(The following story by Tracy Overstreet appeared on the Grand Island Independent website on October 25.)
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — York County Sheriff Dale Radcliff has given his deputies strict orders when it comes to stopped trains blocking crossings issue citations to train crews. If they resist arrest.
“It’s just frustrating,” the sheriff said of dealing with railroads that frequently block one or more of the 22 crossings in the 24 mile wide York County.
Radcliff spoke Wednesday in Grand Island to members of the Legislature’s Transportation and Telecommunications Committee. It was day one of a two-day interim hearing to gather testimony on a proposal (LB676) to raise fines against railroads that block crossings.
Radcliff said he himself went out about six months ago to issue a citation to a crew on a train that had blocked a York crossing for more than an hour.
“I couldn’t find a crew,” he told the committee.
The train sat for two and a half hours, Radcliff said.
State Sen. LeRoy Louden of Ellsworth, a member of the Transportation Committee, said abandoned trains are commonplace in his sprawling District 49. The crewless train sits parked until a new crew arrives by van to move the train on.
It might as well be “the Royal Gorge” running through a town, he said, when a train stops and sits on the tracks blocking crossings.
The Union Pacific has about 1,500 crossings in Nebraska said U.P.’s Director of Public Safety Dale Bray.
“It’s the busiest corridor in the world,” he said.
New efforts for communication, cooperation and collaboration with communities has been launched in the past year because Union Pacific is “absolutely committed to public safety,” Bray said.
To that end, both the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, have 1-800 phone numbers posted at crossings. When the crossings are blocked, the number can be called to get the train moving as long as it’s not stopped to a mechanical failure, railroad officials said.
“When we call the 800 number, we just get put off again,” Radcliff said.
The sheriff said his deputies joke about the pat answer they know they’ll receive from the railroad when they call the 800 number.
“‘It’s going to move in five minutes,'” Radcliff recited. “It’s the number-one line.”
But rarely is it correct, he said.
Hall County Sheriff Jerry Watson said train personnel “typically display little to no obligation to speak with us” when deputies report problems in Hall County.
“We have responded to accidents, medical emergencies and criminal acts in progress and have had to alter our routes after discovering a train was blocking a crossing,” he said in written testimony to the committee.
Blocked crossings add four to five minutes to emergency responder travel time, encourages crossing violations and trespassing and adversely affects the quality of life in communities, Watson said.
Bray said Union Pacific has had 200 complaint calls in Nebraska in the last 60 days. Fifteen of those calls were from the Grand Island area six calls from citizens and nine from law enforcement.
Tobin Zerfas, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe trainmaster serving the Lincoln to Ravenna route, said his territory receives about 13 blocked crossing complaints a month. The territory covers 125 miles and has 119 crossings. About 65 BNSF trains travel that area daily, he said.
Renee Seifert, director of the Grand Island/Hall County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said stopped trains can negatively impact the tourism experience in Nebraska communities. Ease of travel is paramount.
Grand Island Area Chamber of Commerce President Cindy Johnson said blocked crossings hurt business. They prevent deliveries, delay appointments and stop commerce.
She spoke in support of a bill sponsored by Fullerton Sen. Annette Dubas that would raise the fines if stopped trains blocked a crossing for more than 10 minutes. The minimum fine would rise from the $10 now in state statute to $500 and the maximum would increase from $100 now to $5,000.
Retired State Patrol Trooper Leon Cederlind of Phillips said the mere threat of the increased fine has reduced the blocked crossing problem near his farm.
But an increase in the fine is controversial.
“I don’t think putting a high fine on them is going to solve this problem,” said Transportation Committee Chairwoman Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine.
Grand Island Sen. Ray Aguilar said a higher fine would likely just be passed on to the railroad customers cities like Grand Island that receive coal by train and farmers whose grain and ethanol is shipped by rail.
Railroad officials said they have no interest in stopped trains. They don’t make money when trains aren’t moving.
But Dubas said railroads need to understand that other businesses can’t make money either when trains are stopped. Farmers can’t get to grain elevators and can’t easily turn around at a blocked crossing. Business people can’t get to appointments.
“Their time is money, too,” Dubas said.
Norfolk City Administrator Michael Nolan suggested cities and counties create Railroad Safety Transportation Districts (RSTD) to levy an occupation tax to raise funds for costly improvement such as grade separations.
Grand Island briefly considered such an tax, but abandoned it due to cost.
Larry Dix of the Nebraska Association of County Officials spoke in support of some type of solution, as did Jerry Stilmock, representing the Nebraska State Volunteer Firefighters Association. They fear having access to emergency calls.
But whether fines can be imposed for stopped trains is legally untested, said the Transportation Committee’s legal counsel Dusty Vaughn. Federal legislation may prevent state’s or cities from imposing such fines.
The committee heard from 15 testifiers and accepted seven written letters during the nearly three-hour-long hearing in Grand Island Wednesday.
The hearing continues Thursday in Broken Bow.