Stupid kids or stupid system?

[Zieg Rauros]

My mom and I were driving home after dropping off my (girl)friend and we come upon train tracks. We see two kids jumping onto bikes and leaving like hell, and as we approach the arm goes down. We can see the roads on either side are stil traveling, and there are no trains scheduled at the time we were there. Eventually someone got out and lifted the arm, letting us pass.

How easy is it to make one of those flash and go down?
And how come you can lift them with one arm?

[Magus]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

my (girl)friend

Oh shut up.

[Pandable]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

Looking at your profile, Zieg, reminds me..returning to the pavilion after this long is really weird, cause there's someone named hito here now. That's messed up. My fiance's name is hito. *twitches*

[Marc M.]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

[1]How easy is it to make one of those flash and go down?
[2]And how come you can lift them with one arm?

1 - Probably pretty easy.
2 - They're easy to lift in the case of an emergency.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

Stupid kids or stupid system?

Both.

[Nixon]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

My mom and I were driving home after dropping off my (girl)friend

He said he was with his mom, so I doubt he's trying to look cool here. You guys should lighten up.

And yes, you can mess with the little boxes on the sides of the tracks. There are a number of ways to make the signs malfunction. It's not as much fun as it sounds. One of my friends did that a lot in San Marcos, where there were about 4-5 train tracks just in the area near my dorm.

As mentioned before, the crossing arms are easy to move because often times idiots get their cars stuck under them, or they malfunction and you have to move them yourself.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

Looking at your profile, Zieg, reminds me..returning to the pavilion after this long is really weird, cause there's someone named hito here now. That's messed up. My fiance's name is hito. *twitches*

That is...well, pretty creepy. Actually, hitogoroshi is japanesse for murder (and is a bad guy in a RPG of mine.) Crazyful...
But yeah, I know the basics of the train arm system thing, and if you screw with the motion sensors its pretty easy...never actuallly did it, of course, but the railiroad people err on the side of caution.

[Zieg Rauros]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

Hey, look! It's a thinly veiled "I have a girlfriend" topic.

Well, I have one too. I've been living with her for almost a year.

It is nothing of the sort. I put that cause she's not really my girlfriend... but kind of. I can delete that line if it bothers you that much.

[Jamos' Old Account]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

They are just teasing you, Zieg. They are jealous that they aren't getting any... so am I!

[Starba]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

I've seen people drive straight through those warning arms when they weren't malfunctioning on two occassions. Luckily we lived by the train station, so if any trains were around they were running at a crawl, but still.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

At least they have gates. Most crossings around here only have lights, or are not electronic at all. One of the gate-less crossings is a block away from the school. People cross these things when they're going off, and the train is usually going a good 40MPH or so (not too fast, but faster than any speed limit in town). I can only recall one collision though. It helps that we also have a trestle by the park. I've seen plenty of people veer off and go under it when a train was passing.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Stupid kids or stupid system?

When I lived in Belleville, twice have trains killed high school students who were crossing the tracks while the lights were blinking and the cross gaurds down. They tried to beat the train. Darwin at work, people.