(The following story by Brandon Loomis appeared on the Salt Lake Tribune website on June 18. Walt Webster is a retired member of BLET Division 846 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Wayne Robbins is a member of BLET Division 349 in Salt Lake City.)
AMERICAN FORK, Utah — The first two deaths were gruesome yet somehow forgettable, the kind of thing a young railroad engineer back then figured came with the territory when you’re pushing tons of freight.
The last one, though, just a couple of years ago in Wendover and shortly after his mother’s passing, stuck with the more mature Walt Webster and made him more determined to keep people off the tracks once he retired from Union Pacific. Now he’s admonishing kids in drivers ed to respect the flashing lights, and he’s helping Operation Lifesaver spread the word to Utah County before high-speed commuter trains get here in a few years.
“I’ve been around the railroad since the ’60s,” Webster said, recalling a grisly scene from that era when he found a leg severed from the calf down after a hobo died trying to hop his train. “Back then it was rampant. Everybody just kind of threw their hands up in the air.”
Though rail death rates have plunged 70 percent in 30 years, Utah County residents can’t afford to be complacent. The Utah Transit Authority is building FrontRunner commuter rail in the county, bringing faster trains. As it did to the north in advance of FrontRunner’s first line, the nonprofit Operation Lifesaver is preparing residents for the change.
Webster’s former employer teamed with Operation Lifesaver to aid the effort on Tuesday by running a train through the county’s industrial core and setting the stage for dozens of tickets when cooperating cops snagged daring motorists and pedestrians.
From the cab of a freight locomotive, it seems that everyone and their teen skateboarder will try to beat the train to a crossing.
Traversing the U.P.’s Provo industrial lead, engineer Wayne Robbins slowed the train from 15 mph as it approached a crossing near The Meadows, a U.S. Highway 89 retail zone.
One after another the cars and vans zipped across the rails in front of him as he laid on the horn repeatedly.
“One, two, three, four,” Robbins counted the cars passing illegally before him. An American Fork cop zipped across to ticket one of them, but three more motorists brazenly throttled across right behind the police car.
“You don’t ever have enough police officers,” Operation Lifesaver State Coordinator Vern Keeslar said as he watched.
“This is just what you have in here all the time,” Robbins said.
It can be a costly ticket – $70 in some cities, $500 if you’re caught on the tracks in Salt Lake City – but some of the sting victims on Tuesday got by with a warning.
Webster, who still has “dark cloud” moments remembering the times he’s seen people misjudge a train, said too many people are lulled by the optical illusion of a giant, lumbering freight train. It never looks like it’s moving as fast as it is.
It’s a lesson people would be wise to learn before FrontRunner reaches Utah County from Salt Lake City because the fast-moving trains can take a mile or more to stop in an emergency.