[sloowm]

There are things that can be done about people jumping in front of trains. Making sure the rails are not accessible with fences around them. Putting camera's at spots where people can get past the fences. In high risk stations you can put walls and gates in that only open when a train can be boarded.

It's all just a lack of investment. If the budget for rail and other infrastructure matched the budget for car infrastructure rail would be way better than cars.

[throwaway20241]

(throwaway for obvious reasons)

CW: suicide

Coming from someone who has spent considerable time thinking about and planning suicide by train: lol no

Unless you put up walls higher than the highest ladders available (so at least 5m I guess) or completely enlose every train track with a roof and everything, people will climb over things. There's either no space for large fenced areas around tracks (pretty much everywhere near civilization) or you're too far out for somebody to respond before a determined person can reach the track. And of course, nobody will permit the construction of the necessary infrastructure (call them NIMBYs if you want).

Every escape door can be used to enter tracks. Make them as secure as you want them - keys are easier to get then you think.

Rebuilding train stations to completely secure access to the tracks would involve standardizing all trains in every country in all of Europe.

And (not applicable for high-speed trains) unless you want to spend billions and years to rebuild every train crossing to bridges, it will be impossible to completely secure the tracks.

Most train suicides are impulsive decisions and can be prevented with better infrastructure. But if suicide by train is too difficult, I'll just jump on front of a car instead, or from a bridge, etc. "It's all just a lack of investment" so is terra forming Mars. But spend a fraction of this for better mental health and you can prevent many more suicides.

[Aachen]

(Without derailing the topic, I hope you are doing better now! You sound level headed and like someone we want in this world or on our jobs or in our friend groups.)

I mostly figured the same as what you said (way too much infrastructure needed to mostly eliminate the possibility), though if you say most suicides are impulse decisions, wouldn't preventative infrastructure in a few key spots be sufficient to shave, idk, 10+% off the number of suicides by train?

[lagadu]

Even if it did prevent 10% of suicides by train, it stands to reason that a huge portion of those 10% would simply become suicides by jumping off a bridge.

[ascorbic]

Studies show that making particular suicide methods harder to access is an effective way to reduce overall suicide rates. That includes restrictions on poisons and firearms, but also physical barriers on bridges and train platforms.

[Freak_NL]

> In high risk stations you can put walls and gates in that only open when a train can be boarded.

That is only possible with fully standardized train units. Which is why you will see this in subways and dedicated high speed networks, but not on the common rail net. Platforms on a larger railway station have to accommodate a range of trains, from metro services (many doors at shorter intervals), to intercity trains (fewer doors, longer carriages), to special trains like night trains (a bunch of carriages from different ages strung together) and rented locomotives with spare carriages to fill gaps in the roster caused by late delivery of new trains.

> Making sure the rails are not accessible with fences around them.

There will always be spots where the rails are somewhat accessible outside of built-up areas.

Besides, all of that is fighting symptoms. Spend the same money on prevention and you'll have much more impact.

[sloowm]

Makes sense why I've not seen gates in many places but metro networks and high speed.

I agree that there will always be spots where the rails can be reached. As with many parts of human behavior, if there is more friction less people will do the thing. Since there are many instances where this is a temporary state and seeking and finding help can always be difficult I think creating that frictions is also worthwhile. Making sure people are prevented from feeling suicidal and being happier is something I also fully support.