(The following story by David Patch appeared on the Toledo Blade website on November 17.)
TOLEOD, Ohio — Dozens of trains use the former Chesapeake & Ohio tracks between Walbridge and Fostoria each day, from lumbering coal drags bound for Toledo?s docks to faster freights hauling new Jeeps to Baltimore or toting East Coast shipping containers to Detroit.
Within three years, the Ohio Rail Development Commission now pledges, every road crossing those busy CSX Transportation tracks that doesn?t have warning lights and gates now will get them, as will crossings on a less-busy stretch of the same tracks from Fostoria south to the Columbus area.
Similar improvements are planned for crossings along the Norfolk Southern line running from Payne, Ohio, to Vermilion through Leipsic, Fostoria, and Bellevue, said Jim Seney, the rail commission?s executive director.
On the two lines, about 147 crossings will get either new or upgraded warning devices, he said.
The Walbridge-Fostoria corridor will be the third in Wood County to become fully equipped with lights and gates; all but a few minor roads on a fourth were upgraded five years ago.
“The train traffic has really been picking up, but sometimes people forget to look for the trains,” said James Carter, president of the Wood County commissioners. “We all need that little reminder to stop and look both ways, and with lights and gates, that shouldn?t be a problem.”
With its dense population, flat terrain, and extensive webs of roads and railroad lines, Ohio historically has had one of the nation?s highest rates of railroad crossing collisions. And while the 127 crashes reported last year is half the total from 1993 and slightly more than one-fifth the crossing toll in 1981, the long-term declines in both collisions and deaths have leveled off in recent years.
Mr. Seney said that while the prospects for eliminating all crossing crashes are slim, he would like to do as much as possible to address crashes attributable to driver inattention.
“Willful” crashes – such as those involving motorists who clearly stop at a crossing and then unsuccessfully try to get across ahead of a train – and suicides are harder to prevent with safety devices, he said.
Last year, half of the 10 crossing crashes in Lucas and Wood counties occurred at crossings with lights and gates, and four of 12 crossing fatalities statewide occurred at such crossings. Three of six crossing fatals so far this year also have been the result of “willful” driver behavior, Mr. Seney said.
About half of Ohio?s 6,300 public railroad crossings now have warning lights and gates, Mr. Seney said. Since 1995, he said, nearly 1,000 crossings have received new or modernized warning systems, with the state spending about $13 million annually on the projects.
Hundreds of other crossings have been closed. In a few cases, they have been replaced with overpasses or underpasses, while in others the railroad companies have paid for improved warning devices at one crossing in exchange for one or more others being closed. Otherwise, public agencies pay for the new devices? installation, while the railroads maintain them afterward.
State officials now are concentrating their upgrades along rail corridors whose trains travel 35 mph or higher, Mr. Seney said, because those are the routes where accidents are most likely to cause serious injuries and deaths.
“We think the corridors have more impact” on driver behavior than selecting crossings on an individual basis does, Mr. Seney said. But any gateless crossing where a fatal crash occurs also will be upgraded, whether it is on a targeted corridor or not, he said.
Among the first corridors to be done were the east-west main lines through Toledo and Fostoria, because they are used by 79-mph Amtrak passenger trains and have the most freight trains, too.
The line through Toledo clips the northwest corner of Wood County, while the Fostoria line passes through Bloomdale and North Baltimore on the county?s southern edge.
Also targeted early on was a Norfolk Southern freight line angling across Williams County that, while not as busy, has had a spate of vehicle-train crashes, including a van accident near Edon, Ohio, that killed five people July 1, 2001.
Most, but not all, crossings on a CSX line from Perrysburg to Lima through Deshler and Ottawa were upgraded during the late 1990s, Mr. Seney said.
Corridors to be included in the program include a CSX track that passes through Bowling Green, Findlay, Arlington, and Kenton; and Norfolk Southern rails that run from Oak Harbor to Fremont, Clyde, and Bellevue.