(The following story by Cathy Woodruff appeared on the Albany Times-Union website on May 13.)
ALBANY, N.Y. — It’s springtime on the Hudson, and the striped bass fishing’s good. That means it’s also time for police to be on the lookout again for folks scrambling heedlessly over the railroad tracks to reach the river.
“In 22 years, I’ve been to my share of calls for people getting hit by trains. It’s not pretty,” said Capt. Jim Sweet of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s dangerous, and they just don’t understand that, when you get a train coming through at 110 miles per hour, it doesn’t stop on a dime.”
Sweet was among dozens of officers from more than 40 municipal and railroad police agencies who took a round trip between Rensselaer and Saratoga Springs on Wednesday aboard a “Special Law Enforcement Safety Train” sponsored by Amtrak, several freight railroads and Operation Lifesaver, a national nonprofit organization that promotes rail track safety.
Operation Lifesaver invited police and judges aboard to help prepare them to drive home the point of how dangerous rail tracks can be. Many of those on the train, one of the new New York-owned high-speed Turboliners, were invited into the cab to get an engineer’s-eye view and were briefed on videos and other educational materials available to show children and teenagers.
Railroad and municipal police described a number of scenarios that they say frequently put people in dangerously close proximity to train tracks. The quiet nature of modern trains and a lack of realization of the dangers of walking along the tracks seem to contribute to many pedestrian fatalities, they said.
And if they didn’t have enough worries with snowmobiles, ATVs and daydreaming teens ambling perilously close to the tracks, now there’s an added reason for concern, said Charles Alonge Jr., coordinator of New York State Operation Lifesaver.
“In the post-911 era, every trespasser is a potential terrorist,” Alonge said.
Colonie Town Justice Peter Crummey said trespassing, a violation punishable by a maximum of a $250 fine and 15 days in jail, is a common charge in his courtroom, and many of the charges involve trespassing on railroad property.
He said he was struck by the statistics he heard about deaths as a result of trespassing on or near tracks, and he said he hopes the added understanding will add emphasis and weight to any comments he makes from the bench.
“In sentencing, I can certainly discuss the significance of this particular trespass,” he said.