My presumption is "yeah, but lots of luck enforcing it."

In the case of stations only served by a scant two passenger trains a day or so, the typical legal language, sometimes plainly posted, is that "the station/platform is for the use of [Passenger Agency] passengers only." Occasionally--and always at major stations like Philly, DC, Chicago, etc.--that's "TICKETED Passengers ONLY."

Any of us who have ever spent hours hanging out at certain noted passenger platforms knows the reality: If you're behaving yourself and acting responsibly--and maybe look and sound like you know more than the authorities do about the railroad, have the RR police number in your wallet, etc.--you'll be left alone. It's the idiots drinking a case of beer or smoking dope at ten PM, or walking down the tracks with earbuds on, or using the track as a short cut to the Light Rail station, that are the (potentially fatal) problem. And since an investigating officer will get condemned if something does go wrong, they are often forced to err on the side of caution and eject people anyway.

At most commuter stations on the NE Corridor and many other multitrack lines, they've now put a fence down the middle of the right-of-way between tracks specifically to prevent pedestrian crossings by means other than the approved (and often ADA-noncompliant) underpass/overpass.

Then there are other "problematic" situations. The Santa Fe passenger depot in Flagstaff, Arizona not only sits snack next to the ever-busy BNSF Transcon (average three trains per hour), but serves at the local tourist information office and museum, AND sits right in the heart of the downtown "nightlife" scene, with FIVE brewpubs within two blocks and a myriad of other bars and nightclubs within sight. I'm surprised there are not more fatalities in that area, although the prevailing attitude in the "wild west" towards such "accidents" seems to be not "sue the big mean train company!" but "what did the idiot do to make that happen?"

The fortunate thing is that the two fools at Harpers Ferry moved literally at the last second. Had they been struck down and gravely injured or killed, we a) might not have gotten to see the video except in a courtroom; and b) wouldn't have been able to "use them as an example."

One last personal anecdote: During 611's last official season with NS in Virginia, I had to at least once tell a "civilian" to move for her own safety long before the train showed up. She verbally castigated me with obscenities in response. I said "Ma'am, you can move voluntarily, you can wait until I see the NS police agent shadowing the train at which time I'll flag him down and he can deal with you, likely with handcuffs if you cop that attitude, or we can shoot video of your impending demise so as to clear the railroad of wrongdoing if your family sues. Your call." I turned and left. She moved, still spouting obscenities.
Mind you, this was the well-to-do part of Northern Virginia.....

A follow up story from Trains (not behind the paywall):

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... unday-trip

A drone video of the incident was captured. The person was standing on the ends of the ties, well within the path of the train.

Such a shame.

Okay, so there are some conditions attached to letting the public onto the railroad owned platforms. That would tend to control the problems of people getting hit. It was definitely a close call for the two in the video. I think they would have heard the train coming up behind them except that the sound was obscured by the train they were watching.

For those who are interested, here is the link to the drone video. It is not close up, and is safe for work. My thoughts and prayers go out to the crew. There was not a damn thing they could have done differently.

https://vimeo.com/281159498/d52a630ad

the crowds looked fairly minimal for that location, not like the individual was having to fight for a shot. Have heard a lot of rumble that it was intentional, but I haven't seen anything to support that yet.

Edit: disregard the link, the webpage appears to have taken it down.

Video gone already.....

On the subject of track clearance, safe distances, etc, what will happen when the big boy starts running, and some nitwit tries to get a good shot on the outside of a curve? What was 'safe' will no longer be possible at all.

Those who are prone to rant and rave about the liability risks such steam trips cause should think long and hard about this incident, as well as others and all the near-misses.

From a non-foam-soaked viewpoint, if there was no steam train, there would have been no person standing on the ties trying to film a steam train. This is how insurance companies, risk managers and company lawyers will see it.

The video displayed:

- standing on the outside of the rail, on the ties.
- standing 20-30 feet away from the street crossing.
- filming the train through the cellphone screen up until the strike

It can be reasonably assumed there was a loss of situational awareness/tunnel vision.

