HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — According to the Huntsville Times, a lighted warning signal for a Moontown Road railroad crossing was supposed to have been installed by now. Instead, what catches the eye are the white crosses, memorials to two men killed there last summer.
Now, it will be March at the earliest before work begins, officials say, even though Norfolk Southern Corp. and the Alabama Department of Transportation promised to speed up the project at the urging of Gov. Don Siegelman.
Madison County and DOT officials say they’re ready to start work and are just waiting on Norfolk Southern. Railroad company officials say it takes time to work out all agreements between the company and local and state transportation agencies and to design a plan for the crossing. Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Susan Terpay said today that her company’s crossing plan got state approval Dec. 2 and the project is moving along in good time. Norfolk Southern has been working “diligently” with the state to get the project done, she said.
James “Clayton” Sisk, 25, of Brownsboro died at the Moontown Road crossing July 12. Three weeks later on Aug. 2, Brent Hyatt, a 17-year-old senior at New Hope High School, was killed there.
The state DOT said in August that it had flagged the Moontown crossing in April as needing electronic warning devices. The officials also said in August that the project would get priority attention at the urging of Siegelman. That, they said, should avoid the typical 12- to 18-month lag from approval to installation. Terpay also said in August that DOT-recommended signal lights, warning bells and cross gates could be installed and working within four months if all design, legal, engineering and maintenance agreements went smoothly.
The delays are heart-wrenching for victims’ relatives.
“They don’t seem to care,” said Ronnie Moore, Sisk’s stepbrother. “I don’t go up there where Clayton was killed. I can’t do that.”
His brother’s wife, Shawna, is raising the couple’s four children; one is an infant and the oldest is 5. “Every day they go to his grave site,” Moore said. “It’s hard.”
George Hyatt Sr., Brent Hyatt’s grandfather, said the Hyatt family is equally frustrated. “They were supposed to be up by now,” Hyatt said of the warning signals, “but they’re not. It bothers us.”
Wes Elrod, assistant bureau chief of DOT’s multimodal bureau, said this week that installation of lighted warning signals should begin by March at the crossings at Moontown and Dug Hill roads. As required by law, a white sign with an “X” on it or a pole holding two white pieces of wood that make an “X” now mark the Moontown and Dug Hill crossings.
Six people have been killed and 13 hurt in car-train collisions in Madison County since 1992. All of those deaths and injuries were concentrated at eight of the county’s 86 crossings. Of those eight crossings, half are in the Brownsboro area.
The Dug Hill crossing, less than two miles from the Moontown crossing, also has a history of car-train accidents. Most recently, Bobby Wayne Isbell II, 25, of Brownsboro died in July 2001 when the dump truck he was driving struck a train.
Federal money will pay the estimated $120,000 cost for each crossing upgrade. Norfolk Southern crews will install and maintain the electronic signals, the state DOT will oversee the work, and Madison County will maintain the crossings. Elrod said the state is just waiting on Norfolk Southern.
The county is also waiting. Phil Renfroe, with the county engineer’s office, said the county’s only involvement is to extend a drainage pipe at the Moontown site. That can’t be done, he said, until Norfolk Southern is ready to install the warning signals. Terpay said Thursday that Norfolk Southern has crews working on crossings in 21 states and installed 535 last year. She said the railroad is scheduling the Moontown Road project.
The state uses a national formula to rank crossings by “potential for problems.” Those with the highest priority rating are upgraded first. Engineers consider the volume of train and car traffic at the crossing, accident history and how the road lies in relation to the crossing. They also look at train schedules, train speeds, warning signals, use by hazardous materials transporters and other hazards such as buildings or overgrown vegetation.
With so many factors, car-train collisions — even fatal ones — carry less weight than victims’ families might expect, a Federal Railroad Administration spokesman said last summer. Recently, Norfolk Southern began replacing cross ties near the Moontown Road crossing as part of routine maintenance.
“Basically, they’ve made a big mess,” said Jack Williamson, chief of the Central Volunteer Fire Department, “but we still don’t have any kind of warning out here.”
Now that installation of the electronic warnings has been pushed back, Williamson said, residents of the area feel they got empty promises.
“Brent’s family were planning to start taking donations to try to get something done at the intersection,” he said. “When they were promised something would be done soon, they put those plans on hold.”
Residents would be happy with at least a caution light at the crossing, he said. “It’s not that complicated,” said Williamson, an engineer. “But here we are, all these months later, still waiting.”