Train sense

From time to time San Diego news media has an item related to freight trains moving through the downtown area, so I've been aware that one day I might find myself waiting for one such train to move through whatever downtown spot I found myself at.

That happened yesterday evening. I was attempting to get to a trolley station, and found myself blocked by a freight train that was composed of one engine, followed by 10 lumber-carrying cars, which were followed by what appeared to be about 20 tanker cars, all of which were labeled "liquified petroleum gas" (not gasoline).

So, this train was slowly moving forward through the intersection I needed to cross to get to the trolley station.

Then it stopped and started backing up.

Then it stopped and started forward again.

Then once again it stopped and began to back up! At this point I realized the engineer and whoever he was in contact at the other end of the train must have been trying to back it into a siding or through some sort of other switch.

Myself and the fairly large crowd that had been gathering at the crossing gates were able to get through after the engineer eventually was able to back up enough to get the entire train out of the intersection, but after that he had to do some more back and forth before everything was lined up as needed.

That additional back and forth including one more time of completely backing out of the intersection than moving forward through the intersection again. During that moving forward, I watched an amazing number of people go around and under the crossing gates and cross the tracks as the engine was approaching; the engineer blew the engine's horn continually until that nonsense stopped. That display by multiple people of a total lack of common sense was truly astounding.