Deeply unfortunate.

In this case, it wouldn't have mattered if it was an 0-4-0T. Standing on the end of the ties will still get you hit.

Here is a screen shot someone captured.

I'm not ranting and raving, or at least trying not to, but we do kill just under 100 people per day in auto wrecks, and nobody, including the insurance people who pay on all those claims, bats an eyelash, but if it involves a train, steam or anything else, everybody seems to lose their minds.

Now that we've seen the still photo (and this comment sticks around until it, too, is deleted by the moderators), let me point out another dramatic potential danger in the photo:

At the bottom of the photo, you see another guy, near a motorbike, WITH HIS BACK TO the train.

I know what this is. It's a guy(?) shooting a "selfie" photo or video.

Fortunately in this case, the guy is a safe-ish distance from the track, but my own experience with people doing this is extremely bad. Take all the usual lack of situational awareness and discretionary judgment, then add in inability to judge distance and speed, all in a mirror image on a tiny screen in your hand (or even on a tablet being held with both hands). It's akin to the old "shoot a rifle over the shoulder using a mirror" stunt, with a moving target. I've watched people do it with stopped trains, and try it with moving trains--and have hollered at at least one of them to get the %&#$@ away from the track......

I have seen at least four well-publicized (by RRs and Operation Lifesaver and UK media) reports of fatalities, a couple of them multiple, from people using this method to shoot themselves with trains. If I want to be gruesome, I will wager the next person that gets hit by an excursion train and killed will probably be using this technique.

Kelly Anderson: My associates in Colorado report the train was in a 50-mph zone for passenger, and was probably going close to that at the time.

Do an internet search for the legal term "attractive nuisance." Study carefully.

We as a society (at least the ones who aren't phobic of car travel) accept the risks of injuring/fatal auto accidents, minuscule as it is in reality, because it's the price we pay for being an independently mobile society. We HAVE to go to work, go to the stores, bring foods to market, go to and from school, and/or engage in the commerce that depends upon such transportation--unless you're Amish or otherwise disconnected from the grid and society. Even in an insular city, you depend on the people who DO drive to the mines, the farms, etc. And your odds of dying in a crash are still ridiculously small even if you do drive a lot.

A railroad is under NO obligation to provide public or even private excursions, or provide for historic equipment operating over their lines. At their most cynical and pessimistic, the legal department of any railroad can make a convincing argument that, in modern litigious society, the operation of such special trains, or even just specially painted locomotives or the former RBBB Circus Trains or the American Freedom Train, provides that "attractive nuisance" factor that will attract people trackside, and that even one in ten thousand being this "stupid" is too great a risk to bear. (I do know that there were people who actually did not want Circus Train routings or schedules promoted in advance for this reason; of course, modern-day communications quickly made this idea farcical at best in the RBBB later years.)

"TL;DR" version: "This is why we can't have nice things....."

Man I don't get that, I'm sure she recognized that a car speeding toward her will kill her if she doesn't get out of the way, is it that much of a stretch to apply that relationship to a train? Possibly an issue with the camera viewer making it seem the train is farther way than it was?

Precisely.

Most people do NOT have solid, lengthy experience looking through viewfinders or at monitor screens. I have decades of experience looking through the eyepieces of SLRs, DSLRs, movie cameras, and video cameras, and even I don't trust myself to do it safely when I'm in any position of potential jeopardy. I could say the same, I think, on behalf of my video expert friends. I'm usually the one guy in the "photo line" constantly checking behind, around, and above him like some paranoid guy.

Add into that both the fact that wide-angle settings on cameras make objects look further away than they are (in some cases, a LOT further--think of the "Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear" on your car's side mirror), PLUS the very-well-documented "loss of situational awareness" syndrome ever-present with "smartphones" (and even a danger with real video cameras, monitor screen or eyepiece), and you have a recipe for "when, not if" this happens.