[PRCo] Re: Baltimore LRV Accident

[Fred Schneider]

For the two of you who responded, I said $3 million in property damage to cover the light rail car.   

I made no estimate of how many fake law suits there will be from people who really were not hurt but suddenly have horrendous backaches and will require lifetime disability payments.   

There was a minor accident in 1896 that bankrupted the Pennsylvania Traction Company.   Out of ashes of that was formed Conestoga Traction Company.   What happened.   A car got away on wet rail greased by bugs in the summer.   A single truck car with an 18-foot long body loaded with over 100 people went into a roughly 50 foot radius curve at the bottom of Chicques Hill and overturned into, appropriately enough, Woodward Hill Cemetery in Columbia, Pennsylvania killing 8 and injuring most of the others.   Truth?   Company's financial string was stretched to a thread before the accident.   

You want me to take it closer to home?   Pittsburgh Railways had a pre Christmas 1917 accident where a car rolled over at Smithfield and Carson Sts.   This was the accident that resulted in the first Pittsburgh Railways bankruptcy because they were already spread out so thin they couldn't cover one accident.   

Remember the accident with Chicago PCC 7078 that turned left in front of the gasoline truck in 1949 or 1950 causing 8,000 gallons of gasoline to erupt into flames.   I remember the pictures in LIFE magazine of the corpses wedged into the rear doors of the car and incinerated there because they could not escape.   (Resulted in the 1952 cars for San Francisco having outward folding doors.)   I have no idea how the City of Chicago paid for all those claims ... the people in late afternoon rush plus all the buildings that were torched too.   


On Mar 24, 2010, at 1:26 PM, Fred Schneider wrote:

> Baltimore accident yesterday.
> From the position of the tractor, it looks like he made a left turn in front of the light rail car.   The best rearward visibility would be from the mirror on the driver's side.   Guess he just chose not to look before turning left.   I hope the freight company has a $3 million property damage policy plus bodily injury.   
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> http://www.wbaltv.com/slideshow/news/22918366/detail.html?qs=;s=1;p=/news/;dm=ss;w=400
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> Dietrich and Allman:   Please contact me off list.
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