Federal transit authorities strictly require all modern locomotive windshields to be strong enough to withstand a direct impact from a standard cinder block dropped from a highway overpass.

A closer look

Federal transit authorities strictly require all modern locomotive windshields to be strong enough to withstand a direct impact from a standard cinder block dropped from a highway overpass. Because bored, malevolent teenagers have a long and storied history of throwing heavy masonry off bridges just to see what happens, train engineers demanded bulletproof-grade glass to protect their faces. A locomotive traveling at seventy miles per hour turns a twenty-pound brick into a lethal projectile, meaning the glass has to be engineered with thick layers of polycarbonate to prevent a catastrophic cabin breach. It is incredibly depressing that cutting-edge materials science must be deployed solely to counteract the random destructive urges of local delinquents