(The following story by Alison Bath appeared on the Shreveport Times website on February 2, 2009.)
SHREVEPORT, La. — On a hot August afternoon in 2001, Marian Kemp loaded her four young daughters into the family car for the trip home after a visit to the Bienville Parish Library in Arcadia.
Minutes later, Kitti Kemp, 5, was near death. Three-year-old Lillian Kemp’s skull was crushed. Daughters Melanie Prud’Homme, 10, and LaShara James, 6, were seriously injured. And, Marian, 32, was clinging to life.
At 3:30 p.m. on that 100-degree, clear summer day, a Kansas City Southern Railway Co. train — powered by two locomotives, carrying 110 cars and traveling at least 35 mph — collided with the Ford Expedition Marian was driving.
The downtown Arcadia rail crossing had been newly equipped with flashing lights and safety gates — but they were left disabled at the railroad company’s order, according to court records.
The Times’ investigation of federal train safety records reveals that’s not the only time KCS or another rail carrier appears to have disabled a rail crossing warning system, leaving a crossing unprotected and drivers and their passengers vulnerable to a train/vehicle crash.
Federal Railroad Administration inspectors have discovered those and nearly 1,500 other flaws in safety equipment at statewide highway/rail crossings — including ones in Shreveport and Bossier City — between 1997 and 2007.
Few of those defects, even the most serious and blatant, resulted in punitive action to the responsible railroad. More often, the railroad involved simply was told to fix the problem but didn’t have to report when it was corrected.
A majority of crossings in the state, including those involved in fatal accidents, weren’t inspected by federal officials between 2003 and 2007. Many crossings haven’t been inspected in more than 10 years.
That’s because the railroad administration mainly relies on railroad companies to self-police when it comes to inspecting, testing and maintaining safety equipment at rail crossings nationwide, a practice that outrages crossing safety advocates and families of victims killed in train/vehicle crashes.
“That’s kind of like the fox watching the hen house,” said state Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Marksville, who had a friend involved in a crash. Johnson authored a law passed during the 2008 Legislature that created a statewide program authorizing as many as six workers to inspect railroad facilities and paperwork.
KCS declined to comment on the Arcadia crash or respond to other questions asked by The Times. There are no federal records indicating any wrongdoing or action taken against the rail carrier as a result of the Arcadia crash.
However, other railroad representatives contacted by The Times said guaranteeing the safety of workers and the public is a preeminent concern. Rail companies regularly provide compliance reports to the railroad administration and their rail crossings are subject to federal inspection at any time, they said.
“Safety is a top priority for Union Pacific,” wrote Union Pacific Railway spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza-Williams in an e-mail response. “All UP employees share in the responsibility of operating a safe and efficient railroad.”
Federal officials insist rail crossing safety is ensured through an effective inspection program and efforts to secure rail carrier cooperation. They underscore, however, the inspections are just one part of a multifaceted approach — enforcement, education and engineering — jointly shared by other regulatory agencies, railroads and citizens themselves.
“Given the resources allocated for this purpose and given the total number of accident incidents, we believe our regulatory oversight contributes responsibly to the overall level of safety,” railroad administration spokesman Warren Flatau said. “However, one collision or fatality is one too many and that underscores the need for a multifacility approach.”
Federal records analyzed
The Times’ reviewed hundreds of federal inspection records and other documents related to Louisiana rail crossings from 1997 to 2007. The analysis included all inspections furnished by the Federal Railroad Administration through a Freedom of Information Act request. Those records were provided as electronic photocopies, which were downloaded and put into a Microsoft Access database and analyzed.
They showed:
• At least 1,473 defects, from burned out light bulbs to poor maintenance of flashing lights units, warning system failure or malfunction, and more, found at statewide crossings with active warning systems.
• Despite such violations as failing to report warning system failures and disabling safety equipment without warning highway drivers, few railroads were penalized by federal inspectors for their actions.
• Eight of 10 rail crossings involved in some of the area’s most recent fatal accidents were not inspected by federal officials in at least 11 years. Those include the Ruston crossing at which 19-year-old Hannah McFarland, Miss Minden, was killed in June 2007.
• Between 2000 and March 2007, warning systems at statewide crossings failed to properly activate in at least 179 instances when a train passed through. Some of those crossings, such as one near Blanchard, had multiple activation failures.
• At least 112 times railroad companies failed to file required paperwork, perform mandatory tests, or fulfill other federal records and reporting requirements.
• Flashing lights that weren’t visible to drivers or poorly maintained lights whose effectiveness, as a result, was questionable were among the most commonly cited defects. Other frequent defects included a component in the warning system that caused failure or malfunction, warning system plans that were not accurate or posted at the crossing as required, and signs that were not in good condition.
Railroads versus citizens
Activist Vicky Moore, who heads the rail safety advocacy group Angels on Track in Salineville, Ohio, says few railroad inspectors — Louisiana has just one assigned to most of the state — and a system that relies on railroads to self-report their mistakes means many defects aren’t noticed and repaired. As a result, drivers are left defenseless.
Moore and others say they are confident more independent rail crossing inspections would find higher numbers of defects and more instances where railroads failed to file required paperwork, report warning system failures or malfunctions, or properly test and inspect warning systems.
“You have to depend on the railroad to say their equipment isn’t working properly and accept responsibility for the maintenance,” said Moore, whose 16-year-old son Ryan was killed at an Ohio crossing in 1995. “When (an accident) happens, naturally, they are going to blame the driver … when they know the equipment isn’t working properly.”
