Metrolink Tragedy in the Blink of an Eye

* On May 19, you published a story on stepped-up efforts to keep people off the Metrolink rails. Many people just do not realize how much distance these 500-ton trains travel in a short period of time, and they must be educated to this fact.

However, a Metrolink spokesman was quoted as saying the trains travel at an average speed of 50 m.p.h. and “cover the length of three football fields every second.”

Now, three football fields are 300 yards. There are 3,600 seconds in an hour, so 300 yards per second would be 1,080,000 yards per hour. There are 1,760 yards in a mile, so 1,080,000 yards per hour--or three football fields a second--would be 613.63 miles an hour. That’s in the neighborhood of a jetliner traveling at 30,000 feet.

Still, even with trains going a more realistic one-fourth of a football field per second, people must be educated to realize how little reaction time they have when they see a 500-ton train approaching them 100 yards down the line.

C. H. MONT

Burbank