Fire/Rescue News - USE CAUTION IN AND AROUND RAILROAD TRACKS-A GOOD REMINDER

Upon arrival at the scene of a car fire, the chauffeur of the engine inadvertently stopped with the rear of the engine on the track side of the crossing gates.  Luckily, the engineer of the approaching, slow moving freight train, saw the rear warning lights of the engine and was able to stop in time.

We removed the name of the fire department from the front of the engine in the picture so it can be used for training purposes.  This serves as a good reminder that chauffeurs need to maintain situational awareness of where they stop their apparatus.  Everything worked out ok with this incident, but if there was a curve before the crossing the engineer might not have seen the warning lights, or if the train was traveling at a faster speed.....well, the results could have been different.