December 26, 2024

"More than 400 passengers were on board a high-speed train near Paris on Christmas Eve when the driver opened his door and apparently jumped off..."

"... leaving the passengers to speed away at 186mph. But within half a minute, the train’s controls averted disaster: they detected the driver’s absence and brought it to a halt 1.5 miles down the track by Melun, 25 miles south of the capital.... As trains up and down the line were slowed and halted, no contact could be made with the driver, who had been alone, locked in his cabin.... 'We really couldn’t understand what had happened'.... After 15 minutes a ticket inspector walked up the track, forced open the driver’s door from the outside and found the cabin empty. For more than two hours, emergency service personnel searched the dark line with torches. The driver’s body was spotted eventually by a fire service infra-red drone.... Suicides are common in the Christmas period but it was the first time in the SNCF’s history that a driver had jumped to his death from a speeding train...."

From "Hundreds of passengers saved after driver jumps from 186mph trainAutomatic stop technology halted the TGV from Paris to Saint-Étienne after the driver apparently took his own life" (London Times).

The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it.

36 comments:

rhhardin said...

It's not exactly a new feature. The dead man pedal has been around for a century or so.

Kate said...

"... emergency service personnel searched the dark line with torches." This is a British paper, so their definition of torches is not mine. I like my imaginary picture better, though.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Exactly, although I think in modern trains it's a button. They have to push it every 30 seconds. An interesting way to kill yourself though to be sure.

Leland said...

Agree above with dead man switch. At least a better outcome than flying to Kazakhstan, but that people walked away at all from that flight suggests more credit to that flight crew.

Limited blogger said...

Another reason to not leave the house

Eva Marie said...

If you want to kill someone - always start with yourself. Sad but a better outcome than any other.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

In Double Indemnity, it was a plot point that nobody committed suicide by jumping from a moving train. This was the reason insurance investigator Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) thought he was dealing with a murder rather than a suicide.

Ex-PFC Wintergreen said...

Yup, dead man switch been around for a long time.

A colleague of mine spent some time working on the design of train electrical systems, and he said that in the U.S. (but not in Europe) the dead man switch aka automatic emergency braking is required to actually lock up the wheels, instead of modulate brake force for anti-skid the way your car or a commercial jetliner does, even though locking up the wheels actually lengthens the stopping distance. The reason? Lawyers, of course; the skidding wheels will develop a flat spot due to the sliding friction, and that flat spot serves as irrefutable proof in a liability lawsuit that the automatic emergency braking worked.

Speaking of suicide-by-train…the coastal rail line between San Diego County and Orange County in coastal SoCal is notorious for the number of people who throw themselves in front of the trains; there are several places where the rails are easily accessible, without fences etc. Apparently on that route, the job attrition rate of train drivers is substantially greater than other places due to this propensity for suicides. I was on a train once where the train started slowing unexpectedly, and the conductor came on the intercom to inform us that there had been “an unfortunate incident”. We were stopped there about 90 minutes before we could proceed, and because of where I was sitting, in the lead car, I heard some of the conversation between the conductor and the driver, and it was clear this was a deliberate suicide; the lady (it’s usually women who commit suicide-by-train around here) apparently stared at the driver for several seconds, then quickly arrayed herself on the tracks and was killed instantly.

boatbuilder said...

The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it.
Very thoughtful of him. Although he could have just jumped off a bridge, without scaring the crap out of all the passengers.

Kai Akker said...

--- A retired driver told Le Parisien newspaper: “Being a TGV driver is a very lonely career. You see no one all week. You have to be mentally very strong.”

This sure stuck out.

Money Manger said...

Yeah. Heard the thump while in the front car of an east-bound metro-north train just beyond the Rye station on my ride home last year. Female. Train didn't move for over an hour. Sucks.

fleg9bo said...

At least he didn't drive it through a Christmas market.

Ambrose said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RCOCEAN II said...

Yeah, suicide by train used to be common around here, until the RR put up high fences with Barbed wire on top cutting off access. You can still access the tracks by going to a road crossing, but they cameras there.

Wince said...

Government standards of performance are going down, way down.

The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it.

