It looks like Amtrak needs new rules of engagement:

The attack occurred as the train from the Bay Area neared the I Street Bridge to Sacramento's rail station and slowed for a signal, said Eugene Skoropowski, managing director of the Capitol Corridor, said. A group of people stood on the tracks to block the train, which stopped. When the engineer went downstairs and opened the door, he was dragged off the train and assaulted, Skoropowski said.

It wouldn't hurt to let the engineers have firearms, either, if they're trained.

"It wouldn't hurt to let the engineers have firearms"

How about howitzers mounted from the engine room?

When cowcatchers are outlawed, only outlaws will have cowcatchers.

That would tear up the track, Brian. A pair of .50 caliber turrets on the engine and caboose, remotely controlled by the engineer or brakeman from a nifty little PS2 controller would be much better.

You might need to install stouter cowcatchers, however. To scoop the peasant bodies and their crude pitchforks off the track. So the dining car doesn't wobble slicing through them, thereby causing the fleabitten prole servitor pouring the XO brandy to miss the snifter and stain the pin-striped trousers of a member of the exploiting class traveling to deliver his next massive cash payment to the secret Republican ruling cabal.

Carl, are you really denying the right of the proletariat to revolt against their Republican train engineer oppressors?

Thank God/Allah/Jehovan...OK, well just be thankful, that we have Brian to defend their rights, even if you won't.

Carl: "A pair of .50 caliber turrets on the engine and caboose, remotely controlled by the engineer or brakeman from a nifty little PS2 controller would be much better."

Be a good idea to also have a couple of boiling oil cauldrons on the roof, and maybe some chainsaws on the end of articulated booms.

"So the dining car doesn't wobble slicing through them, thereby causing the fleabitten prole servitor pouring the XO brandy to miss the snifter and stain the pin-striped trousers of a member of the exploiting class traveling to deliver his next massive cash payment to the secret Republican ruling cabal."

Carl, Carl, you have it all wrong. There's nothing secret about it.

There's nothing secret about it.

Well, not to you, of course, Brian. The Powers of the World know that not even their darkest conspiracies and most secret schemes could escape the notice of someone who moves on the astral plane at will.

Which is why they continue to rely on your work, cloaking the occasional ominous hint of the horrible truth in such buffoonery and comic crackpot exaggeration that no one takes it seriously until it's far, far too late.

Good work, by the way. I was at the meeting where The Brotherhood voted on your request for an increase in stipend, and I said there was no better way to hasten the Final Victory.

Dammit, Brian...now I won't be able to rest until I have chainsaws on articulated booms on my car. No train-stopping serfs here in the mountains, but plenty of pesky shoulder-crowding bicyclists.

I remember a Defensive Driving class with a video about trains. The point of the presentation was to illustrate the fact that trains don't stop on a dime. Here's the situation:

A few protestors were upset about a freight train running in their area. I can't remember what the particulars, but as you will see, it was the typical garden variety clueless protestor. The event was organized by a father/daughter team with the daughter being in her twenties. They were thoughtful enough to invite the local media.

Just past where the road crossed the tracks, there was a curve that was mostly obstructed by a large fence and building.

The father protestor, hearing the train's horn, jumps into action. He decides he wants to stop the train and protest to the engineer. To stop the train, he lies across the track like some BW movie drama queen. Of course, the train comes out of curve and immediately hits the brakes. The whole thing comes to a stop a 1/2 mile later.

Looks like they caught one of the perps. I gather from the description that the train door is usually locked (for what good that does) but that the conductor opened the door.

Leland, maybe you're thinking of Brian Willson, a protester during the Nicaraguan conflict during Reagan's second term. In 1987 Willson and some other folks went to protest at the Concord Naval Weapons Station in the Bay Area, from which weapons were shipped to and from various placee by train.

Willson and some other folks sat down on the train tracks and said they wouldn't move when the train scheduled to leave came out. They didn't, and the train ran over Willson, severing both legs and tumbling him about severely, damaging his brain, or at least damaging it further.

I was living in Oakland at the time and remember it well. As I recall, the engineers were distraught. They hadn't seen him on the tracks, and I think had been told that the protesters had been cleared. Interestingly, they sued Willson for the mental anguish of having dismembered someone, but the suit was dismissed.

Willson's predictable suit against the train crew was settled for a million dollars or so, enabling him to retire to the war-protester's "99 virgins" lifestyle, hobbling about on prosthetics from honorarium to honor, living in a solar-powered home no one earning less than $150,000 a year could afford, and spending his time haranguing folks for being less morally pure than himself. More or less a modern St. Augustine without the scholarship or humanity.

Carl,

That sounds right. Particularly, I remember something about the engineer suing the protestors (and they should have). However, the video was turned off shortly afterwards, because it was simply to demonstrate that trains don't just stop.

Leland, when I first moved to rural Illinois, I had to learn to deal with trains a lot more carefully. See, out there, the road just crosses the tracks. No lights, no gate. The train doesn't bother to blow the whistle or even slow down, given the number of these dinky county road crossings and the very light car traffic out in the sticks.

And, come late summer, the elephant's eye high corn (planted to within a foot of the tracks, the price of land being what it is) makes it tough to see down the track any distance. So you always stop at a railroad crossing. Roll down the window and listen a bit. Cross with extreme caution. Sweat a little, if it's raining and hard to hear as well as see.

People are used to it, and not very many are killed each year. Probably the locals consider it useful, weeding out those who are incapable of learning about inertia.