Orange County Sheriff's Office

In the United States, a train strikes a person or a vehicle every three hours. That’s approximately eight collisions a day – an astonishing figure. The bad news continues: North Carolina has the thirteenth highest number of rail trespass deaths in the country.

September is Train Track Safety Month. You may have seen social media posts from Operation Lifesaver warning people to respect train tracks. Their annual campaign, “See Tracks? Think Train” raises awareness about rail safety. Train tracks are critical national infrastructure, and they are very dangerous places.

It would be absurd to walk in the middle of a highway or airport runway, but people don’t seem to have the same healthy respect for the risks of railroads. Obviously, trains cannot swerve, and it can take them more than a mile to stop. By the time an engineer sees a vehicle or a person on the tracks, he or she can only apply the brakes, blow the horn, and watch in terror while waiting for the inevitable – a helpless, terrible feeling.

Walking alongside the tracks is only marginally safer, as the rough, rocky ground can cause unexpected falls or twisted ankles. I hate to imagine stumbling onto the track and being unable to stand back up while a train thunders at me. Moreover, people who walk along rail lines often fail to realize that trains are wider than tracks; they typically have a significant overhang on each side.

It may come as a surprise that railroad tracks and the surrounding right of way are not public thoroughfares.  Tracks – even abandoned ones – are private property, and if a person is on them without permission, he or she is trespassing.

People trespass for a variety of reasons. Some are simply using the tracks as the shortest distance between two points, and they do not understand the dangers. Other people, often social media users, select tracks as a background for photography. Cell phone cameras have been around for about two decades now. It is probably not coincidental that rail trespass deaths over that period increased 44% (from 498 fatalities in 2002 to 718 in 2023). Too many people seek the rugged aesthetic of wood, metal, and sky, but rail lines have nothing to do with graduations, engagements, album cover art, or holiday greeting cards.

It seems that one would hear a train coming, but typically, the sound only arrives seconds before the machine itself. Modern trains glide on tracks with very little friction. The crushed rock under the tracks further dampens the noise. The sound waves radiate outward and behind the train more than they project forward. Especially in an environment with significant levels of ambient noise, such as nearby vehicle traffic or wind blowing through trees, a person in front of the train may not hear it until it is only seconds from impact.

People almost never survive a direct hit, and if they do, they generally suffer catastrophic, life-changing injuries. The chance of survival is only slightly better when the train strikes someone from the side. If the train throws a person clear – rather than under the train, off a bridge, or into a solid object – he or she might live, but the odds are still terrible.

It is surprisingly difficult to judge the speed of a moving train. One reason is that larger objects appear to be moving more slowly than smaller ones traveling at the same speed.  Airplanes fly fast, yet when I watch one descend over the interstate into RDU airport, it appears to crawl through the sky. A second optical illusion compounds the difficulty of judging train speed. When humans view parallel lines stretching into the distance, our eyes perceive them as getting closer to each other until they meet at the horizon, even though our brains know tracks remain the same distance apart. This phenomenon causes the train to appear both farther away and slower than it is, a dangerous combination.

Drivers should never attempt to race through a marked crossing before the arms come down. I’ve seen people get trapped between the barriers with disastrous consequences. Likewise, motorists should stop, look both ways, and proceed with extreme caution at junctures without physical barriers and flashing lights. 

Trains are not required to sound their horns at all crossings; therefore, silence does not mean safety.

Except for passengers, employees, and those with explicit permission from the railroad, no one belongs on train tracks. Trains are fast, surprisingly quiet, and unable to stop quickly. A shortcut or a photograph is not worth the risk.