Article: Train drivers rocked by stone throwers

[Golliwog]

http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/train-drivers-rocked-by-stone-throwers-20101031-178q3.html

Train drivers rocked by stone throwers
October 31, 2010 - 3:39PM
AAP

Peter Cohen was driving a passenger train at about 140 kilometres an hour when a rock was thrown, banging into the windscreen centimetres from his face.

"The windscreen was shattered - it was terrifying," Mr Cohen said of the attack in November last year on the Gold Coast line.

Luckily for Mr Cohen, the rock did not penetrate the screen because the reinforced glass was strong enough not to be punctured.

Advertisement: Story continues below "Out of the corner of my eye I saw something - a heavy impact," he told reporters in Brisbane on Sunday as Queensland Rail (QR) announced a tough approach towards deterring those responsible for such actions.

"I was pretty traumatised right then.

"It's getting beyond the joke. We're just doing our job every day and we don't want to risk us getting hurt, or the passengers getting hurt."

There were frequent random rocks across the network, with stones placed on tracks and thrown at passing trains, Mr Cohen said.

"I'm not sure whether they don't realise this sort of behaviour could seriously injure or even kill someone, or if they know and just don't care," he said.

"I want them to understand that the person they injure - and eventually they will - could be a person with a family like me, or it could be one of their friends, or someone in their family."

Queensland Rail works closely with the state police to crack down on rock throwers, according to QR.

Senior sergeant Stephen Vick, a tactician with the Railway Squad, said police had arrested and charged five people as part of an operation targeting rock throwing on the Gold Coast line after they monitored several locations including road overpasses and bridges.

"Railway Squad police intercepted 32 persons of interest and arrested five people on a total of seven charges," Sergeant Vick said in a statement on Sunday.

People caught throwing rocks at trains can be charged with endangering the safety of people travelling by railway or endangering the safe use of vehicles and related transport infrastructure.