About 30 years ago I knew a retired train engineer. He began his career with first generation Diesel engines.
I asked him how he felt if he hit anyone. He told me that he lost count of how many cars and people he hit. He was a strong Christian and told me that the reality is that anyone ever hit by a train is at fault. He can’t do anything to prevent the inevitable.
Thanks for experience-related info. Incidents are probably more common than I thought.
Hypothetically speaking, in this age of mobile phones, and given train engineers and police properly trained for such situations, engineer may have time to dial 911 and ask police to try to intercept the idiots before the train does.
I'd never place any blame on the engineer, but sometimes a big share of the blame lies with a railroad employee that inadvertantly causes a failure in the warning lights and the arms that drop down to block the road crossing the track. If a warning device is in place at a location and works almost every time, people learn to rely on it. If it fails to deploy it's practically never because of some "act of God". It's because some guy doing maintenance messed up.