What am I trying to say?

• Adult pedestrians should have the freedom to make informed, reasonable decisions regarding train safety, as long as they aren't endangering others or destroying property. Fining people to protect them is completely counter to the spirit of this country, as I see it. If you disagree with me about that, as do many people, please stick around anyway: there is still plenty to discuss.
• When people get killed by trains it is tragic. Still, trains are like zombies in the movies: it's very hard for them to get you if you know where they are and you are paying attention. So that's where the main focus of TPTB should be: making sure warning systems work and are effective in getting and keeping people's attention.
• There is an optimum amount of warning: too much makes people start to ignore it. Too many signs make them all start to fade into the background of consciousness. Too much time spent waiting for trains that never come makes people start to forget what they were waiting for in the first place.
• If you believe in crossing gates, then pay to put (and maintain) them across every sidewalk and lane at a crossing--and not just two-quadrant gates, either. Don't leave the sidewalks completely ungated, then have the cops laze around waiting to ticket people for crossing minutes ahead of an oncoming train, and think you've done enough. All you've done is taught people to both fear, and lose respect for, the law. You should even block disembarking train passengers from leaving their platform until all is clear.  (That's the only situation in which a train could have a prayer of getting me.)
• Inconveniencing people as little as possible should be a priority. Stealing time from people's lives is less dramatic than killing them, but it still takes life from them.
• When there are sacrifices to be made for the sake of railway safety, too often the citizens, not TPTB, are expected to make them.
• Much has been granted to the railroads. They should be required to give more back. A water fountain at the Dee Road station would be a start. They could even put a nice plaque on it, congratulating themselves for their generosity.

Trains are 800 pound gorillas. Only a lot bigger.

Railroads tend to get their way, as massive things will do. They run on long strips of land dedicated to their sole use. (Only the US government owns more land in this country than the Union Pacific, which runs the Metra line going through town.) They don't have to stop for traffic lights, or worry too much about blocking intersections.  They have been known to use the Federal Rail Safety Act in ways that are opposed to those which were intended. 

A lot of that is probably inescapable, given the history of the railway system and given that the trains' main contribution to the economy depends on their high fuel efficiency when running at a constant, unhindered speed. However, from what I've seen, when a problem arises that could be resolved either by TPTB or citizens taking on an extra burden, it's almost always the citizens. Which for the purpose of this site generally means people on foot.

Want to avoid needless deaths by train? Raise or lower the tracks. It will be expensive.

Trains have a huge amount of kinetic energy when traveling at speed.  You don't want one hitting you. And that's always going to be a concern when trains crisscross the country at the same level as the roads. One solution is to raise or lower the tracks; That's the approach that was largely taken with the El in the city.  And I doubt that too many cars or pedestrians are hit where Touhy and the tracks cross. It is certainly possible to accomplish this on a large scale: how many grade crossings do you see on the tollways--or the Interstate system? But with this country unwilling to even commit to keeping the railway infrastructure we have in good shape, that will, obviously, never happen.

Suicide by train is really hard to stop by physical means.

If you read the newspaper accounts you know that many deaths by train are suicides. Signs, gates, bells, horns, warnings, and fines can't do much to stop that. What can be done to help potentially suicidal people is to make good mental health treatment readily available. But all it takes is one experience trying to hold a troubled loved one together long enough for the waiting list at Maine Center to get to them for you to realize that this isn't a big priority in these parts.

Some years ago the Dee Road crossing suddenly sprouted a surreal profusion of warning signs. Some even had red flags jutting out at weird angles from the top. For a fraction of a second my first thought, quite seriously, was that it was a patriotic exhibit of some sort, or that some local team had won a big game. Looking back over the newspaper accounts for the last decade, this almost certainly was initiated by a man's death by train on May 31, 2001.  (If anyone has information to confirm or refute this for certain, please contact me.) It was a suicide. Hard to imagine how those signs would have deterred the guy. And it's interesting to note what more expensive changes weren't made.

Un-ass some money. Put in some sidewalk gates.

Another article, in the November 24, 2005 Herald-Advocate, tells of an 85 year old woman who was killed by a train at the Greenwood crossing, shown here. She apparently hadn't noticed the train as she was walking across the tracks. If the article is accurate, it's hard to avoid concluding that sidewalk crossing gates most likely would have saved her life--surely she would have noticed them blocking her way. But it's now 2008, and I still don't see any sidewalk gates at Greenwood. Or Dee Road. Or Oakton. But then, they cost money. And she was 85, after all.

