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Bill is quite correct when he says you don't hear about most of the incidents on the rail. Even fairly good sized derailments sometimes only become known to me through the "grapevine" when I inquire as to why my next train assignment isn't arriving as expected. I sometimes think we get most of our true info via rumor. It's a closed community ...closed to the public, that is.
Our main line is 60 mph except through some cities like Bismarck, Jamestown and Fargo where the permanent speed is reduced to 35. Some towns are 45 mph and the rest 60.
The company has recently pressed us for more aggressive whistling at crossings and I had a previous tendency to blow very moderate blasts, especially with no traffic and/or late at night. In cases of accident, the aggressive whistling is more likely to be remembered by witnesses and, as a side benefit, many communities are considering "Quiet Zones".
A Quiet Zone is a marked no-whistle zone where special gates or traffic dividers are installed to protect the public from themselves. This includes walkways which would have likely saved the child on the bike. See (
http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/1318 ).
The company benefits in that the Quiet Zones are also liability-free to the RR. The liability is absorbed by the community that requests the zone.
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