Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In two separate incidents, Extinction Rebellion protestors have attempted to disrupt coal transport in Queensland, Australia.
Protesters stop coal train in Brisbane
By AAP 1:13pm Apr 19, 2019
One protester is in custody and another was taken to hospital after activists stepped in front of a moving coal train headed for the Port of Brisbane.
The train driver was forced to slam on the emergency brakes after a group of protesters climbed onto the freight tracks in Wynnum on Thursday afternoon, police say.
“Then three men approached the carriages (and) one of them got up onto the carriage … the man wouldn’t come down,” a police spokesman told AAP on Friday.
…
About 2am on Friday, a woman activist chained herself to a concrete-filled 44-gallon drum placed on the same railway line in Wynnum West.
“She’s sat on the tracks and locked herself on,” the spokesman said.
…
Read more: https://www.9news.com.au/national/protesters-stop-coal-train-in-brisbane/b58d293d-6ca5-4093-9509-4a09ed4539b8
Two words for this – dangerous and irresponsible. Placing a heavy concrete obstacle on a train track endangers lives. Forcing a heavily laden coal train to apply emergency brakes could have caused a catastrophic accident.
Well, we’re back to “throw a fit until everyone stops.” To be accompanied by “throw a fit in court where everything comes to a stop.” We are not at the end. We are at the middle of the beginning of the battle of wills between childish and rational behavior.
Suing the protesters and any organizations which incited them for the costs of the delay and emergency response should stop this fairly quickly. Just ask Jussie Smollet (being sued by Chicago for the $130,000 in police overtime costs to investigate his hoax hate crime).
Sign prominently posted on the ski slopes on Mt. Hood (Oregon):
They can’t say they weren’t warned.
Adani IS suing the protesters and they are all now terrified that they will be made bankrupt. I just read it in the morning paper.
My late father was a locomotive engineer. I have zero tolerance for the lunatics who take part in this type of sabotage. Lock them up and throw away the key.
I feel for the engineer. I can’t even imagine what was going on in that person’s head. They KNOW what it could have been and I hope they are getting some help if needed.
That being said, ‘let’s say that the worst happened in this scenario (I’m talking the train, not the humans involved..the worst would be the people died too)–the train derailed and dumped all that coal. Think about the environmental mess that would have caused.
The problem with fanatics is that they don’t think of the mess they cause. They are so secure in their righteousness that they can’t see beyond the end of their collective noses. I would hope that judge hands down a sentence of community service on a rail yard–have them go work on a train for a while, give them some education on the folly they committed and the disaster that a quick thinking engineer who understood what was at stake had avoided. Let them get hands on knowledge that ONLY by the experience of a total stranger are they still breathing. Maybe, just maybe they’ll finally get an inkling that by acting foolishly, they would have caused an event of which they were unaware that would have been worse for the environment they claim to love than anything else.
It seems no photos are available.
Just how this concrete was placed on the track is very curious to me.
It could have been extremely dangerous.
Maybe the railway does not want anyone to see how it was done.
try it on a rio tinto australia ore train.
no engineers and been wondering how their blockage sensors work