I found the article a little upsetting, because while Commander Lou Jogman (possibly related to Commander Lou Jogmen on the same police force) was quoted as saying, insightfully, "There's a big problem there," the only "solutions" mentioned in the piece were the usual talk, warnings, and tickets. To be blunt, I think the reason there is so much talk is because talk is cheap.

Does the money from the $250 tickets go to crossing improvements, or is it to Maine Center?  I keep forgetting.

I saw this printed in the Park Ridge Spokesman in June 2007:

Gotta love that lawyerly writing. This seems particularly poorly written, especially as regards the Dee Road, Oakton, and Greenwood crossings. Have a look. You are standing on the west side Dee Road sidewalk, just south of the tracks, looking north. As you can clearly see--or certainly could see, if not for the trees--there simply are no crossing gates covering the sidewalks: there is never anything blocking you from walking straight across--except, sometimes, for the trains themselves. So passing "over or under" a gate has no meaning at all here, unless the concern is about people wandering out into the street. "Through" was added, I assume, simply out of reflexive fear of allowing loopholes for ghosts. "Around" could have meaning only in the most trivial sense: you could be said to be walking "around" anything on Earth that is at some point perpendicular to your path of travel, I suppose, but the only serious definition has got to involve some deviation from the path you would otherwise have taken. That clearly doesn't apply here.

This is as good a time as any to point out the obvious foliage insanity: not only do the trees make it a lot more difficult for commuters and others to walk to and from their homes without getting bodies whacked and possible cornea scratches, but note how much your view of the tracks is obscured until you're within mere feet of the tracks. This is not something that was allowed to happen overnight--or overyear--and I will be writing much more about this kind of thing in the future.  That's what I love about this city: signs, talk, threats, tickets, but no sidewalk crossing gates, and the Great Train Hiding Trees are left untouched.

Sidewalk crossing gates exist. I've seen them.

I have included this photo, from the Prospect crossing, to show that the technology for sidewalk crossing gates does, in fact, exist. I can only assume that they don't exist at Dee Road, Greenwood, and Oakton because of money.

Place signs where they'll be read.

This is the Dee Road crossing again, from slightly farther back so that you can see the sign, stuck on the pole, warning motorists and pedestrians about punishment for violating the warning signals. It's clearly aimed at pedestrians, however, since it's on the left side of the street.

Something important has been ignored here, though: pedestrians tend to not notice street signs positioned like that, because experience teaches them that street signs are directed not at them, but at drivers. I know about the sign because I've walked by there many times and am interested in the railroad crossing issue, but I highly doubt that I noticed it the first dozen times I passed by.  And I certainly never noticed it while driving, as it is on the left sign of the street, simply clutter to be ignored. For this sign to be effective it needs to be moved closer to the sidewalk and closer to the tracks.

And, again, notice how out of control those trees are! I am tempted to declare this the type specimen for the city's lack of concern for pedestrians--except that there are worse examples to be found.

This is the view while walking east on the north side of Virginia, toward Dee, just before the corner where one would turn left onto the sidewalk, in the previous picture, to cross the tracks. I include this photo to show how unlikely it would be, at this angle, for someone to notice the sign on the pole and assume it was directed at him. Again, the sign needs to be closer to the sidewalk and the tracks.

This really has me cheesed off.

A friend and I have a lot in common about one thing in particular: we both were hit, while walking across side street intersections in Park Ridge Manor, by drivers who powered right through stop signs. We both sustained serious injuries as a result. We both still see the same reckless driving all the time at those intersections.  Neither of us has ever so much as seen a police car in the area, before or since, let alone an officer handing out a ticket for ignoring a stop sign. And neither of us thinks it's because the police are busier with intersections that have even worse violators, since, in most areas, Park Ridge drivers seem to respect stop signs well enough.  

One day my friend was about to cross the tracks north at Dee, as in the top photo. She was just about to bring her foot down across the first rail, when the bell started ringing. She had already looked in both directions, and so continued quickly across, knowing that the train was literally minutes away. The gate wasn't even down when she reached the other side. Nevertheless, there was a cop waiting to give her a ticket to go to court for the egregious violation. (Remember that $250 mandatory fine?)  The irony is that she was in a lot of pain and had been heading to a difficult-to-schedule spine doctor's appointment, necessitated by the above accident, which I feel might have been prevented had the police been giving proper attention to those intersections instead of giving out ridiculously expensive, absurd tickets at Dee Road.

