Thinking about a career as a train inspector?
 

When applying for a job at NFS a few years back they taughted their safety record, and said that only one engineer was killed by HIS OWN train in the past year :ie run over by the train he was operating.

Wow! He must be deaf or something for them to get so close before him noticing.

Safer career move.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...LL._SX342_.jpg

A few years ago I had to take a safety course as part of a project working on some Norfolk & Western RoW. The instructor stressed the then new lime green safety vests. One wag from that back of the room asked if that was for better visibility so the Engineer had more time to stop the train. The instructor signed. The he explained that at the speeds they were traveling it would take several miles to stop the train. The lime green color was for the benefit of track walkers-if THEY saw any scraps of the lime green they would know it was human remains.

Ore to self. Stay off the freaking train tracks. Check.

I remember the first time I ever encountered a high speed train. I was driving in England and drove up to a level crossing with the gates down. The London-Edinburgh express came thru. From the time I first heard it until the time it had completely passed was just a matter of a couple of seconds. I realized that a person needed to take those crossings far more seriously than crossings for Amtrak.

1: Track inspector, not train.
2. Fake

London-Edinburgh express (aka Flying Scotsman) isn't true high-speed rail. Average speed with one stop is about 100 mph, only slightly better than Amtrak's crummy Boston->NYC->DC service.

For true high-speed rail, you need to look further east to Germany or France.

Probably one of the most dangerous jobs was being a railroad brakeman in the day. I cannot think of a job any more dangerous than that one was.

Even in old films today it is noticeable what they had to do. Walking along the top of cars setting brakes in slippery conditions was not abnormal.

In the west Amtrak must average about 30mph. The Flying Scotsman is supersonic by comparison.