Originally Posted by
BMKal
I can tell you from personal experience - you wouldn't be taking your eyes off the "road" even if you were on rails. ;)
A few years back, I was driving a Toyota Troopy "Hi-rail" vehicle on one of BHP's iron ore railways - was taking a mining crew out to one of the satellite pits at night for shift change when the access roads were flooded after heavy rain. Standard procedure was to get onto the tracks at a level crossing close to the camp and reverse about a kilometre up through a cutting and a set of points, then stop & call up train control in Port Hedland to change the points - then drive forward through the points and out to the satellite mining operation about 18km away.
As I was reversing up through the top of the cutting, someone in the back of the vehicle reached up and turned on the interior light above the rear barn doors. All I saw in the rear vision mirror was a bright light behind me. :eek:
I can tell you that the brakes came on pretty quickly (they don't work too well when your tyres are running on steel railway tracks though) and my arse took a firm grip on the drivers' seat. :mad:
The person who had turned on the light got yelled at - and had to front up at the bar with a carton the next day. :p