There's exciting train video for you to watch.

How absurd are the tickets? I'm glad you asked, because I recently went back and took a couple of videos, to be able to quantify things. Initially I decided to put them here just to back up my claim, thinking that no one should actually put themselves through watching video of a Metra train pulling in and out of a station, or worse, being seen watching it. (This isn't England, after all.) After watching it myself, though, I think it has value, because it truly gives you a sense of how much human life is wasted, cumulatively, by people having to wait for trains to pass. You have a choice: look at a summary with a couple of photos, or the entire video.

Train heading to Chicago: summary photos

Train is near the Dee Road station, with the clock starting, of course, when the bell starts to ding. Pay attention to the sidewalk: the only point where the train could possibly have hit my friend.

This is the train stopped at the station, at 1 minute 25 seconds. Note that it is not yet anywhere near the sidewalk. It won't be, for more than a minute.

Okay, the train is now about to cross the sidewalk, at 2 minutes and 31 seconds in. Now, I have a full appreciation that someone getting killed by a train is a heartbreaking catastrophe for the victim, the victim's family, and those who have to see it happen. It is unspeakably unfair that a one-time mistake in judgment can end a life forever. But it is a fact that we acknowledge and somehow live with in other arenas: being off by a second or two in reaction time on the road can easily be fatal, yet we drive. Why do we insist on a 2.5 minute cushion when it comes to trains (with mandatory $250 fine for violations)? Especially when trains are highly visible, not at all erratic, and incapable of making unpredictable movements.

Furthermore, that train was at a complete stop at a minute and a half in, with no other trains in sight, and trains accelerate only very slowly from a stop. (Feel free to check the video.)  Why were those gates down for that minute and a half?  (A onetime wait doesn't seem like much, but when you consider that it happens many times, to many individuals at a time, it adds up to a lot of stolen human life.) There are many possible reasons, I suppose: codes, laws, tradition, fears of looking callous, being sued, etc. (In this case I'm guessing, from observation, that the proximity of the Dee and Oakton crossings is somehow involved.) But as a programmer who has worked with industrial controls, I can assure you with complete confidence that the reasons at this time in history are not technical: it is absolutely possible to shave a good amount of time off with no reduction in safety.

The intersection was blocked for over 3 minutes, by the way.

Train heading to Chicago: the actual video--if you want to take the time to watch

Train heading from Chicago: summary photos

Now let's consider a different train at Dee, coming from Chicago this time.  Clock starts when the dinging starts, as before.

Here's the train at 60 seconds. Nothing unexpected so far.

Here the train is barely visible on the right side of the photo. It has just cleared the intersection, and can no longer possibly hurt anyone there. There are no other trains in the area. The time is 1 minute and 17 seconds.

What's unusual about that? Nothing.  What is unusual is that the warning signals don't stop until 2 minutes and 46 seconds. That's 1 minute and 29 seconds of holding up traffic for no reason at all. Not only is this a waste of time, but I feel quite certain that it leads to a "signal that cried wolf" syndrome: if bells and gates create warnings when there's nothing to warn against, you tend to pay less attention when they do go off. Like with your smoke detector, if you're like most people I know. In fact, if you watch the video you'll see two $250 (or possibly $500) criminal acts, after the train passes. (The people can't be seen well enough to identify.  If they could I wouldn't have put up the video.) There's also a car violating the signal at the start of the video. Way to go, you scofflaws!

Train heading from Chicago: the actual video--if you want to take the time to watch

You aren't allowed to cross here. Go cross...I don't know, in the next county or somewhere.

So it isn't legal to cross the tracks except at intersections that are properly equipped with crossing gates, right? Well, crossing gates for cars, anyway. Right?

Not exactly. This is a view facing out from the Park Ridge station. You can walk right across the tracks with nary a crossing gate interfering. The guiding principle seems elusive to me, since if you take a short walk east to Prospect and try to cross, there are gates guarding the sidewalks. Why are there no gates here? You've got me. But it does establish that gates aren't considered absolutely essential for safety by TPTB.

