[RP TownTalk] MARC train blocking our Queensbury crossing for 2 hours - and no flares, signs or other indication there's a problem

[Dwight Holmes]

I just made a late night run to Yes for some milk - and discovered a MARC
train blocking the intersection.  It took me awhile to figure it out, since
there's no indication of any kind that the train is stuck.  As one
approaches, you just assume the train is stopped for passengers, and will
be moving soon.  I guess drivers dealt with this for 2 hours, since 8
o'clock.  As a MARC rider I know that the last train comes through about
8.  When I got home from my errand, I looked at MARC emails in my inbox and
pieced together that, indeed, that train has been sitting there since about
8 o'clock.  As I was coming home they were hitching up a new locomotive.
There were also about 4 cars lined up by S&J's headed east who were
figuring out that the train was stuck, and they were all doing u-turns in
the street.  A flair placed down on Queensbury at Beale Circle might have
steered those cars over to E-W Hwy before they approached the tracks only
to get stuck by S&J's.

Shouldn't the conductors on the trains be prepared with some kind of
emergency flares and signs to put out when their trains break down and are
blocking traffic?  Seems like that would be part of Train Safety 101, no?
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