(The following article by Margie Trax Page was posted on the Ashtabula Star-Beacon website on July 31.)
ASHTABULA, Ohio — A Norfolk Southern train is a sight to behold.
Laden with freight car after freight car carrying everything from tennis shoes to soy sauce, the engine barrels down the track, leaving the lingering echo of a mighty whistle in its wake.
The massive train can move up to 65 mph through the smallest towns in Ohio and across the nation. The engine can pull a mile of freight and passenger cars – – but it can’t swerve to miss a child playing on the railroad tracks.
“A train traveling at 55 mph takes at least a mile to stop, and that is in full emergency,” Senek said . “People dont understand that a train is dedicated to the tracks. It cant swerve to miss a person or a car,” Ohio Operation Lifesaver state coordinator Shel Senek said.
Ohio Operation Lifesaver is an education and enforcement initiative intended to heighten awareness and eliminate fatalities, injuries and property losses at railroad intersections and along the railways.
The dangers presented by trains are clouded by the romantic image of a smokestack train happily blowing its whistle as it rolls through a small town. Television, movies and even cartoons portray trains as friendly objects, which desensitizes drivers and pedestrians to the danger of trains, Senek said.
“We want people to view this industry as friendly, but friendly from afar,” he said.
Senek said driving around railroad gates and walking over tracks other than at public crossings is not only dangerous, but also its criminal.
“The choice to go around a gate is exactly that: a choice. Most drivers dont realize that trains create an optical illusion. Their size and angle of approach can make a 65 mph train look like it is going 25 mph. The view is very deceptive,” he said.
Trespassing on railroad property, including crossing over tracks other than at a public crosswalk, is a misdemeanor punishable by a $250 fine and 30 days in jail.