Darwin Award: Celebrity Trainer who filmed himself on train tracks dies, hit by train

originally posted by: Charizard
I've always wonder how people (in most circumstances) manage to get hit by a train. I used to hang around the railroad tracks all the time as a kid...you can see and hear them coming from a very far distance. I just don't understand how you can actually get hit by one unless you're:

A. Being an idiot and trying to drive across the tracks to beat the train
B. Committing suicide
C. Tied to the tracks by a curly-mustachioed villain in a cape and top hat.

Sad, but you'd think people would know better..

He may have been wearing in ear monitors since he was doing filming.

If that is so there should have been someone spotting for him in such a dangerous situation.

Common sense safety stuff.

a reply to: cuckooold

when i was in high school we use to jump off the train trestle. it was about a 1/2 mile to a mile from the road down the tracks where we parked to get the trestle through the woods. we'd carry boom boxes, ice chest full of beer, and lawn chair down and party all day long.

always has plenty of time even carrying all that, hell even if we were up on the trestle we had time to get to the safe spot where we jumped from. it's not like a train isn't loud enough to hear even if the whistle isn't blowing.

originally posted by: miniatus

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
i am not a conspiracy nut and i don't doubt it happened as described ...but most active tracks i have ever seen (make that all of them i have seen) have no rust on the upper portion that makes contact with the wheels. why are those tracks in the picture in the op rusty on top? in my experience a track that sees regular use will be kind of shiny on top and not rusty.

The videos we see aren't necessarily the same as what he was killed on.. And sometimes trains aren't active that often, there's a track that runs not that far behind my house but it can literally go months without use.

They also have a special train car that they run occasionally if it's been a while that they run specifically to clear the rails of rust if it's too badly rusted... it used to be a much more active line, running cargo 3-4 times a week.. but it sees MUCH less use these days.

yeah but- from the op cite:

on the southbound track of the Burbank Metrolink station

that sounds like it would see frequent use

maybe tracks get rusty fast in moist rainy places (perhaps washington state, oregon or north cali) but down here it takes months for unused tracks to get rusty on top.

a reply to: cuckooold
Oh man I dont even want to know.

I could foresee a few ways he could have ended up getting hit by a train. But really all of them involve doing something stupid. So unless he had a heart attack the minute he heard the train coming, or was trying to prove something by getting out of the way at the last minute and got his foot stuck in the rails. NO! In fact, I really dont want to know.

RIP...Greg Plitt

"Now lift your" *loud, obnoxious train horn*

"Damn it! Lift your" *louder, more obnoxious train horn*

"Ok, well maybe I should just stand here until that train decides to stop being so obnoxious." *louder, more obnoxious train horn with the brakes screeching*

*looks down the tracks* OH SH-*gets run over by a train*

That's how I imagine it happened.