Stawell Rotary Club welcomed train driver Stacey Whitehorse as its guest speaker at a recent meeting.
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Stacey is promoting the project ‘Think Before You Cross’. This project arose from statistical evidence that sixty seven percent of all level crossing accidents resulting in death occur at regional rail crossings. The impact on families, farming communities and rail staff is devastating.
Stacey is one of a minority of female train drivers. She usually drives the regional lines in Victoria and into South Australia, but has also driven the Indian Pacific and The Ghan. A recent graduate of the Regional Leadership Skills program, Stacey is promoting a project aimed at preserving the safety of regional residents, and in particular the farming community and farmers.
Stacey highlights the ‘Think Before You Cross’ message for farmers moving machinery, stock, and just popping into town. She says that all that needs to happen is taking two minutes out of your trip to stop and wait for the train. The margins for safety are so tight that farmers in particular must introduce the Stop, Look and Wait approach rather than trying to outrun the train.
Trains are running at one hundred and fifteen kilometres per hour, weighing three and a half thousand tonnes, and are about fifteen hundred metres long. The average stopping time for such a train to try to avoid an accident is two kilometres, leaving little margin for safety for train drivers.
Lives depend on being safe in and around railway crossings. Train drivers are always on guard in regional areas, but with the weight and speed of a train, their ability to stop to avoid vehicles making a dash at crossings is minimal.
Stacey has been involved in a fatal accident, and related a recent experience where an auto header followed by a utility cleared the tracks by “about five feet” after ignoring the train whistle and making a run across the tracks.
“I arrived in Horsham trembling and nauseous,” Stacey said, adding that while the usual clinical support was available, the other train crews are wonderful support, too.
Stacey also shared some of the challenges of train driving across the Nullabor. The biggest challenge being not to break the train in half while crossing multiple sandhills. With a train one point eight kilometres long, it can be crossing two and a half sandhills, with tension on braking while descending one sandhill, at the same time as carriages are ascending another. The last thing a Train Driver wants to confess at the end of the trip is “Sorry, I broke the train!!”
The ‘Think before You Cross’ project is an important safety message for all people living in regional Australia and in particular for our farmers.