So why are there no other crossings just for pedestrians?

This brings me to a sore point: Even though train tracks spend most of their time lying unused (can you imagine how empty the tollway would seem if cars came by that infrequently?), and even though trains are easily seen from afar and avoided if you're paying any attention at all, you're not supposed to cross except at "official" crossings. If you do, you're "trespassing," a term that makes it sound like the railroads bought up the land in the usual way, just like everybody else. But consider that it's a 0.9 mile stretch of track between the Greenwood and Dee Road crossings, and going around that stretch can add a lot of extra walking to a trip. For example, if you start at Seminary near the tracks and want to get to Busse on the other side, it's only a couple of hundred feet away.   But it's a 1.4 mile trip if you have to use "proper" crossings. To a driver that means nothing. To a walker, however, in winter, with the poorly-cleared walkways that seem to be so acceptable in this town, that can add a tiring, slippery, dangerous 90 minutes to Granny's roundtrip.

Note: The city is currently talking about adding a Cumberland crossing and closing the Greenwood one. (I can't see any way that can work, but hey, I'm no road planning, er, rocket scientist.) If that happens, it'll add almost another third of a mile to that Dee-Greenwood crossing-free stretch.

The railroads have been granted quite a bit in terms of land rights and the freedom to exploit them aggressively (I would go so far as to say "arrogantly."). It seems only fitting that they make provisions for some foot crossings between the road crossings. Walkers have crossing needs too, just like drivers. And the above photo shows that the concept isn't an entirely alien one.

Good place for a pedestrian crossing.

As you might expect, people already make their own crossing paths, regardless of the rules. The one on the left is well-positioned, as it is roughly halfway between Greenwood and Dee and provides a natural crossing point for people headed for Village Green. I debated about including this photo, for fear of drawing attention to the situation; On a couple of occasions in the past, apparently faced with the choice of (a) leaving the path alone, (b) improving it, and (c) blocking it off, TPTB went with the cheapest (for them), most heartless alternative: (c). But if it happens again, I expect that someone will, as before, remove the barrier. And I will bray about it here.

The view faces north on Aldine, where the street hits the tracks. The road and sidewalk go right up to the edge. (That, combined with the fact that my mapping program refers to this segment not as "Aldine" but as "extension," makes me wonder whether this might not be the old road crossing I've heard about, that the Greenwood crossing supplanted.) This crossing is short, but frequently unpleasant--I'm told. With any precipitation or runoff at all, water ponds up at the base for a long time; that's why the big stones you see are there. They're better than nothing, but not by much, since they're unstable and often covered by water and mud themselves, and your shoes tend to be muddy and slip on them. It's hard to avoid that section by walking around it, since there are plants that whip at you and push you off-balance. The portion on the other side of the tracks is steeper.  Someone has put a rug down there, presumably to stop the ballast rocks from falling down into the parking lot. In the wintertime both sides of the path become much more slippery and hard to use. Many tailbones hit ground.

Now, if anyone from TPTB is reading this, I can pretty much read your mind: At first you think, "This is horrible. People could get hurt. Something should be done about this." So far I'm with you. Except that what I think should be done is to take a few dollars--and it wouldn't take very many--and put a few pretty steps in there. Some nice raised ridges could even be used, so that they wouldn't even have to be shoveled. Maybe a couple of dingers to warn blind people--a couple of small gates would be a nice extra touch--and it's done. But I'm damn sure that your solution is to try to close it all down, because you'll only do what helps the bottom line or what you're forced to do, and people crossing here aren't paying fares, yet could potentially sue. Am I right? Is that what you were thinking?

The Dee Road train station. A study in suckitecture.

You know how if you don't have anything nice to say about someone you shouldn't say anything at all? Well, in that spirit I would say that the new Dee road station doesn't stick out garishly. Someone, in a letter to the editor, called it "gorgeous." And, on the day I visited, it didn't stink of smoke and urine, the way the old station did. I guess I should stop talking now.

Except that I can't. Because the station seems to me typical of buildings these days that are insidiously designed to convey the impression of being there to help you, while simultaneously letting you know they want you to F off and go away. Let's have a look.

Wow. Substantial. Brick above rough cut stone. Almost castle-like: no one's going to huff and puff and blow this bad boy over. Yet simple, modest. And welcoming: the stone on the stairs curves out to embrace you. And not one, but two floors, so you can look out and take in the countryside while you relax and wait for your train. Brass sign plates. Elegant.

