A Grim Commute

Yesterday my train hit somebody, undoubtedly a suicide. I sit in the front of the train and clearly heard (and kind of felt) the impact. The train didn't stop as fast as I would have expected but thinking back on it, it doesn't make sense to slam on the brakes. The person is already dead and no reason to risk injuring passengers or damaging the train.

I was close enough that I was able to go up to the front of the train and eavesdrop on the conductor giving reports. They were pretty fast in announcing to us what had happened, and people not in the first car probably didn't hear it. We were delayed for about 20 minutes while they settled things.

When I got off the train I couldn't resist looking at the front. There wasn't any gore. There were some broken headlights and the windshield was cracked pretty bad. The person had stood right between the tracks and hit the train right in the middle. There were some panels broken and caved in and I think they may have been designed that way. There is a cattle guard and the break-away panels would reduce gore and maybe even bounce the body off. They didn't end up under the train and oncoming trains weren't stopped, so the body was thrown clear.

It was a strange incident. The sound was very clear, kind of a deep metallic "SNAP!", kind of like a rock that hits a window but doesn't break it. It was clear that we'd hit something and the mind races, first think we hit a rock (but then we aren't derailed) or a car (but that would have been louder and there would have been a bigger crash/screeching metal), a bird or rock on the window (too small of a sound). I didn't feel bad, really, as I wasn't responsible or anything, but I felt a little more involved than if I'd just witnessed it. I suppose witnessing it would maybe be even harder to deal with; I didn't see anything.

Anyway, just a weird event that marked my day.