• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Train accident lessons learned

Muchmore

Muchmore

Husqvarna
AA Class
This is going to seem a bit hard to believe but on April 17, 2011 I was hit by an Amtrak from behind doing 78mph. I know, I know, (whiskey tango foxtrot) but no kidding. What have I learned since then and what is the story?

I had a 2009 G450x and a friend of mine had a KTM at the time and he stopped by, grabbed me and we were headed to a rock quarry to ride via RR tracks. ON THE SIDE OF THE TRACKS, not in the middle. We were just flying down the shoulder of the RR tracks and an Amtrak caught me from behind although it did get slowed from 78 to 72mph before impact :) He (the conductor) did everything right, brakes, horns, lights I just didn't hear it, no kidding. My bike had Arrow exhaust that was loud as hell, the rocks we were riding on were loud and simply I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION. Anybody who has grown up in small towns spends time on RR tracks and this time I was just to complacent and it almost killed me.

Just yesterday ~26 months later I was finally released by my neurosurgeon for the rest of my life. I had 4 vertebra in my neck jump over one another and 2 break. Lots of titanium in there (think Wolverine)

So my point here is it was my mistake, it was mine because I had ridden the same area for so many years I failed to pay the most basic attention and almost was killed. This wasn't an accident, it was premeditated inattention.

I also had a broken neck in 2 places but still had the ability to mostly move my hands so I tried to move. Thank God there were people present to stabilize me otherwise I would have had a much more serious spinal cord injury.

Pay attention, look around, wear the gear and ride safe.

I'll include a few picture's of what a train wreck looks like afterwards, surprisingly I heard there no marks on the train at all :)

I spent 4 months learning to walk again but look how far my helmet was broken and yes of course I still ride.IMG_0484.JPG C5-7 break.jpgIMG_0482.JPGNeck.1.jpg
 
wow glad you are still above the grass. That is one of the more scary stories Ive read. thanks for posting. we used to access riding areas the same way. Your neck looked fatal, amazing how far med has come. Again thank you for posting and continue your progress, and shoot keep on enjoying life!!!
 
Lucky man, you are right though, when in a familiar area you lapse concentration, glad you're alive, happy days ahead.
 
Holy crap what a story! Glad you made it through to share your story. I don't think I will ever ride near train tracks again without this story reminding me to check my 6 regularly. Good to hear you are still able to ride. :applause:
 
No bike picts it was 22 days before I was home so it was long gone by then. The bike was thrown into the top of a tree and as it came teetering down it almost stuck but the last branch broke and it did make it all the way to the ground. It was in recognizable shape although way beyond repair, even the engine case was cracked.

Probably the only thing hard enough to survive was the seat! :) I am totally healed today, moderate shoulder pain after strenuous activity but not bad. We all still ride as we please so just a very, very expensive safety lesson. :)IMG_6923.JPG
 
Wow! I used to have to ride down RR tracks to get to one of my riding areas. There was a long stretch and then a crossing, then another long stretch. For some reason we pulled off at the crossing for a minute, and a passenger train tore past. That was a real eye-opener. Sorry to read that your eye-opener had to be so severe.

While I agree that it was your fault, I'm a little surprised that the train only slowed by 6 mph. Were you around a bend or something where you weren't seen until late?

I now don't have to consider the issue, as I'm plated and can get to most of my riding areas without any RR tracks. Although, there is one small trestle that we sometimes need to cross, it has excellent visibility, so there's no worry about an incident.
 
AndrewS said:
Wow! I used to have to ride down RR tracks to get to one of my riding areas. There was a long stretch and then a crossing, then another long stretch. For some reason we pulled off at the crossing for a minute, and a passenger train tore past. That was a real eye-opener. Sorry to read that your eye-opener had to be so severe.

While I agree that it was your fault, I'm a little surprised that the train only slowed by 6 mph. Were you around a bend or something where you weren't seen until late?

I now don't have to consider the issue, as I'm plated and can get to most of my riding areas without any RR tracks. Although, there is one small trestle that we sometimes need to cross, it has excellent visibility, so there's no worry about an incident.
Click to expand...


The train tracks were totally straight for 1/2 mile. Perfect visibility, I just couldn't see behind me and I wasn't listening for a train horn :) I am impressed he got slowed by 6mph, 78 is hauling rear end!
 
Incredible, you must have a different outlook on life now?
Glad you lived to tell about it.
Enjoy your life!
Wow
I just found out this morning about a life flight trip a good friend took yesterday morning. He bought one of those package deals to go watch the Indy 500 and had to fly right after the race (2AM). After getting back to PDX (no sleep) and getting his pickup to drive the 2hours home he fell asleep in the Coast Range narrowly missing a loaded log truck before plunging off the road. Surprisingly few injuries and may get out of the hospital tomorrow.
 
My flight was ~$16k for 6 minutes :) we were so far off the road the ambulance guy's wouldn't carry me :) glad he wasn't hurt you really never expect to be so comfortable driving to fall asleep or not hear a train.

Xcuvator said:
Incredible, you must have a different outlook on life now?
Glad you lived to tell about it.
Enjoy your life!
Wow
I just found out this morning about a life flight trip a good friend took yesterday morning. He bought one of those package deals to go watch the Indy 500 and had to fly right after the race (2AM). After getting back to PDX (no sleep) and getting his pickup to drive the 2hours home he fell asleep in the Coast Range narrowly missing a loaded log truck before plunging off the road. Surprisingly few injuries and may get out of the hospital tomorrow.
Click to expand...
 
As a career rail road employee, I'm happy to hear you escaped what is a fatal encounter most times. Thanks for sharing that story, because it high lights the reality of what can happen around rail equipment. And even if you had a quiet bike or for that matter were on foot, the chances of getting hit are high. Steel wheels on rails are almost silent until it's to late. I really am happy to know that you have made a great recovery and can still ride.
 
Wow, you escaped that one somehow to live another day! ...Just was not your time young man :) ... Life has many turns and twists .. Strap your helmet on tightly, always :0)

--
When riding a bike, "Stay alert and stay alive" --- Stay off the bike if you cannot do this one simple thing. Bikes are death traps waiting for many of us ...

EDIT: I crushed a vertebra in my back yrs ago on a bike and have said this before ... The backbone is a miraculous device for protecting the spinal cord ... That C-567 jump sounds almost impossible to live through and still function correctly ...
 
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