(The following story by Trish Bennett appeared on the Circleville Herald website on February 7. T.J. Davis is Legislative Representative of BLET Division 511 in Portsmouth, Ohio.)
CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — Pickaway County had only one train-related accident in 2006, according to the most-recent statistics from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
While that statistic is not alarming, some officials worry that an increase in train traffic from the opening of the Rickenbacker Intermodal in March will cause an increase in accidents as well.
Sheriff deputy Brandon Skaggs joined J.P. Fulton, special agent for the Norfolk-Southern Police, and railroad engineers in Pickaway County on Tuesday for a “crossing blitz” along the Norfolk-Southern line. The volunteers spoke to drivers at the Duvall Road crossing and passed out literature from Operation Lifesaver, an organization which promotes safety and education to reduce railway fatalities.
Tom Davis, an engineer for Norfolk-Southern, said he and fellow engineers volunteer their time because they believe crossing fatalities are 100 percent preventable.
“People see crossing lights and gates and expect them to activate all the time,” said Davis. “But anything man-made can fail. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.”
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, Ohio ranked 8th in the country in 2006 for accidents and casualties at railroad crossings. The administration reported 120 crossing collisions resulting in 15 fatalities and 33 injuries. Another 25 fatalities and 13 injuries were a result of trespassing on railroad property, which includes walking along railroad tracks.
“All railroad property is private property,” said Davis. “That’s a safety issue as much as a property issue, because just walking on the tracks is dangerous.”
Operation Lifesaver is “a non-profit, international public education program first established in 1972 to end collisions, deaths and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and on railroad rights-of-way,” according to the agency’s literature. Information on the organization and safety-related issues can be found on its Web site at www.oli.org.
Davis said he and other Norfolk-Southern engineers also do free presentations for schools and businesses to promote railroad safety through Operation Lifesaver. Those presentations can also be scheduled through the Web site.
The key to safety, he said, is education and awareness.
“It’s just like crossing the highway,” said Davis. “People will take a second and look both ways before they cross the highway, but they don’t take that second to look at railroad tracks. It’s that driver inattention, for lack of a better word, that gets people killed.”