(The following story by Steve Orr appeared on the Democrat & Chronicle website on March 17.)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Alleging maintenance shortcomings, the family of a man who was electrocuted while jogging along CSX railroad tracks in Brighton a year ago filed a lawsuit this afternoon against the railroad.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, claimed that CSX was negligent in its design and maintenance of the electrical wire that caused the death of Robin Armstrong. It said the railroad had cut its inspection and maintenance staffs so much that it could not meet safety standards that applied to the wire.
Armstrong, 33, was jogging with other members of a running club in the evening of March 27 when he came in contact with a low-hanging wire that runs along the CSX tracks in Brighton. Emergency responders removed Armstrong from the accident scene, in a swampy area between Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road and East River Road, but he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Armstrong, a resident of San Francisco, was in Rochester on business.
The lawsuit claims that the electrical line, which provides power to signals and crossing equipment in that section of track, had fallen from a pole to which it had been attached and was less than six feet off the ground. Monroe County Sheriff’s officials speculated at the time of the accident that Armstrong used the wire to pull himself up after slipping.
The legal papers say the railroad acted negligently by allowing the “bare live electrical wire” to be within reach of passersby and failing to post any warnings.
The papers also say CSX had eliminated work crews to the point that it could not meet standards and instead addressed maintenance issues “only after the occurrence of a failure or an accident.”
The complaint did not cite any figures to back up the assertion of staff cuts.
The lawsuit was filed by Armstrong’s mother and sister. It does not specify the amount of damages being sought.
The family’s lawyer, Matthew F. Belanger, was not immediately available for comment.
CSX spokesman John Casellini said late this afternoon that he had not seen the legal papers and could not comment on them. But he noted that “While this is clearly a tragedy that occurred, it also clearly was a preventable one.
“It was a matter of somebody being where they shouldn’t have been, trespassing on railroad property,” he said.
Casellini also said the allegations that the railroad had reduced inspection and maintenance staff to unsafe levels was “just untrue.”
The legal papers say the joggers began their run from a hotel parking lot in Henrietta, and followed a path that led to the accident scene alongside the tracks. The papers said the railroad “knew or should have known that people, including runners, regularly used the paths near the railroad tracks.”