In NYC, Transit police chief Joseph Gulotta said the police officer mulling around while the woman burned to death right in front of him "kept the crime scene the way it's supposed to be" and "did his job perfectly."

Seems like NYC is now trying to downplay that damaging take on how the murder in progress was handled, and the media is playing along.

RCOCEAN II said...

Probably the worst people are Airline pilots who take 100 or more people with them when they commit suicide. The article talks about derailment, which probably didn't happen because you cant be 100 percent sure of dying in a train wreck. As opposed to jet airplane crash .

loudogblog said...

"The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it."

That doesn't really make sense. Abandoning the train controls at 186 mph is a dangerous thing to do to the passsengers and he might have been hoping that something bad happened to the train after he jumped. If he wanted to commit suicide, with no posible danger to others, he would have done it quietly at home.

Josephbleau said...

Yea, don’t try to put out the fire if I am burning, it might damage the integrity of the evidential record, and 2nd degree murder is better than attempted murder, so you can’t save me.

James K said...

"it’s usually women who commit suicide-by-train around here"

Blame Tolstoy.

Josephbleau said...

Too bad the guy was not Canadian, he could have gotten medical treatment for his problem without endangering anyone.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Hell, in Canada not only would they recommend it, they would've referred him.

Mason G said...

Why would cameras matter? If you're going to kill yourself, do you care about that?

rhhardin said...

Brakes on freight cars are set so that the wheels don't lock up on empty cars. That makes stopping a loaded freight take miles, but prevents track damage and wheel damage. The brakes are set to emergency all the time whenever a coupler fails and the train separates, so it's not a rare occurrence. Passenger cars weigh the same with or without load so it's less of a consideration.

Quaestor said...

"The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it."

But no discredit for the possible injuries caused by the driver's dereliction of duty. 186 mph to a dead stop over a 1.5 mile distance would exert 1.4 Gs on the train and its contents -- including luggage, drink cups, iPads, toddlers, cartons of Gauloises -- everything the French value. Anything not secured could have gone flying through the cars at 14 meters per second squared, enough to cause an indelible memory, I should think.

The driver could have chosen an even less inconveniencing means of self-deletion if he's been an American in America, but not in France. In France, only Muslim migrants have guns.

n.n said...

A selfie-immolation would have posed less of a burden. Does France offer Planned Personhood through social services?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Now we'll never know whose shirts he wears.

Enigma said...

Suicide by train happens with subways too -- people stand at the end of the platform where the trains come into a station at high speed. They have suicide phone numbers and mental health signage there.

While suicide by train is bad for the driver, but see the twisted consequences of suicide by cop. A substantial percentage of those killed by police were not being discriminated against or abused. They provoked a cop into shooting. This hits the police mentally, and may lead to later behavioral issues. It may also bring $$$$$ for the family if the acting is good enough. Body cams exist in part because of this.

Enigma said...

Only Muslim migrants have guns, but everyone can get a plastic bag to put over their head.

Bob Boyd said...

Emergency service personnel were coming out of the fields with torches.

pious agnostic said...

Came here to mention this.

My prayers are with this poor man's family.

tcrosse said...

AFAIK railroads in the US and Canada are still required to have a fireman in the cab with the engineer. Sort of like the co-pilot required on planes.

Josephbleau said...

The Union answer to automation. Automate but don't rif. Let people stand around and get paid. The recipe to create social malfunction.

Josephbleau said...

Context is everything. Humor is taking things out of context.

gilbar said...

"The transport minister gave credit to the driver for committing suicide by jumping out of the train rather than by derailing it."

hmm.. gilbar gives credit to the railway switching system, that:
a) kept the train at a safe speed..
b) kept other trains OFF that line..
c) shut down that train..
d) CONTINUED to keep other trains OFF that line..

gilbar also gives a dunce hat to the stupid dead engineer;
that OBVIOUSLY thought that he'd be able to take people with him

n.n said...

A selfie-abortion is an ethical Choice, but the right to perform human rites ends with other lives. If it was Capitol punishment, then it should not be celebrated lest it progress.

AndrewV said...

"Why would cameras matter? If you're going to kill yourself, do you care about that?"
The railroad dispatch center monitors the cameras so they can stop the trains if a vehicle is stopped or someone is lying down on the tracks at the crossing.