(The following story by Billy Townsend appeared on The Tampa Tribune website on August 10.)
LAKELAND, Fla. — In response to recent fatal collisions of Amtrak trains and vehicles at crossings in west Lakeland and Plant City, federal inspectors are leading an audit of every crossing maintained by CSX Transportation from Orlando to Tampa.
The review began July 30, said Steve Kulm, of the Federal Railroad Administration.
Inspectors are checking to see whether flashing lights and gates are functioning correctly, whether the crossings comply with federal grade crossing regulations and whether information about them in federal records is correct.
Kulm said details of the findings will not be released until the inspections are complete. It is not clear when that will be.
Kulm said inspectors have found problems with some crossings and have reported them to CSX for correction. He would not say what those problems are. CSX spokesman Gary Sease said he could not confirm the company has been told of problems with crossings. He said there are about 400 crossings in the area.
Previous reporting on TBO.com revealed that federal records for several crossings in the Lakeland area, including the Wabash Avenue crossing where four young adults were killed July 16, incorrectly describe safety equipment in use.
In that fatal crash, the driver of the doomed car drove around crossing gates and was struck by a fast-moving Amtrak train. In the aftermath of the crash, many residents of the area acknowledged driving around crossing gates to beat slow-moving freight trains, which also use that rail line and can take more than a minute to reach a crossing after triggering crossing safety equipment.
A month before the Wabash crash, a similar crash at a nearby Lakeland crossing killed 18-year-old Kacee Hanscom, an honor student and accomplished musician at Lake Gibson High School.
Hanscom’s mother, Lana, has been pushing for changes to crossings, including arms that stretch across the entire roadway and don’t allow space for a driver to go around. She also has been critical of trains that stop for loading or unloading and set off safety equipment, even though they are not moving. She welcomed news of the review.
“I’d like to see changes in the [crossing] sensors,” she said.
A safety feature called “constant warning time” is designed to eliminate excessive delays, which federal studies say can correlate with reckless driving behavior. Crossings with constant warning time are able to gauge an approaching train’s speed and calibrate warning time accordingly. Any wait period longer than 30 seconds is considered excessive, federal studies say.
The federal crossing records, known as the inventory, are maintained voluntarily.
There is no penalty for inaccuracy. However, Fred Wise, head of the rail office for Florida’s Department of Transportation, said last week that the state takes the crossing inventory seriously. He said he would like to know the source of the errors in the federal records, because the state spends time and money to maintain the records correctly.
One state inspector is taking part in the review, said Gary Fitzpatrick, who works for Wise as the state’s administrator of rail operations.
Fitzpatrick also noted the state’s transportation department and the Lakeland Police Department are planning a joint enforcement and information “blitz” around Lakeland-area rail crossings this month. Lakeland police officers and state officials will stake out crossings to hand out information and encourage people to obey safety rules.
One day after the quadruple fatal collision in Lakeland, an Amtrak train rolling through Plant City struck a truck pulling out of a private drive at Universal Structures, 2291 U.S. 92 E. The truck was hauling an industrial trash bin and building material. The crash killed the truck’s driver and caused a derailment of some of the train cars. That private crossing had no electronic gates.
Throughout Florida, CSX builds and maintains its crossings over public roads, but the public pays the bills. CSX bills state and local governments millions of dollars every year for crossing construction and maintenance.