This is so much more than I expect and  deserve. This station cares about me and my needs. It is at my service. The stairs even look a little like red carpet.

Here's the dedication plaque. I included it since, well, dedication plaques interest me, because they call up so many questions. For one thing, what's the point? It's nice to know the year it was built, I suppose, and mayors seem to like to spray their scent on everything. But what's the point of listing the Metra board of directors? Is that for our information, or their glory? Does it feel like glory to them? How much did the plaque cost? Do the people on the board actually do much? Are they still on the board right now? Are they proud of this structure with their names on it, or maybe a little embarrassed? Was there a dedication ceremony? If so, were they there for it? Do they ever go a few miles out of their way to show their friends the plaque with their name on it?

If you want to bow down before a more substantial plaque, click on this Paul Hogan paraphrase: That's not a plaque. That's a plaque!

What's wrong with this picture?

Here's the platform. A couple of things are obvious right off the bat.

First, there's no protection from the elements.  In the winter it gets really cold around here, and the wind whips with great intensity. In other seasons we get downpours, and hot, melanoma-friendly sun beating down. Obviously they didn't just forget to add shelter, but deliberately decided to go with none at all. Hell, even at the declassé CTA terminal there is rain and sun protection overhead, perpendicular windscreens to block wind from multiple directions, and even, last time I checked, heating lamps. What was Metra thinking?

But it's worse than that. Note that the only way to go from the station to the center platform is by walking down to Oakton or Dee Road, then crossing there. So if your train will be coming on the center track, and it's really cold out, and you're warming in the station, poking your head out occasionally to see if the train's coming, and you see the light in the distance, what are you going to be tempted to do? That's right, you're going to want to rush down to one of the roads and cross. And if when you get to that road, the gate's down, but you think you can safely make it across--the other option being to show up late for your important appointment at work--which are you going to choose?

You don't need no stinking clocks.

Which leads me to another point: Any station that gives the slightest damn about the needs of its customers is going to have several big clocks. It is, after all, a clock-driven business: they're called train schedules. And people's own timepieces are often significantly off or even, sometimes, not with them at all. I realize that stations without clocks aren't unusual, and I know why: if you help riders to know what time it is, you're also helping them to notice when you screw up. Still, it's not helpful to the customer, which should be the main concern.

But I would go farther. Surely you've noticed the red LED Times Square banner. Now, I have to be honest: I quickly got out of the habit of looking at it, because the first bunches of times I did all I saw was choo-choo graphics ("you mean this isn't an airport?") and Amber alerts (and I knew I'd never remember enough to identify Amber on the rare chance she was being taken on the same train as mine).  So it may sometimes have useful information, I don't know.  But if it's not up there constantly and reliably, it's of little use. With cheap computers and GPS, I can't see any reason why a nice, modern station (built in the year of 2006 in the reign of Mayor Howard Frimark and the Metra Board of Directors, Board Chairman, and Executive Director) shouldn't have a big graphics board to let you know the ETA of the next few trains. It would be particularly useful to know whether you've already missed the train you wanted.  But again, as with the clocks, this would help customers realize how unreliable the trains actually are. (As I have come to realize, lately, waiting for them to show up and be videoed. For years I'd assumed that any problems were with my watch.)

At least there are schedules. But not for you.

The station does, at least, display schedules. There's one on the left. You know what bothers me about it, though? There are lots of stations on that schedule. Which one do you think most people are interested in? That's right: the Dee Road station. Do you know what I do when I get a new schedule? I mark the Dee Road station rows with a yellow highlighter. It might seem like a small thing, but if you were running the station you would do that, wouldn't you? Of course you would.

Well, at least people can get a schedule and do it on their own.

Except that they can't. They couldn't on 4/17/2008, anyway (up through 5/4, when I checked last). You have to admire the hefty brassiness of that schedule holder. Surely they didn't just buy it off the rack. I wonder how much it cost. Seriously, I wonder how much it cost. (Can anyone mail that information to me?)

The reason I'm curious about this is because I want to know how much it cost compared to a water fountain. Water fountains can't be very expensive. But there isn't one. I've seen Chicagoans come to the station on a hot summer day and wait for the next available train heading back. Which can be a really long time on the weekend. The station planners weren't even willing to un-ass some money for a freakin' water fountain?? What do they expect the people to do--drink from the toilet, like dogs?

