Death on the Tracks

[Tonchi]

While working with the Southern Pacific in San Francisco (didn't get hired as an engineer, they discovered the scoliosis) I learned that entirely too many children end up under a train because they or the parents who aren't watching them aren't up on physics. That fun passtime of standing beside the tracks on the comuter/Amtrac lines to wave at a train turns deadly because an engine surging along at as much as 80mph creates a suction that plucks a little body right off the ground and sucks it under the wheels. I can only imagine how many engineers have had to debate standing the train on its nose to avoid a little kid he can see by the tracks up ahead. And of course the parents will sue the railroad for "negligence".