Hacker News Reader

Maybe this applies more to countries with faster trains? They only go ~30mph here and I never had any problem crossing tracks on foot with trains in the far distance, and the rest of my family did it too. These tracks also had a lot of curves though.

View on HN

No, it’s really important advice.

The big issue with trains is that it has an inertia that our brain is not trained to.

As signalling engineers, we get to compute safe braking distances a lot and they are /big/, even at relatively low speed. This means that trains in curves -> do not have line of sight all the way to the next possible stop point <- so the driver may never have the chance to stop if you fall while crossing the track.

So don’t do it. Even at 30mph in curves, you are in danger.

I would always assume that if a train driver sees something on the track ahead, she is going to start braking. And I know that even if I believe I am going to be out of the way in time so they won’t have to stop (or hit me), merely causing a train to brake is going to cause inconvenience and delay and waste energy. So I’m not going to step in front of a train, ever.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com