(The following story, written by Keith Uhlig, appeared in the 1-2-02 online issue of the Wausau Daily Herald.)
ROTHSCHILD, Wisc. — State and village officials are scrutinizing a railroad crossing that has been the site of two recent truck-train crashes in the span of two weeks.
The state Office of the Commissioner of Railroads has agreed to investigate the ungated, unlighted Morrison Avenue railroad crossing. That study will examine the crossing’s physical layout, sight lines, weather conditions during collisions and more, said Tom Running, rail safety analyst for the railroad commissioner’s office.
A Canadian National Railway Co. train struck a semitrailer Dec. 14, sending truck driver Ray Oreskovich of Ashland to the hospital. On Nov. 27, a pickup truck driven by Heather Baker of Mosinee was hit by a train. She was not seriously hurt in the accident.
Prior to that, there were six vehicle-train crashes at the intersection between 1977 and 2000, according to Federal Railroad Administration reports.
The crashes led Rothschild officials to ask the state railroad commissioner to investigate the crossing, and they are pursuing other avenues to make the area safer, said George Peterson, the village’s public works commissioner.
Peterson said Morrison Avenue is on the village’s schedule for resurfacing and widening, and officials are exploring the possibility of moving the intersection of Morrison and Business Highway 51 and installing traffic signals. Those are preliminary ideas, he cautioned, but they could make both the crossing and the intersection safer.
The road could be busier than ever during construction of Wisconsin Public Service Corp.’s planned power plant in Rothschild, Peterson said. Estimates are that 700 workers could be used to build the plant, which still is undergoing the state approval process.
The Montreal-based Canadian National Railway hasn’t received formal notice of the crossing investigation, said Jack Burke, company spokesman.
According to a notice of investigation released by the OCR, the railroad will pay the cost of the investigation.
“We’ll certainly give it the consideration it’s worth,” Burke said.
But the crossing’s history leads Burke to think the last two collisions, so close together in time, are an anomaly.
“We’re not going to dissuade any state investigation they think is merited,” Burke said. “However, we’re not giving them a blank check for charges of their efforts, either.”
He said the railroad company locomotives are equipped with “event recorders” that note when the train’s brakes were engaged, the speed of the train, when the horn was blasted and other information.
Rothschild Police Chief Bill Schremp said the investigation of the latest crash is ongoing.
Oreskovich, who at one time was in critical condition at Community Health Care Wausau Hospital, is now at home and feeling better, but he said his attorney advised him not to speak about the crash.