There is a Fine Line Between Retarded and Awesome...

For the Retarded: the Book of Revelations says something about the Bear and Dragon doing battle or some crap like that. Well, for a long time the Baptists I know believed the bear represented Russia. If a disturbing trend for Russian youths today is any indication, these people are going to weed themselves out before Barack Obama officially becomes the antichrist. It's called "Dare the Train." These morons wait for a train to come, jump on the tracks and lie flat as the train speeds along mere inches above their bodies. This is an after school special waiting to happen. Let's add it all up: they embrace communism, cause Chernobyl to meltdown, lose the Cold War after producing a shit-ton of nuclear weapons that are now scattered around former Soviet Socialist Republics in central Asia, and now the next generation of Russians are lying down in front of trains.

Check this video of this Latvian moron:

Side note about Latvians: they actively participated in the Holocaust. All of them.

And now for the Awesome: someone in India has been reading this blog. Also courtesy of Jesse, we have an update regarding my earlier post about the lack of safety on Indian railroads. One railroad in Northern India is hiring wrestlers and boxers to rid their cars of stowaways who haven't paid for a ticket to ride. Read that last sentence again and let it sink in. In America they just use conductors who check tickets, but think about how awesome it would be if instead of polite, uniformed employees who punch passengers' tickets, NJ Transit hired boxers who simply punched passengers in the face if they didn't buy a ticket. As a side note, I would love it if NJ Transit hired people simply to punch passengers who talked loudly on their cell phones, kicked the back of occupied seats, or listened to techno music at such a high volume it can heard on the other side of the train. If you don't believe me, czech it out:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6538362/Indian-trains-recruit-boxers-and-wrestlers-in-fight-against-ticketless-passengers.html

Rail Safety or Mom Safety...

You make the call:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQsVlFfqxWE

Rail Safety or Mom Safety...

You make the call:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQsVlFfqxWE

Not Safe: Indians

This is not meant to be a racial statement, but I think it's pretty clear that there are a large number of Indians who haven't been reading my blog. In all fairness, I love the enthusiasm. I'll give India an A for effort with regards to their desire to ride a train at any cost. I grumble every time I pay $20.50 for a round trip ticket to NYC, but these folks are willing to risk life and limb to experience the open rails. But there is a time when common sense must prevail, and it clearly isn't happening here. Never mind the fact that a large number of people have chosen to simply sit or hang onto a heavy, unstoppable, moving vehicle. Consider this: you are an Indian engineer. Your train is not equipped with a radio, so you rely on signal plates on the sides of the tracks to tell you when you need to slow down, stop or speed up so the express train to Mumbai, which has priority, can head through. And you can't see jack shit because there are ten people standing in front of your windows. Rail accidents are super problematic in India for this very reason. And just imagine the increase in injuries and death in a rail accident when there are hundreds of people on the train and not in the train! Try driving to work blindfolded tomorrow and you'll understand the plight of the average Indian railroad engineer. Correction: try driving to work blindfolded tomorrow and having hundreds of peoples' lives in your hands and you'll understand the plight of the average Indian railroad engineer. But a large number of Indians persist on traveling in this manner. Additionally, on electrified trains there is the danger of severe electrocution (duh). If you are not faint of heart, watch this video of a roof-rider casually reaching up to the lines while the train is stopped at a station. I warn you, this video is gruesome:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80647819/

But what I find most disturbing is that I couldn't find any evidence that the Indian government was doing anything to stop this kind of activity. Well, I have an idea. Make my blog mandatory reading for every Indian child from ages 5 to 15. I am working on a petition right now. I'll keep you updated. Big thanks to Tombstone Trevor for sending this photo my way, and helping keep rail safety worldwide.

The Mysterious and (in my imagination) the Beautiful Diane S. Segal

If you subscribe to the magazine Trains, the name Diane S. Segal is not unfamiliar to you. She is not a hero of railroad safety, but is certainly a caped-crusader for trains in general. I discovered Ms. Segal in March of this year when I was given a subscription to this fine publication for my birthday (big-ups to my grandma). In the March of 2009 issue I found the following full page advertisement:

And it certainly stood out to me. Clearly Diane and her mother shared a common love of trains and this was Diane’s tribute to the deceased. I figured a full-page advert was probably expensive, so to me it was a bit over the top, but who am I to judge? Everyone deals with grief differently, right? And the poems didn’t strike me as very emotional either. Take a look at the detail from the March 2009 issue:

There is no reminiscing about the times she and her mother went trainspotting in the Smokey Mountains, or the first time they road the B&O from Cincinnati to Baltimore. This is a history of the CW44AC-2! Take a look at the second verse:

"On CW44AC-2 extensive testing was done

By September, 1995, it was back in Kentucky at Coal Run"

Now, I was always under the impression that poetry was ultimately something lyrical, or at least meant to be read aloud. Try reading that verse out loud! The technical language is not meant for this medium, beautiful as it may be. But I will give her this: she knows her locomotive history.

