Final word on the Canton crash

The emerging view on the Canton crash is that the driver of the car blundered, for reasons unknown. (See the accounts in the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.)

The car was traveling north on Hannan Road in Canton Township, near Wayne. The Wolverine was traveling west and up to speed (~70 mph). Looking at the Google street view it seems possible that the driver couldn't see the train behind the trees (at right), but surely he heard the horn and saw the gates. At least one eyewitness saw the same, and Amtrak says the in-cab video proves the safety devices were working. The stretch is Norfolk Southern and sees plenty of freights; maybe the driver thought that he was trying to beat a slow freight. Certainly I've played tag with a Grand Elk slow freight in Kalamazoo before, but the difference there is (a) I don't run around crossings and (b) I've seen the freight and verified it's doing about 5-10 mph. Big difference.

Waymarking the Pere Marquette

I ran across some posts on Waymarking from earlier this week--it looks like the poster, steveherrick, is making his way north along Amtrak's Pere Marquette. In his first post he's got some great pictures of the old Pere Marquette station in St. Joseph, now used by Amtrak. For his second post he's up in Holland with photographs of an old PM caboose built by the St. Louis Car Company. I've never used Waymarking before but it looks pretty cool; some quick searching turned up lots of pictures of trains stations, old cars etc.

Morning round-up for 2/20/2008

The Royal Oak Daily Tribune is running a story about local reactions to Amtrak's institution of random passenger screening on the Northeast Corridor. Response is positive--provided the new methods don't cause any (more) delays. Still no word on when Amtrak will expand beyond the Northeast--if it mucks up the Acela it could be quite a while before it gets here.

The Saginaw News reports that Bridgeport may abandon a side street which crosses the Saginaw Bay Southern just north of the downtown. Town officials cited the cost of repairing the road and safety concerns. I've driven through there and it makes for a really tight intersection--there's two grade crossings right next to each other.