Your Commute: Train Meets Truck.

If you felt your commute was crappy, you can find some relief in considering you did not run head first into a large heavy truck. As we did this morning. Luckily, we were in the bigger vehicle, a sporty Nippon Sharyo Bi-Level Cab operated by Amtrak/Caltrain which, as the advertising brochure says: goes through trucks like wire through butter.

Lying brochure: it went through with a big noise and a big thump at the impact which sent a sharp jolt through our herniated back. Then a cloud of sawdust, due to hitting the tail of a lumber truck. Everyone ended up ok, and we are glad to report that, this time, getting hit by the train was a bit anti-climactic. Other than the train engineer, who will spend the rest of his life in therapy.

People on Caltrain 322 from SF to SJ had to leave the damaged train, walk to the next station, and wait for the next train to come pick them up. Total delay: a surprisingly short hour, considering what happened.

There are two serious points we would like to make: while the consequences of the accident turned out minimal, what was a truck doing on the tracks? How come trucks are not mandated to use the underpass crossings? Heck, how come every crossing is not an over/underpass? If this is good enough for BART, why not for CalTrain? Baby bullets like this am train run at 70 miles an hour, for chrissake, there is no need to tempt fate. Even we could predict this is bound to happen again.

The other point is: the train which hit the truck was a southbound train, which means it hit the truck with the engine car, pulling the train. On a northbound train, the engine pushes the train, and it is a regular, much lighter passenger car at the front, which would have taken the brunt of the hit. Why on earth do they keep operating trains pushed by the locomotive, as opposed to pulled? May today's close call serve as a reminder that collisions do happen, and that CalTrain should not wait for a tragedy before changing their safety practices.