VIA rail canada

VIA rail is an example of a company that has made excellent use of the internet. In order to come home for the holidays I bought a ticket online. I did it in advance, so they mailed it to my house. This way there is absolutely no waiting in line. Truly a victory for the common man!

Anyway, it was a pretty eventful trainride. I had brought half a loaf of Provigo's sweet sweet challah bread with me to snack on. I offered some to my seatmate as well. She declined (for now...), but we started talking aboot stuff. She had an issue of Adbusters which I read. It's good to get hit with a 'differing' view of the word every once in a while. They point out a variety of very important and interesting issues. Later she would partake of a slice of my bread, and I would partake in some cookies which she had baked for her host in Toronto. You can't get a better seatmate then that, baby.

Then our train slowed to a stop. There was another train waiting on the track beside us too. After sitting there for a little bit a VIA conductor type guy came and told everyone that we would be delayed. Some passenger dude asked what the problem was. The answer was "Three fifteen year old kids were playing chicken on the railroad tracks and one of them got hit"!!! Some more details were also revealed: the hit kid had died on impact, there is a vortex of air that can pull you back into the path of the train if you are too close when you jump away, and this happens about once a month. I was shocked. Both by what had happened and the fact that the VIA guy would actually tell all the passengers all of this.

It had happened to a train that was going the other way a few hours before, and the tracks were all closed until the police could come and investigate as much as they wanted. I fell asleep a little after we resumed our journey and was out until we hit union station.

Posted by dustin on December 27, 2003 with category tags of

6 comments
The train is the perfect weapon.

It sucks people back in front of it. Ingenious!
   comment by Chronomorph (#11) on December 30, 2003

I am shocked that teenagers would do something as stupid as playing on railroad tracks. Trains kill! If this happens so frequently, perhaps CN (the company that owns the tracks that VIA uses) should build more fences to keep people off the tracks.
   comment by Andrew on February 27, 2006

The function of how many kids it happens to is tied to the length of the railroad. Canada has a long railroad, you would need a lot of fence.
   comment by dustin (#1) on February 27, 2006

...should build more fences to keep people off the tracks.

Uhhh, you ever seen a Canadian railroad fence?

"CN's project to fence off its track through Boucherville QC (see Mileposts, Train Scan, September 2002 ) went ahead. By mid-month, all the posts had been installed and about half the fencing was up. However angry residents were cutting holes in the fence so they could continue to cross, and CN stopped work to meet with municipal authorities."

"Despite the relative newness of the fencing, a hole had been cut through it, holes dug underneath it and nearby structures used to climb over it."

As a kid, I made a point of knowing where the holes were to traverse the tracks. I think you tempt the hand of Darwin if you are idiot enough to actually play on the tracks, though. As for people willing to play chicken on the tracks, well, I can only imagine they have a train-proof face.
   comment by vinny9 (#33) on February 27, 2006

   

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