more on trains and transportation

One of my associates on FB commented the other day that the US has the worst rail system in the world.  I'd probably tend to agree with that statement, except that locally, at least, we haven't had any major accidents in a while, or maybe ever (as far as I an aware), like trains going off the rails for going way too fast on a curve, or trains running into each other head-on. 

That being said, yesterday afternoon's transportation situation was interesting.  At about the same time as there was a spill of something or other on the helix coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel on the NJ side, closing the road entirely, NJ Transit had what they euphemistically refer to as a "trespasser incident," plus a "medical emergency," which pretty much bollixed up the rail system for a few hours.

Now, in case you can't tell, a "trespasser incident" usually involves an individual being on the tracks for some reason and getting run over by a train.  I wonder if the "medical emergency" might have indicated that they for a change didn't kill the trespasser?  Have to look in the local news today and see if there are any details available.

Our trains are awful.  They're very old equipment, subject to frequent breakdowns and partial to total failure, but these issues generally simply make the trains exceedingly uncomfortable (they are sufficiently uncomfortable to begin with), or make them stop dead on the tracks and not go anywhere until someone does something to fix or replace the ailing machinery.  Often we have electrical issues, or switch issues, or the Portal Bridge won't lock after it's been opened for boat traffic. The second worst is when a train gets stuck in the tunnel, because since there is only one tunnel containing only two tracks, you instantly get an issue with putting trains thru it in both directions at once.  And when one train is delayed, it has the obvious cascading effect, which worsens as the blockage persists.

The worst is the dreaded "trespasser incident," when the resulting mess has to be cleaned up, investigated, and the train crew removed for questioning, counseling, or whatever else they do to those people when they screw up.  Tho in my opinion, running over a person who chooses to place him or her self in the path of a train is not at all the engineer's fault or error.  It's an unavoidable obstacle that causes a huge mess.  One evening I was on a train that ran over a human, and we were all stuck on the train for three hours while the official activities took place, until some genius actually considered getting the passengers off, since we had no function to serve aside from becoming progressively more agitated and anxious to leave.

Can we call it dysfunctional?  Sure, let's do that. 

Even so, in my opinion it still beats driving.