Solving World Problems, One Train Crossing at a Time

Pondering the meaning of life while the conductor take a lunch, I guess

I'm pretty much convinced that society will not advance one iota until we have people who can figure out the simple science behind putting a railroad fueling depot 1/4 mile from a major traffic crossing and then allowing trains to pull in AND STOP at said fueling depot, which are exactly 1/4 mile, PLUS THREE TRAIN CARS, long.

What the actual heck. I mean, I'm no engineer, but I'm pretty sure this is simple math.

Not to toot my own horn (rim shot), but seriously.  If I'm reading it right, judging by the interpretive dance and/or gestures of the people parked next to me, this is beyond annoying. When I'm driving, I like to keep moving. I like to think of that as a basic goal of driving:  Arrive At Destination Without Unnecessary Delay.  If I have to stop and wait for a train, that's fine--it happens.  BUT to watch a train slowly crawl to a stop, and then sit stopped, blocking the crossing, and then actually back UP a little bit, I can feel parts of my brain kind of ...shorting out.  I need all the parts of my brain.  And I need to keep moving.  What usually happens in this situation is that I will actually duck out of the line of stopped cars and double back like six miles out of my way, to go around and back up to the railroad in an attempt to cross somewhere else. And yes, I have done this, arrived at the next crossing, and found another train coming in the other direction. *Internal screaming intensifies*.

The other day, I couldn't escape, so since I had the time, and in case this is hard for the nice folks at the BNSF Company to figure out, I decided to lay out the solution and make our world A Better Place. 

Ready?

Get a measuring tape. Have one dude walk from the fueling depot back to highway crossing. Look at the measuring tape. Have another dude walk down the length of the nearest train and look at HIS measuring tape. Write BOTH NUMBERS DOWN and compare.  If the train number is greater than or equal to (>/=) the crossing number, detach several train cars until the train measurement is significantly LESS than the crossing measurement.  So, x </= z - 3 cars.  Put away the measuring tapes, fire up the train, and move. out. of. the way.

The two dozen cars parked on both sides of the closed traffic crossing will thank you, and you'll get a lot less "one finger" waves, especially that suburban full of BNSF employees trapped in line directly behind me in line at this particular crossing.

*Inhales*

Option B:  Please pull 250 permits, hold 1,000 meetings, take half a million votes, have 19 years' worth of discussion, write 10,000 memos, invite The Public's opinion (but definitely don't listen to it), and then finally decide NOT to build an overpass at the crossing.

See? Problem solved. That took me like 5 minutes. 

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