Tragic, but what the hell were they thinking?

Synopsis for those who don't read German: a US tourist was killed by a train whilst walking through a rail tunnel near Interlaken.

Apparently...they did not think

Crikey, we drove along there late on Sunday afternoon and did not see any sign of activity, how did they mistake the rail tunnel for a footpath?!?

Saw the light at the end of the tunnel then?

Sadly not the only insane things tourists are doing. One afternoon I was driving on the A 8 and nearly got a heart attack. As I read in the newspapers the day after, an American tourist crossed the lanes just to got stuck on the other side. The fence was to high to climb over it. Therefore he had to be rescued by police. Makes me wonder who much he paid for it.
Or the Japanes couple I almost ran over in a tunnel of the A8, while they were happily biking in the wrong direction.
But my all time favourites are the ones stopping in the middle of the road just to enjoy the view. You can watch them doing so on passes, near lakes and of course as soon as the Jungfrau shows up.

The most common thing I see almost everyday is people getting off the bus say from the rear door and then just crossing the road without even thinking about traffic coming from the opposite direction.

Please wait till the bus moves and you have clear view of road on both sides.

That is just awful, a twenty three year old woman's life snuffed out because of a moment of not thinking. Her friends were very lucky not to have been injured, and I really feel for the train driver.

Horrific, very sad. Anyone able to explain why they were in the tunnel (I cannot read much German)? I am confident I would never wander along railway tunnels like that but we all do stupid things, sometimes by accident, sometimes by incremental steps of stupidity.



I feel for the apprentice who has to clean the train. "das S1 to interlaken ist 8 minuten splatter"

Dear OP,

What does the fact that she was from the U.S. have to do with this news story?

are you US-ist`?

Hey! Grynch is back!

Not particularly, I'm more US-Canadian-Brit-ist, actually. I hate those guys who can't decide.

I like to think of myself as a man of the world.

Hurray!
Hope you've brought an absence note Grynch.

you KNOW where I work then? ... signed sealed and delivered by my doc.

you would have thought I was on death's door the paperwork they make me do

Not that I would suggest walking through a train tunnel is rational behavior, the article does mention however, that there is no footpath along the lake between Thun and Därlingen. It was therefore foreseeable that the tourists chose this route in order to take a shortcut or in the hope that they would be able to walk along the lake.

I thought you worked here
Glad you are better!

shhh....... !!!! ( and thanks, )

According to the internet article, it's been suggested that the tourists may have wanted to walk along the shore of the lake. However, even though the railway and a busy road run along the shore, there's no footpath there. The footpath goes up onto the mountain side.

According to the print version this morning some of the people from the Dorf nearby have suggested that the tourists may have been looking for a hidden/secret bathing area that's known to the locals, hence they were off the beaten track.

Neither of these suggestions can really explain why on earth they entered a railway tunnel though.

I suppose we all think we are immortal and they thought they would risk it, unfortunately and tragically, the gamble didn't pay off.

Actually, I think it's young Americans abroad that can do some incredibly stupid things with no regard to personal safety.

That's my experience anyway. I know young people from other countries do stupid things but Darwin award types seem to be from the U.S.

The first time I experienced this was in Lyon in France when I was younger and they thought nothing of running crossing the busy six-lane motorway to get to the shops from the Youth hostel
(rather than go a few hundred yards down the road to the footbridge).

Or there were the ones in Pakistan, eager to show everyone the kilo of hashish they had in their backpack.