Answer: About five and a half seconds. So, if the gates are timed to come down 27 seconds before the train arrives, but the driver could see the train only about 5 seconds before impact, a driver could be sitting at the railroad tracks for a long time, seeing no train, tempted to cross. So you may have a story about a careless driver, but you also have a story about human nature.
How do I find that?
- The train is traveling 79 miles per hour. We want to know how many seconds it takes to go 644 feet. So we need its speed in feet per second.
- There are 5,280 feet in a mile. So 79 miles per hour is 79*5,280 feet per hour. Or 417,120 feet per hour.
- We need feet per second. So divide 417,120 by 60 minutes in an hour to get feet per hour, then divide by 60 seconds in a minute to get feet per second. Or, if you have to catch a train, just divide by 3,600. You'll get 116 feet per second.
So a train going 79 miles per hour is going 116 feet per second.
How long does it take to go 644 feet? 644 divided by 116 is about 5 and a half seconds.
Comment: As Phil Meyer says, journalists need to know math. Happily, it's sixth-grade math. (Or was it Mark Twain who said that?)
How do I know this is right? Double check. Or ask a kid.
How do I attribute this? Please, not to a "month-long computer-assisted analysis" by your news organization.
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