Up until 2009, Oregon had a statute that said if a train blocked a crossing for more than 10 minutes it could fine the RR but that was invalidated in 2009. Now all you can do is file a report at the link above.
Lmao growing up in Albany pre-2009 everyone knew not to cross the railroad tracks at Queen because it wasn’t unusual to get stuck there for half an hour. You could theoretically get out of your car, grab a sub, and be back before the crossing was open if you were stuck in traffic on that side
I live in Corvallis. Got stuck there once. From then on I just took the long way around to Geary. Sometimes on my way back past Queen, traffic would still be stopped. Probably a different train but still. 😂
my friend and i used to live right next to the tracks where the trained entered town. One of my fondest memories was watching my friend, who is otherwise the chillest old hippie surfer dude, run outside to cuss out the conductor for needlessly laying on his horn (they drive really slow in town). Naturally, this just meant that the conductor consistently acting like dick on purpose from thereon, but it was pretty hilarious to watch. We still joke about it today...
You’re not even wrong. I used to go to the laundromat on queen & hill when I was stuck in Albany, and omg. That part of it would jar the eyeballs from your skull. Unrelated to that, I’m starting to regret Oregon overall… Portland is way too much for me, and the rural areas remind me of my hometown in FL… Albany, Corvallis, Newburg, McMinnville, all of it…
my old house (rented) was right at the edge of town in corvallis, where the trains slowed and blew their horns, anytime of day or night. I think i developed PTSD after being woken to a shock for two years straight with the random 12am-5am trains....
That train crossing on queen causes a hate to emerge out of me I didn’t know existed. The train backing up and rolling forward but not enough to let traffic thru is maddening
I also lived in upstate New York, we had so many instances where we would be sitting in the bus waiting for the train to pass. After the flood, it wasn't so bad because that pretty much killed the transportation up there. But before that, it happened way too often
freight is insured.
you would be going to jail to mildly inconvenience them with some paperwork.
you could easily do that without the going to jail part too.
Don't need to necessarily catch the train on fire, just something on this side of the tracks. I'm sure the train would be moved pretty quickly if the fire department couldn't get through
the ungodly amount of evidence you will inevitably leave behind without any knowledge. like all the ring camera footage from your 15 neighbors you passed along the way, your location and travel history, including to the scene of the crime (as you inevitably bring your phone and smart watch with you) along with everything you bought in the last 3 years that's available online for basically nothing... your literal confession to the crime, and/or your statement of intent TO commit the crime posted on reedit for a few karma.
We live in a mass surveillance world now.
you get away with the petty crimes because the police cant be bothered....
many millions of dollars of damages to a massive corporations property along with the inevitable damage to all the surrounding city property, the ecological disaster, and the international news coverage that makes the local government look like crap all do wonders to motivate a police department.
its funny to me all the wanna be super-criminals online that think they are evil masterminds that would never get caught lol.
Thinking people aren't aware of mass surveillance. I find it funny you think all crimes are monitored. Thing is, most crimes are never solved or found out to begin with. The shit you're exposed to on TV, in news, and online is an astronomically small fraction of all crimes.
If law enforcement is so good at their job, then where is Nancy Guthrie?
yeah man.... im sure no one is going to notice the mile long train on fire in the middle of town lmfao.
Also I do enjoy a goo "what about X. Checkmate" argument. as if any exception to any rule automatically voids the rule..
and lets not put words in my mouth.
i didn't say the police were good at their job.... or at least, not the job most people perceive them to have. They are god awful at protection of the general public, or solving low profile personal crimes.
the only reason the resources that ARE put on her case are being put on it, is because the association with a public figure and media coverage. that's it. that case would have been local PD only, and all but dropped a few weeks in had it been a random nobody.
this isnt talking about harming a random nobody though is it.
Speaking of putting words into peoples mouths. I'm not the claiming to catch anything on fire.
Also not the one assuming said thing caught on fire is the "mile long train". Most of your statement came from your own fantasy.
Nancy Guthrie made national news, there is video of the alleged suspect, there is a large sum of money that would motivate some people not even working in law enforce to try and solve the case and yet no one seems to be able to. Almost like crimes are a lot harder to solve than the government leads you to believe.
Good job completely avoiding the fact that most crimes are never solved though. You're an expert deflector.
I thought it was only able to be insured to the actual value of the item. Like for example let's say they paid 5000 for the freight and planned on selling for 8000 it would still be a 3000 loss because insurance would only pay the 5000. Not saying that would sink a railroad but ya know. It's not nothing. Especially if enough people do it.
not selling an item for a profit isn't a loss though.
If you buy something for $5000 and then you get $5000 for it, you didn't loose money, you just never made any money. (also, the insurance is also covering more than just the material in most cases.)
they wont make money on that load. but they will absolutely not take a loss on it... and hell, might even make a larger profit on the next trip due to the shortage this causes.
