(The following story by Rick A. Richards appeared on the News Dispatch website on July 22. Brother J.M. Olry is a member of BLET Division 537 in Fort Wayne, Ind.)
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — John Olry says he will never forget the day he killed a 21-year-old man. For the past 22 years, the Norfolk Southern engineer has not been able to put out of his mind the day his train rammed a car that rolled across the tracks in front of his freight train.
Olry, an engineer for Norfolk Southern, also is part of a team of presenters for Operation Lifesaver, a joint effort of the railroad industry and the state to reduce the number of crashes and fatalities at rail crossings. Indiana ranks fourth in the nation in both categories.
Olry said getting involved with Operation Lifesaver helps him cope with that awful day of more than two decades ago.
Olry loves his work. Normally, his route takes him from his hometown of Fort Wayne south to Muncie and back each day. But two decades ago, he was hauling freight across northern Ohio.
“I remember everything about that day,” said Olry as we sat in a vintage passenger car on a special train trip across northern Indiana on an Operation Lifesaver event Wednesday. There were no close calls at any of the crossings in LaPorte, Porter or Lake counties, which was just the way everyone wanted it.
“It was 8:30 in the morning. It was a beautiful, clear day,” said Olry. “I saw a car approaching a crossing and I thought he had stopped.”
But the car didn’t and the next time Olry saw it, it was underneath his locomotive. “I was close enough so I could see his eyes. They were wide open like he couldn’t believe a train was coming.”
Here, Olry’s voice catches and he pauses. Olry hit the brakes, but it took more than a mile for his freight train to stop. “I looked out the window and I saw him floating in the air along side the cab for a bit. That’s what it looked like, floating. Then he hit the ground.
“I looked over at my conductor and I said, ‘Ted, I think we just killed this one.’ ”
Olry said Ted tried to convince him otherwise, but Olry said he just knew it was fatal.
“The way it is,” said Olry, “is if you have a tie with a train, you lose and we win. This one was so bad, the sheriff investigating the crash asked me if I could remember what kind of car it was. It was mangled so bad, they couldn’t tell what it was.
“The locomotive had $7.50 worth of damage,” he said.
As happens in things like this, the crash wound up in court. Olry told his story and said he had an opportunity to meet all of the young man’s family, including his wife and two daughters. “They’re nice people. I found out he lived only eight miles from the crossing and that he used that crossing every day. No one knows why he didn’t stop that day.”
It wasn’t long after the accident that a supervisor approached Olry and told him about Operation Lifesaver. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get involved. Now he routinely makes presentations about rail crossing safety to schools, to bus drivers and to first responders like those on Wednesday’s trip.
“Doing this has helped with the healing,” he said.
Rail crossing accidents, which most frequently happen at lighted and gated crossings, are devastating – not just for friends and family of the motorist. They leave a lasting mark on the men and women in the locomotive, too.
No one likes to wait for a train to cross the road. It can seem like an eternity, especially when you’re in a hurry. But it’s only a few minutes, and that’s a small price to pay to see your family later that night.