Yesterday, the commuter rail engineer told T police he saw the students through the darkness at around 1 a.m. when they were about 50 feet in front of him, as his train hurtled inbound from Worcester at 50 miles per hour. At that speed, a train takes a half-mile to stop. He did not have time to hit either the horn or the brakes, said the engineer, who was not identified and has been operating T commuter trains since 1991.
"It's the worst part of the job without question, and I think every engineer will agree with that," said Walter Nutter, a T engineer who has hit and killed three people over his 32-year career. He now leads a counseling team for engineers involved in similar incidents.
It may be exagerated in my memory, but it seems like BU kids get killed by the T almost every year. Usually it's because the new crop of freshmen assume the Green Line trolleys will actually stop at the crosswalks.
Crawling through a hole in the fence to hang out in an active rail yard is just asking for trouble of numerous possible descriptions, if you ask me.