Reflecting on the Wabash Cannonball

Oddly enough, nearly a quarter of all car-train collisions happen when a driver slams into a train already passing through a railroad crossing. You'd think you could see something as big as a train blocking the road. Poor lighting and dark paint can make a freight train hard to see. So the Federal Railroad Administration has cooked up a solution. A Final Rule in the Federal Register slaps a new regulation on railroads -- requiring them to slap a coat of reflective material on their rolling stock. Locomotives have five years to get wrapped, freight cars get 10 years. (USDOT)