(The following story by David Patch appeared on the Toledo Blade website on September 18.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — To save a little money on gas, Scott Monnett and his two stepsons decided yesterday to walk — instead of driving — from their Oak Street home to do an errand on Woodville Road.
But when they decided to use railroad tracks along the way as a shortcut, they walked right into an afternoon anti-trespassing stakeout set up by the Norfolk Southern Railway’s police department in East Toledo.
“I’m trying to save gas, and footing it’s a lot cheaper than $4 per gallon,” Mr. Monnett said while railroad police ran a background check to see if he or stepsons Keith Burford and Justin Hanner had any outstanding warrants or prior trespassing warnings. “And when you’re walking, you try to take the shortest distance between two points. We’re not doing anything illegal other than walking.”
But to the police officers, led by local supervisor Dan De la Paz and Lou Kellison, Norfolk Southern’s manager of facilities security, using railroad tracks as a short cut is a serious issue because of the potential for serious injury. While people might make it across safely a vast majority of the time, the injuries and deaths that often occur when they don’t “are terrible things for families to go through” and are also very disruptive to railroad operations, Mr. Kellison said.
“It’s a real lose-lose situation for everyone involved,” he said.
Mr. Kellison said Norfolk Southern chose Toledo for one of six two-day education and enforcement efforts it conducts annually because of 22 trespassing-related injuries or deaths in the city during the past three years. Nationwide, there have been an annual average of 500 deaths and 500 injuries over the past five years to people who were on railroad property illegally, according to the railroad.
During the two days, which ended yesterday, the railroad deployed extra police officers to patrol its main east-west rail line through Toledo along with several tracks that join it in the city. They also visited schools and businesses near the tracks to meet with staff and distribute safety literature.
A Toledo police crew provided back up for the stakeout effort.
Mr. Monnett and his stepsons were observed crossing the main line between East Broadway and Fassett Street during a stakeout the police set up yesterday as classes let out at nearby Oakdale Elementary and East Toledo Junior High schools, because students have been seen using the tracks as a shortcut in the past.
Ishmael Moya, 8, was caught walking across the tracks near East Broadway, and explained that it was a shorter way from school to his home on nearby Vinal Street.
“It was the first time; I thought it’d be quicker,” he said after talking with the railroad officers, who advised him to go back to using the nearby East Broadway underpass in the future.
A while later, while several officers entered Mr. Monnett’s and his stepsons’ names into a database, another man was detained while walking along the tracks, Mr. Kellison said. That man’s explanation was that he had to walk because his driver’s license was suspended for drunken driving, the security manager said.
Mr. Monnett said he understood that the railroad police were “just doing their job” and pledged to take a legal route home when he and his stepsons returned from their errand.
Mr. De la Paz said there are some spots used so frequently by shortcut takers that “they’re wearing a path across our right-of-way.” During the 12 months that ended Sept. 1, he said, Norfolk Southern police in Toledo issued 131 warnings and made 19 trespassing arrests. Many of 131 warnings involved groups, so the actual number of people warned was higher.
All of those intercepted during the stakeout yesterday were released with verbal warnings, but the railroad police said that if any of them is found on Norfolk Southern property again, criminal trespassing charges could be filed.
“A large majority of the people we’re dealing with don’t associate the danger and illegality with what they’re doing,” Mr. Kellison said, adding later, “Safety is our priority. A warning and ejection [are] just as effective as actually charging somebody most of the time.”