(The following story by Adam Jackson appeared on the South Bend Tribune website on June 3.)
MISHAWAKA, Ind. — For 60 years, Norm Esarey has lived in a city that literally is crisscrossed with railroad tracks.
And in those 60 years, he has seen those train tracks claim many victims — in accidents that could have been avoided. So he had nothing but support for the Mishawaka police officer who handed him a railroad-crossing safety brochure while he waited for a freight train to pass Wednesday.
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “People need to watch out around these crossings.”
That’s a viewpoint shared by Norfolk Southern railroad employees and Mishawaka Police officers. They teamed up Wednesday morning in a “blitz” designed to increase citizens’ awareness of railroad crossing safety by handing out fliers to drivers stopped for passing trains.
The effort is part of Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit agency dedicated to reducing the number of railroad crossing accidents nationwide. R.C. Werth Jr., Norfolk Southern road foreman of engines, said it is an effort especially important in towns such as Mishawaka, where having to cross train tracks is a daily occurrence for many drivers.
The consequences of disregarding crossing safety measures, he said, can be disastrous.
“I have personally worked four fatalities along this stretch,” he said. “We have about 102 trains per day come through here, so there’s plenty of traffic.”
A major concern, he said, is drivers who choose to disregard signals, including dropped gates and flashing lights, and try to beat trains at the crossing in order to save time. The problem is, he said, it that is difficult to judge the speed and distance of an approaching train.
And if a car does get onto the tracks, it is nearly impossible for an engineer to stop in time.
“It is a minimum of half a mile for a train to stop, and it is even farther with a heavily loaded train,” Werth said. “And even when it is a tie at the crossing, the train always wins.”
Werth said the program to distribute fliers is conducted on a monthly basis.
Capt. Robert Ashburn, who heads up the traffic crash division of the Mishawaka Police Department, said he sees the program as a way to help address the city’s perennial problem with train-car collisions. And it’s not just the trains and cars that he’s worried about.
“It’s not only cars but also pedestrians,” he said. “People need to understand that you have to stay off the tracks.”
Operation Lifesaver is all about getting that kind of knowledge out to the public. And it seems to be working.