I don't have to tell you not to drink from the toilet like a dog.

Because there isn't any toilet, either. No bathroom. That's not all that unusual, I guess: the old station didn't have one either.  (And smelled like urine, like the El stairs sometimes do, but you can't have everything.) To me this is very bizarre: I mean, you come back full of beer from Taste of Chicago, on a packed train, you haven't been able to get access to a bathroom for a good while, you just might need need to pee.

What's the word for fear of installing a bathroom? All those phobias have words, right?

I guess the no bathroom thing might have come down, in the end, to the fear that the Dee Road Metra station will get the reputation in surrounding counties of being a great place for homeless to set up housekeeping, and that the Park Ridge police will be too busy surveilling garages for grafitti artists, or telling Chief Caudill not to let the door hit him in the ass on his way out, to be able to do anything about it. But my money's on their not wanting to spend money to install it, keep it clean, buy soap, toilet paper, water. I don't know. I do know that it's customer-unfriendly as hell.

Generous seating.

These are the two benches they have outside the station.  Unsurprisingly, they're totally unprotected from the elements. So if you want to relax and work on deepening your melanoma or your frostbite, this is the place for you. What interests me is that each bench, as is, only really seats two adults comfortably, but could easily seat three if the center armrest were removed. To me this suggests that the armrest is really only there to keep people from lying down.

Commerce and beauty's formidable front line

The station has no water fountain, but can accommodate a baker's dozen of paper vending machines, which don't really fit into the aesthetic scheme. Feel free to draw your own conclusion. As for me, I'm going with money.

Bike racks sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute?

I didn't remember seeing bike racks on my previous trip, and surely every station has bike racks, so tonight I took a little detour to have a look. Nope, no bike racks anywhere near the station. I extended my search radius farther out, peered harder.  Sure enough, there are a few rack spaces--a very few spaces--about as far away from the building as you can get; farther than the great majority of the over 150 parking spaces for cars. By counting paces, I estimated about 225 feet from the racks to the foot of the station stairs. This photo makes them look closer than they actually are. (Look for faint wiggly lines in front of the dark car near center of frame.)

This remote placement was clearly deliberate, as there were plenty of closer places the rack could have been put. Yet it didn't make sense: For the sake of the environment and health we should encourage people to bike to public transport, not discourage them. And even if that bike rack were filled it couldn't take up much more space than a single car. Plus, bike racks should be kept close to the station, in better visibility, because they and their parts are easier to steal than is the case for cars. And they should be protected from rain, so they don't rust.

Then I remembered that car drivers have to pay to park. Bike riders don't. Mystery solved, as far as I'm concerned.

Good place to steal a rusty bike, though: Far from eyes at the station, protected visually by elevation of tracks, cars on Oakton side, fence around cell phone tower. (It's so cute when they try to hide a big ol' cell phone tower behind a little bitty fence like that.)

Finally. A look inside the temple.

The inside of the station, where all the magic would happen, if there were any magic. This is a composite, and there are some distortions. There's not really much to see. That second floor doesn't even exist; the ceiling is just higher. Seems like a good place to raise chickens. The only thing I'd like to draw your attention to is about two thirds to the right (you have to scroll to see it), under the semi-circular part with five windows. In theory that's a place for sitting. But there's nothing at all designed for you to rest your back against. Not only that, but a whole lot of the seating spots are in front of the windows, so you can't rest your back against the wall there. Not only that, but the sills project out a couple of inches, to stick you. And even though there's a symmetrical area directly opposite in the room, there's no seating area there.

Note the vertical slit windows, which extend down close to the floor. They're everywhere (except where blocked by the equipment room). I count 30 of them on the "lower level," if you include the glass doors. The architect(s) would probably claim this was an aesthetic decision and/or a security one. My guess is that it was all about not giving people any privacy for peeing. I mean, why else put windows even behind the backless seats? I feel it is my duty, at this point, to inform you that there's a McDonald's about a block away. So you're covered, unless you're there around the time of the last trains, in which case you may have to make some decisions.

That flapping thing on the far right is a cabinet. I think it's supposed to contain a fire extinguisher. (There's a label inside that says "for fire protection equipment only.")  It doesn't.