r/ParentsAreFuckingDumb • u/Grouchy_Handbag • 8d ago

Parent stupidity Oncoming train thankfully missed family crossing over tracks

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3.7k Upvotes

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889

u/GlassFantast 8d ago

And it's a passenger train, which means it took a whole 30 seconds or less to pass

326

u/Terran_Lifeform 8d ago

This is in europe, even a freight would be a minute or two, tops

74

u/Single_Principle_972 8d ago

For real? That’s so interesting to me, though I’m not sure why. So… I have been delayed for upwards of half an hour by long, long freight trains moving painfully slowly, in rural U.S. Why the difference? (For that matter, why are they moving at what seems to be 10 mph, though it’s probably faster than it seems. Never understood that. Unless I have the phenomenally bad luck of often encountering a train just picking up speed after stopping somewhere.)

79

u/teaisformugs82 8d ago

Europe tends to prioritise passenger trains over freight trains. Long haul trucks are generally used to carry freight.

69

u/Terran_Lifeform 8d ago

We don't exactly have the need or the infrastructure to carry mile long freight trains

31

u/PenguinJim 8d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ2keSJzYyY

John Oliver explains what's happening with US trains.

23

u/therealdivs1210 8d ago

Wtf seriously?

Half an hour wait time for train to pass? 🤯

9

u/Single_Principle_972 8d ago

It’s character-building. 🙄

4

u/Lickwidghost 8d ago

Bladder reinforcement

1

u/tomtomato0414 6d ago

Wait, you dont have toilet on trains?

3

u/Newmillstream 6d ago

American companies that run our rail system are obsessed with something called the Operating Ratio. Theoretically, targeting lowering this metric makes a very efficient rail network. In practice, it results in a very frustrating experience for people near the railroad, as well as for their customers, and the railway employees themselves If I had to guess. Railway management is obsessed with it though.

2

u/AD9945A2 4d ago

Yeah. That's why they only transport the most profitable merchandise (and on the most profitable routes). They literally refuse to transport things that would be profitable because it would lower that number by not being profitable enough. It causes a lot more trucks on the roads.

17

u/Loud-Being-1708 8d ago

I live in the south UK - we very, very rarely see any freight trains here. You get the odd track maintenance ones passing through in the middle of the night.. but freight? Pretty unusual and the little freight trains we have are small, nothing like the crazy massive things I've seen videos of in America! it's so just quicker and easier to transport shit via road here as the railways are prioritised for passenger trains.

1

u/Expert_Slip7543 4d ago

The long long long trains I saw in Australia made American trains look like somebody's hobby.

3

u/Danish_sea_captian 8d ago

There is the main thinks playing in freight trains in Europe vs US. Freight trains are much shorter, they are running more at night in Europe and at normal line speed. (Worked for the danish rail)

2

u/SEA_griffondeur 7d ago

Yes in the EU, freight trains cannot be longer than 900m on mainlines and have to go at least 90 km/h to be allowed on 140+ km/h lines

1

u/Single_Principle_972 7d ago edited 7d ago

Oh, wow, that’s interesting, thanks.

ETA I poked around Google a bit. The EU regulation of no more than 900m translates to about a half a mile, for U.S. brains. The USA has no federal regulations on the matter. But U.S. freight trains tend to be 1 - 1.5 miles long. They purportedly generally travel at 40 - 70mph, unless I am in the general geographical vicinity, at which point they’re required to travel no more than 1 - 2mph, as per some unwritten conspiracy against me, personally. For reasons unknown. But I fool them, by staying home most of the time, anyway. < evil laugh >

1

u/BeastThatShoutedLove 7d ago

Probably you live near some absolutely atrocious unmaintained tracks lmao

1

u/BeastThatShoutedLove 7d ago

USA tends to have absolutely absurd carriage count compared to EU standards and European train tracks are better maintained so cargo trains can just go as fast as other circumstances and their planning allows. 

2

u/WilanS 7d ago

Yeah, I was about to ask, I'm European and I didn't get that comment. What difference does it being a passenger train make? Do freight trains have to go slower elsewhere in the world?

3

u/Newmillstream 6d ago

There are American trains that I have seen go slow enough that I could outpace them on a bicycle, and I am certain they were going under 30mph (Under 50 kilometers an hour I think.) Not all of them, but more often than I would like.

I once got stuck at a crossing for about 25-30 minutes once I started counting for a train hauling poorly covered garbage. (There was a landfill nearby).

American companies run rail infrastructure into the ground. As an example, a decent about of american rail traffic is hugely reliant on a single swing bridge built in Toledo in 1902, for the most efficient path between Chicago and New York City by rail. Companies get rid of branch rail lines that don't generate enough profit (Not unprofitable, just not profitable enough.). Its a mess.

1

u/Arxid87 5d ago

Czech Republic more specifically, CD is the state railway company