(BLE Editor’s Note: Mike Gaines is a member of BLE Division 133 in Denver. He joined the BLE in 1979.)
DENVER — In Colorado and three neighboring states, collisions between Union Pacific Railroad trains and vehicles at highway-rail crossings are up 59 percent so far this year over last year, the Denver Post reported.
To highlight the problem of motorists trying to beat trains through crossings, locomotive engineer Mike Gaines made a short run Wednesday from Commerce City to Brighton.
“I’ve hit vehicles, farm implements, humans — anything that comes across the tracks,” said Gaines, who has been operating Union Pacific locomotives for 23 years. “The two things you hate to see most on tracks are gas trucks and school buses. I’ve never hit one of those.”
Gaines has been involved in three fatal collisions.
When motorists die at rail crossings, the families of victims suffer. “But I don’t think people realize how much it devastates the engineer and conductor on the train,” Gaines said.
In late September, three motorists were killed by Union Pacific trains on consecutive days in two rail-crossing accidents in Fort Lupton and Rifle.
So far this year, there have been 27 train-vehicle collisions in the district that includes Colorado and parts of Wyoming, Kansas and Texas. In 2001, there were 17 collisions, but no fatalities.
Nationally, 419 people died last year in rail-vehicle collisions.
Union Pacific’s busy 100-mile line between Denver and Cheyenne has about 156 highway crossings, many of which have warning devices such as flashing lights and gates.
Still, about half of the train-vehicle collisions occur at crossings with the safety devices, said Union Pacific safety official Ron Welch.
“If people commit to going across, there’s not much you can do. You throw it into emergency,” the equivalent of a motorist stomping on the brakes, Gaines said.
Yet a loaded freight train traveling 55 mph and weighing 12 million pounds will travel at least a mile before coming to an emergency stop, said John Simpson, manager of public safety for the railroad’s northern region.
Recently, Gaines hit a truck trying to beat his train at a crossing near Gilcrest in Weld County. The driver was lucky.
“The guy saw us at the last second, and we took off his front bumper,” Gaines said. “We’re bright yellow and big as a house, and he said the most common thing we hear: ‘I didn’t see the train.'”
On Wednesday, Gaines sounded the whistle on his locomotive as he approached Brighton — two long blasts, a short and another long, the characteristic warning that means he’s within a quarter-mile, or 20 seconds, of reaching a highway crossing.
“Engineers always cringe when they come to a city like Brighton because it’s got so many crossings.”