(The following article by Paul Chronis was posted on the Wausau Daily Herald’s website on June 22.)
WAUSAU, Wisc. — The state and the railroads that run through it will improve safety measures at 149 crossings, including 20 in central Wisconsin, as the state sees an increase in the number of vehicle-train crashes.
Wisconsin’s reported vehicle-train collisions are up 9 percent in the first three months of 2003, compared with the same period in 2002, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. The increase comes after the number of crashes dropped 32 percent in the state from 2000 to 2002. Marathon County had the highest number of crashes among counties in the state, with 25 reported between Jan. 1, 2000, and March 13, 2003.
The state and railroads have agreed to split the cost of installing radio telemetry units at crossings that already have gates and signals. Each will spend abut $351,000 to purchase the units and install them by the end of 2004, said Rodney Kreunen, Wisconsin railroad commissioner.
The units are designed to immediately notify railroad dispatchers of a problem with a crossing, be it a malfunctioning signal, a gate that won’t lower or raise, or a burned-out signal light, Kreunen said.
“When that occurs, police get called to manage traffic around that crossing and the public is inconvenienced,” he said. “We could have a signal in impaired condition for several hours.”
If something goes wrong with the system, the gates go down, said Jack Burke, spokesman for Canadian National Railroad.
“Now the good news is that it maximizes safety, but it’s not convenient,” he said. “These devices will assist us in responding to these problems, particularly in rural areas.”
The first telemetry units will be installed in the Stevens Point area, said Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point. “These units will make crossings safer by keeping the equipment working and getting repairs made faster,” she said. “That will save taxpayers a lot of money.”
The units were first used on railroad crossings about five years ago. They’ve been tested at a few crossings in Wisconsin over the past two years and passed with flying colors, Kreunen said.
They also will become standard whenever the state installs gates and lights at crossings in the future. The cost of adding the units to existing crossings is more than $2,400 each, but installing them as original equipment lowers the cost to about $800 a unit. Since Kreunen’s annual budget is only $4.4 million, and there is a severe backlog of crossings to upgrade, every dollar saved is a plus. “The safety benefits are tremendous,” he said. “If it saves even one accident, it doesn’t take long to recoup that $350,000, now does it?”
Wisconsin provides $1.7 million of Kreunen’s budget; the rest comes from the federal government.