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Reply to "UP #844 Northbound (CFD) to Cheyenne today"

BobbyD posted:

I was doing a math presentation at a grammar school many years ago and using railroad equipment as an example when one of the young girls mentioned that she placed coins on the tracks with her mother to later retrieve them flattened. I explained to her the many reasons it was very dangerous to do so, the first being distance perception of a moving train being very, very, very misleading to the brain.

Reminds me of the time my brothers and I found that out many years ago when we were young, putting coins on the track in front of what we found to be the Burlington Zephyr streamliner, running up next to the Mississippi in central Wisconsin, going from Chicago to St. Paul. It was rounding a bend, and it looked a long way away. The next thing we knew it was almost on top of us and we scrambled out of the way. It was probably doing at least 80-90. Unless you look for more than briefly at an oncoming object, you can't judge distance.

I've seen the Amtrak Southwest Chief at speed go by right next to me at an signs-only rural crossing before,  too, coming around a corner. It was unbelievable how that that thing came past us. Very startling. Takes your breath away when you're not expecting it to be that close.

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