Wrong side of the Tracks

The railway is overly accessible in Sri Lanka. There are signs prohibiting walking on the track but, like most rules here, no one pays any attention. There's also no physical barrier between the tracks and the road next to it. It freaked me out a bit initially as you have to walk over the tracks to get to the beach in Mount Lavinia. As well as there being nothing to prevent people walking onto the tracks, there's also nothing preventing people from falling from moving trains. No one shuts the train doors and when the trains are full people stand on the steps and hang off the side of the train. The trains aren't so busy on Saturday so there are only a few guys hanging out of the doors on this train. My workmate recently stopped travelling on the trains as he saw another passenger one carriage along get knocked off the side of a train and possibly killed when he was hit by an illegal house built too close to the tracks. There are shacks built illegally on the slim strips of land either side of railway tracks all over Colombo.