(The following appeared on the News-Journal website on January 9.)
LONGVIEW, Texas — Texas rail lines have produced deadly crossings, and East Texas is on a similar track, according to a report released Thursday.
The Texas Rail Relocation and Improvement group, a coalition seeking state funding for to relocate and improve freight rail lines around the state, gathered information from the Federal Railroad Administration to compile the report. It lists Texas’ 12 most dangerous counties for rail safety during a decade-long period between 1998 and 2007.
No East Texas county was among the top 10. Harris County, where Houston is the seat, topped the list with 1,376 rail incidents such as derailments, collisions, pedestrian trespassing and hazardous material releases. There were 90 deaths and more than 1,100 injuries associated with those incidents, the report stated.
Each of the top dozen counties are urban areas, with Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Webb and El Paso counties rounding out the top six.
During that period in the Longview metro area of Gregg, Rusk and Upshur counties, there were 131 incidents involving rail lines that left 14 people dead and 118 with non-fatal injuries.
Tim Vaughn, a Texas Rail Relocation and Improvement group partner and chairman of the East Texas Corridor Council, referred questions concerning the report to Amtrak personnel. Vaughn’s council is pursuing additional tracks to existing freight lines to relieve congestion both on rails and highways to improve safety, he said.
The safest year in American rail history was 2007, the final year of the report, according to Bruce Todd, the group’s executive director. Todd said despite 2007 improvements and sweeping Congressional legislation regarding rail, more needs to be done.
“In Texas, millions and millions of dollars are needed to improve the safety of our rail system, including rerouting freight tracks away from congested urban areas and fixing an assortment of dangerous at-grade rail crossings,” Todd said. “Far too many Texans are being killed and injured along our state’s rail lines.”
A Texas constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2005 was meant to fund rail relocation and improvement projects, but state lawmakers have yet to dedicate funding to pay for those projects, according to the report.
In a December press release, Union Pacific Railroad quoted a U.S. Department of Transportation report that 94 percent of all crossing incidents are caused by risky driver behavior.
“Drivers often put themselves and their passengers in harm’s way by unsafely ignoring railroad warnings such as bells, gates and lights,” Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza stated in the release. “Motor vehicle laws require drivers to stop at least 15 feet from the nearest rail at crossings when warning signals indicate a train is approaching.”
Espinoza did not respond to a phone call from the Longview News-Journal to her office and her mobile phone on Thursday. Union Pacific links 23 states in much of the western two-thirds of the U.S., including most rail lines in Longview.