather than relying on memory. That story is of a small community defending itself from the predations of a sociopath whom law enforcement could not control. Maybe it's a critique of law enforcement, but it isn't a "counterpoint" to "small town…
The "Mendon, Missouri" story had as its theme that small town/rural America pulls together. There's nuance to that, and it's a mistake to ignore the nuance. The Skidmore story illustrates that, and it took place in the same rural NW Missouri millieu.
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The proof of kindness is everywhere, too. Just look around.
In most cases people see what they prefer to see. Their response to such impossible questions tells you more about them - how they see the world, their sense of life - than it does humanity at large.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This cost sharing hot potato is itself part of the problem. It's ridiculous to have privately-owned infrequently-used tracks having precedence over well-used public roads, and then making mitigating the resulting contention into a shared responsibility. It's akin to someone putting up a yield sign on the road next to their driveway, and then just pulling out without caring because they technically own up until the ce…
The RR line on which the collision near Mendon, MO occurred is the furthest thing from "infrequently-used tracks"; these tracks are part of the "BNSF Southern Transcon[tinental]" line[0] between Los Angeles, CA and Chicago, IL, which carries (per previously linked Trains Forum thread: "Posted by tree68 on Thursday, June 30, 2022 7:59 PM") "The FRA/DOT crossing data shows over 50 trains a day..." (wikipedia[0] provide…
The specific busyness of these tracks is all the more reason all crossings should be lighted/gated. And while we're at it, there should be sensors/cameras to check for stuck vehicles and communicate that to the train a few miles away - if a train going at 90mph takes 3 miles to stop, that actually means the gates only need to come down two minutes before the train gets to the crossing. But there's no impetus to proactively address such problems until the incentives are reformed.
> I believe it is this circumstance which places the onus on MODOT to defend the users of their later-arriving road from hazards associated with rail traffic on the preexisting BNSF line
Sure, but understanding the legal justification doesn't change what I said. This is an instance where the common law first-come first-serve system completely fails. See also: water "rights". It would be a different story if the tracks were also a public way and open for use by everyone, but in general private control over the commons should be rejected.
I have witnessed something quite similar. During the flash-floods in 2021 in Germany, locals in the Ahr region absolutely rose to the occasion. Farmers were evacuating people in head-high water with their tractors during the night, local restaurants were already providing hot food and water the next morning wherever they could reach, pharmacies were loading whatever they had available on ATVs to somehow get much-need…
To me the amount of people streaming from everywhere in the entire country (!) to help fix up a region that has been struck with disaster moved me to tears more than once now.
And the happier I am about this circumstance, the angrier I get at politicians and some media.
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I do not enjoy that every good hearted story needs to have a top comment with a clickbait counterpoint.
Given that I grew up near there, and remembered the Skidmore murder story, what would you have me do? Not add material to the discussion? Arm I supposed to just stay silent about some things? If so, how should I know whether or not to stay silent. Give me a method, and I'll use it next time.
Your comment was relevant and on-topic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I think people are good overall. I think the biggest reason people in small towns may be a bit quicker to help is that people in cities are a little conditioned by the bystander effect to assume that people around them, or the authorities, are better equipped to help. But any random individual asked for help in a city is likely to go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.
> I think people are good overall. Until a certain amount of sacrifices have to be made. Then things start getting tribal. The sacrifices do not even have to be material, simply sacrificing or losing socioeconomic status relative to others is sufficient.
> And the most unusual thing about all this is: None of this is unusual. At least not within the national tapestry that is The Great American Small Town. It also isn't unusual in the cities. Humans are wonderful and terrible everywhere. It reminds me of the 30 Rock episode where Jack and Liz go to Georgia to find a new comedian in touch with the "real America" and Liz keeps insisting that all Americans are real Ameri…
yes it is. last week i saw a homeless man follow a woman onto a packed train, scream in her face and throw her across the train, and nobody did anything. i’ll let you guess the races of the victim and the attacker. this was on the L in union square. no one cares. this country has been dying for decades and it’s almost completely dead