(The following story by Susan Cort Johnson appeared on the Lassen County News website on June 16. Scott G. Palmer is Legislative Representative of BLET Division 842 in Klamath Falls, Ore.)
LASSEN COUNTY, Calif. — The Lassen County Board of Supervisors gave District One Supervisor Bob Pyle their full support for his efforts to improve the safety of the train track intersection on County Road A-21.
At the regular board meeting Tuesday June 8, Pyle read from a letter he had written to Bree Arnett at the Public Utilities Commission in Sacramento, and asked his colleagues to send a similar letter. He explained a letter from the board would be more authoritative than a letter from a single supervisor.
In addition, Pyle asked the community to support his efforts.
“I am asking everyone in the community to send letters to the PUC and I don’t want form letters,” he said.
Pyle stated he had been corresponding with Scott Palmer, a locomotive engineer for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, who was behind his efforts to install a crossing gate. Palmer, the legislative representative of Division 842 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, had also e-mailed the PUC.
In his e-mail message, Palmer asked for a review of two crossings in Lassen County he has determined to be unsafe. In addition to A-21, he named Highway 44. He wrote: “We have had several accidents at both crossings resulting in at least three fatalities that I feel would have been prevented by gated-type 9a or 9b warning devices. In one case, the driver involved in a grade accident stated that since he didn’t see the “gates” come down, he assumed he had time to cross the tracks.”
In a letter to the board of supervisors Palmer wrote, “As the Legislative Representative of division 842 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, I am bringing pressure to bear on the BNSF to install crossing arms at those locations. I ask that you use your influence with the PUC to do the same.”
Palmer told Pyle in a personal e-mail message the two crossings do not seem to meet the requirements for exemption from a mandatory stop when not protected by gates according to PUC regulations.
He said, “The original exemption may have been filed years ago when operating conditions were very different.”