So fast-forward to April of 2009. I excitedly thumb through my new issue of Trains and what do I see?

Two months of this? It seems excessive, right? But get this: every month since March she has entered two new poems and drawings in a full-page ad! So I decided to do some digging. I called Trains to find out how much she is paying for each ad. My contact at Trains tells me each ad costs $3782.00. That means that since March Diane has spent $26,474 on these advertisements. On top of that, the friendly man at Trains also indicated that she started doing this a while ago.

This is where the enigma of Diane S. Segal takes hold of me. Who is this practitioner of locomotive poems, this Claude Monet of train-related pencil sketches? As it turns out I am not the only person asking this question. A quick google search of “Diane S. Segal” will yield 17,300 results. In one railroad.net forum, “Cowford” begs the question “Who the heck is Diane S. Segal?” Cowford asked this question on November 2^{nd of} 2006!!! Let me restate that: people have been asking “who is Diane S. Segal” for almost three years! That means her ads have be running for (probably) over three years! THREE FUCKING YEARS of unique poetry and drawings!

Let’s do a little cost analysis on this. From November 2006 to September 2009 is 35 months, 70 poems, 70 drawings and $132,370 worth of advertisements!!!!! And that’s assuming she started in November of 2006, though it’s likely she began much earlier and that’s what prompted Cowford to ask this eternal question. Let that sink in. What could you do with $132,370 dollars? I know I would do something railroad related, but this?

So the question remains: who the heck is Diane S. Saigal? There are several other railroading based forums where this question has been kicked around and no one seems to know who she is! I mean, she has loads of cash, but she isn’t trying to sell her drawings or poems, at least not online. So who is she?! Well, one intrepid railfan did find this interesting document:

http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupct/83352/op-83352.pdf

Apparently one Diane S. Segal was a lawyer in Florida and was disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court of knowingly making false statements during the handling of her uncle’s estate! The report states that Segal’s uncle left his sister (Diane's mother and the object of her poems?) and Diane a shit-ton of money (my words) and that, along with her disbarring, she undergo psychiatric evaluations, among other things. Is this our Diane S. Segal? Did she get the money for her ads from her deceased uncle’s estate? This doesn’t sound like the tender-hearted siren who has graced the pages of Trains magazine for the last three years. I suppose we may never know. Or, as “Noel C” on the Altamont Press discussion board put it:

This conundrum – it began

With these poems by Diane

Of the poetry and trains

I guess the mystery remains

Diane, if you are out there and reading this, quench our collective thirst! We need to know, who are you? Make a facebook page. Create your own blog that features your art. Give us a sign! Please, Diane S. Segal. You are an enigma, wrapped in a riddle. Yes, that was a Winston Churchill/Simpsons reference.

This Just In: People are Dumb

This afternoon I was bombarded with not one, but two emails from my man J-Dizzle about his concern for more education regarding international railroad safety.  This first video comes to us from an Israeli news program, via a Swiss bookman:

Now, I don't speak Hebrew, but I get the gist of the report (perhaps one of our Israeli readers can help us out with a translation).  Some crazy idiot laid down on the tracks, trying to kill herself.  Score one for the creationists, because if Darwin knew what the fuck he was talking about, she'd be dead.  But this raises some serious concerns about the state of international rail safety.  So does this next piece of news:

Australian Rail Safety Seriously Lacking

I don't put much stock in the Australians.  The last WWI "veteran" alive was Australian and he just died.  Guess what: he never served in WWI.  He enlisted, but never saw combat.  Does that count?  Not really, but what do you expect from a nation descended from criminals?  Anyway, this poor chap was hit by two trains before some one stopped to pick up the pieces.  I mean seriously, what the hell is going on here?  Do other people not realize that trains are heavy, fast and unforgiving?  What's it going to take?  I'll tell you what: Birdie and Sly Fox translated into Hebrew and whatever language they happen to speak in Australia.  That's what.  I hope Obama reads my blog.

Keep yer game tight!

I know we all have slow days at work, but rail safety never takes a break!  I thought I might share some fun learning activities that you and some of your coworkers could do to brush up on your rail safety skillz!

It looks our old pal Sly Fox has learned a thing or two!  And so have you!  Now try out this crossword puzzle.