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Can your smartphone stand up to a train?

Note: This can be a risky move if you don't study this ahead of time and know the pros and cons of these actions. Everytime you go this deep, you are responsible for risking your phone's condition, its warranties, and its phone services if any. Be cautious!


I started off by watching several YouTube clips where certain people place their own digital camera/camcorder along a railway. Within a minute or two, they allow a moving train to run over it! For some videos, their cameras stood still. But for everyone else, cameras survived but got tipped over during movement.

And then came this past Memorial Day late morning, just minutes before I drove to work (still had plenty of time). Yeah, miles away from home. I took my Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone which also had HD camera and camcorder capability. The same phone also had active service from T-Mobile and the phone itself was pretty slim. So, I finally placed my smartphone to the test. I did set to record on 720p, so everything you see is straight through the lens of my smartphone as it sits between the rails. A fast stack train led by Norfolk Southern was at least a mile and a half away from my camera's position, so I had to make sure I had enough time to get my phone in place. You have the first minute of basically everyday modern nature! This ranges from vehicles on the highway to chirping birds singing a sweet, sweet song! And then finally, the question (yes, read the title!) is being answered. Watch and learn:


And so, on my very first try here, it survive untouched and it's still full-functioning. How? The first thing I did was use the railway itself to my advantage. There are large blocks of wood with rocks in between. The key here was that as slim as my phone was, I had to move some rocks around to reveal a deep spot next to a nearby block of wood. For the touch screen, I laid that along a block of wood. For the back part where the lens were facing the train, I moved some rocks again so that my smartphone was decently held in place. If I did not do this ahead of time, my smartphone would've been facing up the whole time as flat as it was. While some used digital camcorders, these are smartphones with HD capabilities we're talking about here! After hundreds of playbacks, I feel its sense of adrenaline rush everytime. :)

There can be mixed reviews about these kinds of things which I also took into consideration when I studied this whole thing. It's between cool and stupid, depending on your view. Take my word that there's no stupidity involved as long as you study things through before hand, the way I did here, and everything's cool. Thanks for watching, reading, and understanding. :)
 
Well I'm on mobile phandroid app so I cannot see the video. Can you give me a link? I'm a bit confused as to what exactly you mean you attempted here..
 
Note: This can be a risky move if you don't study this ahead of time and know the pros and cons of these actions. Everytime you go this deep, you are responsible for risking your phone's condition, its warranties, and its phone services if any. Be cautious!

It should think be extremely cautious and careful!! There's two main issues I'm thinking of, which is not the phone's condition, it's the conditions and what might happen to the person attempting this:

1) Live third rails, which can be hundreds of volts, 750 VDC in the UK, which is lethal.

2) High speed trains. Here in China some of the CRH bullet trains can be travelling at upto 230 MPH now. If one of these hits you, it might take a while to clean up the mess.

Although I think most trains in the United States are diesel and fairly slow. There's no live third rails(except on subways?) and from what I've seen you can hear them coming from miles away.
 
Hey I just tried it and it tore my phone to pieces. :(

Just kidding, that was way kool. I liked it!
 
Cool,when I was watching it,I kept thinking,that is a long train!! Was almost a minute of train passing over the phone...
 
That was extremely cool man. Imagine digging out like a trench for your body so you could lie there facing the camera as the train goes over :)
(I do not condone trying this lol) that would be cool.
Im tempted to try this on the road but knowing my luck a 3-wheeler would go over it :(
 
Alright! I did it again. Different spot, same thing. I used two phones to record the same passing train. While my Galaxy S3 gets runned over again, I used an Xperia Play to get the same train from the side. Since a smartphone can't see itself (except through a mirror), my Xperia Play will show proof showing that the Galaxy S3 was placed between the rails.


 
LOL such a random idea. Thanks for sharing! I'm jealous, because I don't think I have the guts to do this to my phone... well... there is the "backup"/old phone in my dresser drawer...

I think my signature might come in handy to those that don't do this correctly, hahaha
 
I'm using the OG Droid, I could put my phone on the track and it would derail the train. Drop it and concrete screams.
 
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