(Reuters circulated the following story by Nick Carey on April 12. Pat Smith is a member of BLET Division 3 in Cleveland, Ohio.)
EAST CHICAGO, Indiana — For rail engineers like Pat Smith, death is an inevitable part of the job.
‘It’s not a matter of if you are going to kill someone, but when,’ said the Cleveland, Ohio native and employee of railroad CSX Corp.. Normally jocular and talkative, Smith, 45 with snow white hair, looked away, swallowing.
‘And when it happens, you’re totally helpless,’ he said.
Every year hundreds of Americans die in accidents with trains operated by people like Smith, either in their cars or other vehicles at rail crossings, or on foot on the tracks.
Improved safety has helped reduce vehicle-related rail crossing fatalities to 365 in 2006 from 1,115 thirty year ago, but the number of pedestrian deaths has fluctuated during that period. Last year, 525 pedestrians died on the tracks, up from 373 in 1976, according to Federal Railroad Administration data.
Whether due to recklessness or suicide – no firm numbers exist on rail-related suicides – U.S. railroads say the impact on crews is overlooked by the public. The companies have set up support groups to help railroad staff cope with the trauma.
Pat Smith’s tale is not uncommon. Back in 1999, when he was working for U.S. railroad Norfolk Southern Corp., he said he was hauling a long coal train near Cleveland when a woman stepped onto the tracks.
Smith hit the brakes, but was moving downhill at over 30 miles an hour – a loaded coal train can take a mile to stop in those conditions – and he sounded the horn. The woman ignored it. Just before the train struck the woman, Smith’s conductor told him she had a middle finger raised in an obscene farewell gesture.
Smith could not shake the memory of that tragic incident, so he moved on to CSX and a different train route.
‘You never forget something like that,’ he said. ‘If she wanted to kill herself, why did she have to involve me?’
Dennis Biegel, senior road foreman for CSX’s Chicago division, said some crews simply can’t cope with a fatality.
‘Some people simply never come back to work,’ he said.
‘SUICIDE ALLEY’
On this recent day, Smith was heading east with a 10,000 foot (3,050 meter) train hauling containers full of consumer goods. He passed through the industrial corridor surrounding East Chicago, Indiana, some 25 miles southeast of downtown Chicago.
At 10 out of 12 consecutive rail crossings – all with gates down, lights flashing and bells ringing – one or more cars darted over the tracks, even though Smith’s train was barreling toward them at 45 miles an hour or more.
The blue collar town of East Chicago is so notorious for reckless drivers that its nickname is ‘Suicide Alley,’ Smith said.
‘This is pretty typical,’ he added, as a car crossed so close in front of the locomotive that everyone inside flinched in unison.
For those unlucky enough to hit a car or person on the tracks – or even to witness a dramatic near-miss – the major U.S. railroads have programs to help. They rely on veteran crew members trained to recognize signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Symptoms include depression, aggression, insomnia, flashbacks and alcohol or drug abuse as a person struggles to cope with what they have been through.
‘Peer support programs encourage sufferers to get the help they need, or even to overcome psychological barriers to getting help,’ said Dr. Robert Ursano, professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Ursano has helped review Union Pacific Corp.’s peer support program.
Harry Stewart manages the railroad’s volunteer peer support supervisors and received help himself in 1989 after his involvement in a fatal accident in a remote area in Texas when he was an engineer.
‘My colleagues helped me understand that while I played a part in the accident, I was not responsible for it,’ he said, noting that was when he decided to counsel others.
Volunteer supervisors are also trained to spot crew members suffering from trauma, but in denial, and if necessary, to prevent them from operating trains weighing thousands of tons.
‘It’s hard telling someone ‘you can’t work today’, but ultimately this is a public safety issue,’ said Steve Forsberg, a spokesman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp..
The main aim of these programs is to ‘put crews back in control of their situation,’ said Chuck Wehrmeister, Norfolk Southern’s vice president for safety. Some railroads, such as CSX, help crews find work elsewhere if they can’t get back on a train.
Peer support programs have helped the railroads overcome a ‘macho attitude by a lot of people who would normally refuse outside counseling,’ said Barry Beder, executive vice president of Health Resources in Woburn, Massachusetts, which provides psychological support for Norfolk Southern employees.
‘A program based on talking to people who understand what they’re going through is definitely a good thing,’ Beder said. ‘There are other industries or services out there that could do worse than adopt something similar.’