(The following story by Christina Hall and David Patch appeared on the Toledo Blade website on December 26.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — The train cars sit motionless on the tracks, separated from the waiting vehicles by red, blinking lights on crossbucks or on crossing gates blocking the road.
Some motorists are so used to the sight in some parts of Toledo that they instinctively perform U-turns or skirt down side streets seeking ways to bypass the blockage. Others with a little more patience or naive about the possible alternative routes sit and wait for the train to move, something that can take anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour.
Citizen complaints and concerns about delays to responding emergency vehicles because of a stopped train have sparked Toledo police to take action. Over the past two years, police have filed more than 250 charges against three railroads whose stopped trains block streets for more than five minutes in violation of city and state law. Each complaint details the amount of time they saw the trains stopped.
Other communities in the Toledo area, where thousands of trains pass through every month, face similar problems with blocked crossings but have had varying results in their efforts to enforce laws aimed at preventing the problem.
“It’s a major problem because entire sections of the city get cut off from help,” Toledo police Officer George Roush said. He noted that some people are so used to this “they cross across the couplings in the train. They could get killed.”
Under a proposed court agreement reached between the city and CSX Transportation to resolve 37 cases pending in Toledo Municipal Court, the railroad has until Friday to pay more than $14,000 in fines.
Meanwhile, more than 170 cases are pending against Norfolk Southern. Three cases are pending against Ann Arbor Railroad, which operates in the northern part of the city around the Toledo Jeep North Assembly Plant.
John Madigan, the city’s general counsel, said the railroads have generally objected to the prosecution of the cases because they believe local and state laws are pre-empted by the Federal Railroad Safety Act. The federal law, he said, states that municipalities and states are prohibited from regulating the speed of trains on grade crossings. “We’re arguing we’re not regulating speed. We’re regulating the blockage or stoppage of trains,” he said.
Police charged the railroads under state law, with a penalty that carries a mandatory $1,000 fine. As part of its proposed settlement with CSX, the city amended that railroad’s charges to similar violations under municipal law, which carries a maximum $500 fine.
Mr. Madigan said the city accepted the amended charges so it wouldn’t have to take the chance with the pre-emption issue and because fine money under municipal charges goes to the city rather than the state.
“The railroad’s – CSX’s – policy is not to invoke that [federal law] if we can avoid it,” said Neal Zimmers, regional vice president-Ohio for CSX. Provided, he added, that “there’s cooperation on both sides.”
CSX pleaded no contest to the charges on its pending cases, and Judge Gene Zmuda sentenced the railroad to pay $10 for every minute a train obstructed traffic up to the maximum $500 fine, plus court costs.
“The punishment is commensurate with the length of delay. The greater the inconvenience to the community, the greater the fine imposed,” the judge said.
Judge Zmuda said the case was unusual because of the number of charges against the defendant and the potential constitutional issues raised. He said his sentence sets no legally binding precedent, but he did inform Judge Francis Gorman – who will hear the Norfolk Southern cases – of his decision.
Toledo police said Norfolk Southern has expressed an interest in working with the city as well if charges were amended to those under the municipal code.
Rudy Husband, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, declined comment when contacted by The Blade, noting that the matter is under litigation.
Problem spots
According to records kept by Officer Roush, most of the tickets issued to railroads in the city involve crossings at Consaul Street in East Toledo and Nebraska Avenue near Brown Avenue on the southwestern edge of the central city.
In the case of Consaul, the crossing for which CSX is most often ticketed, trains often back up waiting for Norfolk Southern to grant authority to pass through junctions it controls to the north at Ironville, on the Toledo-Oregon border, and to the south at Vickers in Northwood. The Vickers location has also been a nuisance for motorists in Northwood and Lake Township.
Norfolk Southern is ticketed most at the Nebraska crossing – just down the street from the Toledo police Scott Park district station. There, the most frequent causes are trains stopping to add or drop cars at a nearby rail yard or waiting for other trains at a junction point near Dorr Street.
Trains on Norfolk Southern’s Cleveland-Toledo main line often block Lemoyne Road in Lake Township if congestion develops farther west in Toledo, and congestion at a CSX rail yard in Walbridge often leaves Wales Road blocked, cutting Northwood in half.
Mr. Zimmers said blocked crossings are a systemwide issue for railroads, whether large or small. Sometimes, he said, it is beyond a railroad’s control when a train blocks a crossing. “We do the best we can to cooperate and be a good citizen,” he said.
The state also is trying to alleviate the problem by building overpasses at strategic locations, including three planned in Fostoria, two for Wales Road in Northwood, and one under construction for State Rt. 269 in Bellevue.
Mixed results
Northwood Police Chief Gerald Herman said his community has reached an agreement with CSX and Norfolk Southern under which the railroads pay only court costs when they are ticketed for blocking one of that city’s crossings.
Between January and September, Northwood police ticketed 106 trains for blocking crossings, he said. Otherwise, the chief said, the railroads would petition to transfer the cases from Northwood’s mayor’s court to Perrysburg Municipal Court, and Northwood would receive nothing because fines assessed there would go to a special state fund for grade-crossing improvements.
Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer said his department has stopped writing blocked-crossing tickets because of a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling three years ago that voided a Michigan law limiting the length of time that any train, whether moving or stopped, could block any certain crossing. Since then, he said, the tickets haven’t held up in the Perrysburg court, so there’s no point in writing them.
S. Dwight Osterud, Perrysburg Municipal Court judge, said he was “surprised” Toledo had reached any deal with CSX because of the Michigan ruling.
But in Bellevue, Ohio – one of the area’s most train-congested communities – police currently write 20 train tickets per month.
Mayor David Kile said about half of them make it through the local court and are paid by the railroads – primarily Norfolk Southern, which operates nearly all the track in the city.