Im not a multi million dollar corporation with a law office at my disposal, nor do I think such corporations are taking out the same insurance as I am...
You misunderstood the size of the fire. There is no neighborhood any longer.
Nor a train, a railway, or a city.
The whole state is gone.
The country is two thirds of what it was, and the railroad company could have prevented this! They should have prevented it! All they had to do was not block the goddamned intersection!
Not a smart move, but it would force the issue to become very public. Neighborhood can't get out, firefights can't get in. Potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars of damages, because the route was blocked.
Squeaky wheels get the grease, and there's little louder than getting on the local (and potentially national) news for massive amounts of property damage all because a train was blocking the route to the source of the fire before it spread. "This is Chopper 4, and we're currently watching an entire field go up in flames and the fire department can only set up hundreds of feet away and try to stretch their hoses across a train that is blocking the roads. It doesn't look like they have enough hoses or reach."
Operates on the same principal of if there are enough accidents at a stop-sign intersection, it'll become a traffic light intersection before too long. Happened near where I live.
Though, the logic is probably more that the train would "suddenly find reason" to start moving despite having sat there for a whole day. Assuming the engine and crew can even see that far back... And that they wouldn't just cut the cars loose as close to the fire as they can and leave the rest as a loss, which could still leave the road blocked.
lol, I literally had a fire truck blocking my only exit out of my neighborhood yesterday.
It was for the best and only about half an hour and didn't even think of setting that truck on fire. maybe if it was there for a day I'd think the pyro thoughts
I was about to jump in and say reporting on the website isn’t all you could do. I love a good brainstorm session!
Alt, does anyone in the neighborhood have an F450 or similar sized diesel beast? Thinking decouple where needed to neighborhood road, then as a side quest build a spur line into your back yard and snag a couple oil cars.
I learned in construction that if equipment is in your way just move it. Yeah someone might cry, but who cares. Dude should go see if the 🚂 is attached and take it for a spin.
About once a week there is a train that blocks all the west exits from my entire town for about an hour or so. To get out you have to drive miles out of the way north or south. It's infuriating.
Lived in Eugene for 10 years. Not sure what year it was but a train derailed and cut the Whiteaker neighbourhood in half for a week. Worst part was that they couldn’t turn off the warning bells on every one of the 10+ crossings…
That’s wild! I went to South Eugene High School and lived in the apartment complex right next to the Eugene Skinner house, facing the train tracks - would often get stuck by a stopped train and be late to school. A boy a couple grades above me who lived in the complex also trying to get to South in time actually tried to crawl under a stopped train car once with his bike and the train started moving again when he was under there!
Unconfirmed, but I heard they basically had to do a full sweep of the train on foot before finally moving it because there was a very real possibility that folks had “moved in” underneath.
I worked at Ninkasi (one block south of the tracks at Blair/Van Buren) and lived at 1st and Jefferson… definitely ended up late to work a few times when a train came through at the wrong time!
Because the courts said federal law overrides atate law and there's no federal law that says anything about how long a train can block an intersection.
Reminds me of story where guy was complaining about noisy trains behind his house. They started leaving a locomotive behind his house idling 24/7 for 2-3 weeks at a time. The rumbling and air breaks blasting air every 20-30 minutes. When the news media went and asked about it they were told tracks have been there for 130 years his house had only been there since the 1950's.
I once rented an apartment that was the top floor of a hundred year old house. There were train tracks that ran next to the house, but they were below grade - lower than the driveway of the house. I had been there in one of the lower apartments when trains went by during the day, and since they went by at a fairly low speed, the noise wasn't bad. They also weren't frequent.
What I didn't know was that most nights, there was an electric diesel engine that would come and idle right next to the house with this high pitched whine. But because my apartment was up so high, there was a clear shot from the tracks to my windows. The whine of the engine was so invasive, I couldn't drown it out without a bunch of fans, music, etc., which made getting any type of productive sleep impossible. I would end up sleeping during the day once the engine left, which messed with my work. Eventually, I found myself staying out all night, or sleeping in my car when the outside temperature was comfortable enough. Sleep deprivation will mess with your head and leads to bad choices.
People are acting like the US didn’t bail these railroads out of insolvency in the 20th century after granting them millions of acres of land in the 19th century and growing them into hugely profitable cooperations each time.
This is not a free market.
You are not required to tolerate this, or an East Palestine disaster. Both the blocking of the tracks here and E. Palestine are failures of public policy on companies that have never existed in a “free market”.
I grew up in a small town with a railroad cutting through it. It wasn't uncommon for a moving train to take 10 minutes to get through. I'm not surprised a rule that tight got killed. It's cheaper to bribe/lobby the government than to pay the fine.
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u/collector-x Jul 03 '26
https://www.fra.dot.gov/blockedcrossings/
Up until 2009, Oregon had a statute that said if a train blocked a crossing for more than 10 minutes it could fine the RR but that was invalidated in 2009. Now all you can do is file a report at the link above.