(The following article by Elisa Crouch was posted on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website on March 5.)
ST. LOUIS — Nearly 70 trains a day roll through Pacific, past the lumber yard, the coffee
shop and along backyards. On Oct. 30, the rail crossing gates on Payne Street came down and blocked Anne Crick’s drive home.
Crick, 44, a mother of two, swerved around the gates and started across, according to a police report. An Amtrak train smashed into her car with deadly force.
Deaths at Missouri rail crossings doubled in 2005, alarming state railroad administrators and reversing a decade-long trend in safer crossings. Preliminary figures from the Missouri Department of Transportation show 17 people died from crashes along public rail crossings, the most since 1996. There were 65 collisions last year, up from 45 in 2004.
The danger of these crossings was underscored Feb. 24 when an Amtrak train crashed into a sport utility vehicle at the 5200 block of Manchester Avenue in St. Louis, injuring the driver and passenger. It was the same location where a Minnesota truck driver was broadsided in his rig by another train last May. He died about five weeks later in a burn unit.
Missouri officials say no one trend explains last year’s rise in the state. Crashes occurred in daylight and after dark. Victims ranged in age, situation, profession and type of vehicle. A woman from Lincoln County was struck by a freight train after missing her turn and getting her truck stuck on tracks in Old Monroe. A man from Kirkwood collided with a train at a crossing at the bottom of a hill outside Robertsville, in the piney woods of Franklin County.
Others, like Crick, a middle school janitor, died apparently trying to beat the train, police in Pacific say. But the state also experienced a 28 percent increase in crashes at minimally marked crossings – ones marked by only an X-shaped rail warning sign called a crossbuck. There, safety hinges on being able to see down the track.
“That is something that needs to catch all our attention,” said Rod Massman, the department’s railroad administrator, to nearly 30 state railroad representatives and law enforcement officials at a meeting in Jefferson City last month.
Missouri has authority over 3,800 public rail crossings along 4,400 miles of train track. An additional 3,000 or so crossings are on private land, many of them farms, and not under the state’s jurisdiction.
Concerted efforts to improve rail crossings began in the 1970s when millions of dollars of federal funds started going to states for rail crossing improvements. Missouri motorists also began paying a dime (now it’s a quarter) into the Grade Crossing Safety Account every time they renewed their license plates.
Since then, deaths at the state’s public crossings have dropped 81 percent, state figures show. Railroad safety advocates credit active warning devices, such as flashing lights and gates. Even so, fewer than half of the state’s crossings have any type of warning devices at all. More than 100 have no marking at all, according to the federal government.
“In this day and age, can they put gates up? They can,” said Patti Abbatte, executive director of Citizens for Rail Safety in Woburn, Mass. “It’s all about money.”
The Multimodal Division under the Missouri Department of Transportation spends $6.3 million each year on equipment upgrades at crossings. The money doesn’t go far, state railroad administrators say. It buys lights and gates for between 20 and 30 crossings a year, out of the 1,985 that still don’t have them. Railroads install the equipment, and then the state reimburses their expenses typically at $175,000 to $200,000 per crossing.
For the first time, railroads are sharing some of the costs. The state is two years into a corridors project along five stretches of track, including the Norfolk Southern line that goes through St. Charles County. The program involves upgrading every crossing along the track, with railroads bearing 20 percent of the costs and the state 80 percent.
Some railroad officials question the effectiveness of the lights and gates, given that half of all crashes nationwide happen at crossings fully equipped with active signals.
“I can’t overemphasize that even the standard crossbuck is still a warning device,” said Mark Davis, spokesman for Union Pacific. “Much like a yield sign getting on to Highway 40 at rush hour.”
Audrain County, near the center of the state, has more than 90 public rail crossings. Four people died at them last summer.
Two of those people were David and Crystal Pope, newlyweds of three weeks. On June 29, they approached the rail crossing marked only with a crossbuck. They started across the tracks in David’s red Corsica at the same time a Norfolk Southern freight train rolled through.
Two months later, Florence Williams turned onto New Hope Church Road, heading to a beauty salon. Her son was to be married that day. As she was crossing the tracks, a Norfolk Southern locomotive tore through her Ford Focus, killing Williams, 44, and her daughter, Tabitha Williams, 17.
Audrain County Presiding Commissioner Richard Webber said both crossings were overgrown with weeds at the time, perhaps limiting how far down the track the drivers could see. Since the collisions, he said, the weeds have been cleared and the county has installed stop signs at the crossings, reminding people to look both ways.
“You can get that way out there,” Webber said. “You take for granted there are no trains coming.”
Railroads are responsible for keeping crossings clear and ensuring that the surface is as smooth as the adjacent roadway. Once gates and lights are installed, railroads must keep them in working condition.
A computer module provides a readout of the performance of the warning devices so railroads and the state know that they’re working. After every crash, state investigators check to see if they were functioning properly.
State and federal inspectors examined 4,653 rail crossing signals in Missouri last year. Of those, 524 were found to have defects, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the agency, said the public should not be alarmed by that.
“Not all defects are created equal,” he said. Whether there’s a scuff on a circuit box or lights that fail, he said, both are recorded as defects.
The spike in crashes makes John Bayer of St. Louis County think he’s not doing enough educating. As a volunteer for Operation Lifesaver – which educates schoolchildren, truck drivers, civic clubs and anyone willing to listen about the dangers of rail crossings – he was Missouri’s top presenter last year. He reminds listeners that flashing lights at a crossing means “stop.” Refusing to do so is illegal.
It takes a mile-long freight train up to a mile or more to stop, if that train is traveling 55 mph, he’ll tell them. A typical Amtrak train traveling 30 mph can take up to a half-mile to stop.
A few more talks could have saved a life or two, Bayer said.
At the meeting in Jefferson City, police, rail and state officials discussed ways to get motorists to stop at crossings. Operation Lifesaver is planning public service announcements and working to get more volunteer presenters. The state is working to install stop signs at rail crossings, in addition to the other markers, to get motorists to stop before crossing.
“People see it as a road,” said Bruce Chinn, a railroad safety specialist for the Missouri Department of Transportation. “They don’t see it as an intersection.”
In Pacific, motorists contend with eight rail crossings and two sets of tracks: a Union Pacific line and one belonging to Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Last year, the city finished an overpass on the west side of town so drivers could avoid the crossings.
Despite the investment, Mayor Jeff Titter said he still saw city residents driving around the gates and through the flashing lights, just as police say Anne Crick did on Oct. 30.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to take that gamble,” Titter said.
But they do.