Warning system data recorders could show if a crossing’s safety equipment was properly functioning at the time of an accident. But seldom are these analyzed by police or federal investigators. Railroad companies often keep proprietary control of the data and are reticent to share, Moore said.
There are some local examples that support Moore’s assertions. For example, witnesses to a February 2007 accident at a Hollywood Avenue and Mansfield Road crossing in Shreveport reported problems with safety equipment at the time of a crash that killed 66-year-old Carroll Hughes. However, a check with Shreveport police reveals those claims never were fully investigated. Police reports indicated the equipment was functioning upon the investigating officer’s arrival.
In the Arcadia 2001 crash involving the Kemp family, federal accident records simply indicate that Marian Kemp failed to stop and was hit by the train. The records don’t show that the crossing’s lights weren’t working and covered with black trash bags and crossing gates removed. They don’t indicate that similar equipment — also installed at about the same time — at crossings within hundreds of yards of where Marian and her children were hit by a train were working.
“That’s one of the things our foundation is fighting — the stereotypical assumption it’s always the driver’s fault that is fed by the railroads themselves,” Moore said.
The Kemp case is not the only time KCS may have disabled a crossing and left it unprotected.
In 2004, the Federal Railroad Administration fined KCS — one of the country’s largest rail carriers — $12,500 for disabling a warning system at a Gonzales area crossing with a history of train/vehicle accidents. Despite a federal law requiring KCS to do so, the company also didn’t report to the administration within the specified 15 days that the crossing’s warning system failed to activate on June 4 of that same year when one of its trains roared through the unprotected crossing. After arbitration, KCS was assessed $9,000 for the incident.
And, more recently, police say the warning system at a crossing in Minden owned by KCS wasn’t functioning in December when a car was hit by another rail carrier’s train. Federal officials are investigating that accident and its possible causes.
KCS isn’t alone. Over an 11-year period, KCS and other rail carriers, such as Union Pacific and Canadian National Railway, disabled or interfered with statewide crossing warning systems at least 24 times without ensuring the safety of drivers. And at least three times, railroad companies flouted federal law failing to determine the cause of a warning system failure or malfunction at crossings, including one in Shreveport.
Additionally, federal rail inspectors discovered more than 100 instances where rail companies failed to file or complete required paperwork, perform mandatory tests and inspections, or fulfill other records and reporting requirements.
“Railroads are notorious for doing the minimum on crossing maintenance,” said Larry Farnham, an engineer who designed many of the rail crossing safety systems in use today and now is a rail crossing safety consultant based in Missouri. “Most major railroads are doing the minimum monthly inspections.”
None of the six major railroad companies contacted by The Times was willing to share the exact annual amount they spent on crossing maintenance, testing and inspection in Louisiana.
UP, Norfolk Southern Corp. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway responded to The Times’ inquiry and provided details about the number of crossings for which they were responsible and other information about their safety, inspection and maintenance programs.
Norfolk Southern spokeswoman Susan M. Terpay said the average annual maintenance cost for an automatic warning device — flashing lights or flashing lights and gates — was $3,000. Using that information, the newspaper was able to determine that Norfolk Southern, which is responsible for 51 crossings with automatic warning systems across the state, pays about $153,000 yearly for maintenance. The company is responsible for 212 crossings in Louisiana.
An informational pamphlet sent to The Times by Burlington Northern spokesman Joseph Faust stated the railroad company spends about $38 million annually on signal maintenance and repair at the more than 26,500 crossings it owns nationwide. But the pamphlet did not include specific costs for the 405 public and private crossings the company has in Louisiana.
However, Burlington Northern inspects “key corridors” four times a week and “heavily-traveled” routes across its more than 32,000-mile national network are inspected daily. Those inspections include a review of active warning devices, according to the pamphlet.
Espinoza-Williams, UP spokeswoman, said because the responsibility for crossing safety and maintenance spanned across as many as six company departments, it was difficult to pinpoint the number of workers assigned and associated costs at the 1,442 crossings it maintains in Louisiana.
“It is impossible to provide an exact amount spent on crossing maintenance, repairs and inspections because there are many different facets involved and we have many people spending a good portion of their time on crossing safety priorities and other projects,” Espinoza-Williams said.
Inspection program working
Federal officials are candid about their inability to inspect all crossings and acknowledge they are powerless to force railroads to report when problems are corrected. But they said they are confident issues are properly resolved.
“A lot of the signal defects are fixed on the spot and inspectors witness the correction,” said Tom McFarlin, railroad administration staff director in the signal and control division. “Virtually all of those are fixed by (railroad) maintenance folks that are right there.”
Getting that response and cooperation from railroads is a more effective means of ensuring rail crossing safety than harsh monetary penalties, railroad administration spokesman Flatau said.
Point of fact: Although inspectors found hundreds of defects statewide between 2003 and 2007, they only initiated a violation — a more serious federal action — for the railroad involved 31 times. Between 2003 and 2005, there were only seven instances where railroads, Union Pacific, KCS and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, ultimately were fined for infractions, federal records show.
“The agency’s regulatory position for all administrations and throughout our history (is) to achieve bottom-line compliance,” Flatau said. “Civil penalties are typically reserved for those situations where more conventional enforcement actions have not been successful in getting compliance.”
Flautau also pointed out that while alarming, activation failures and related warning system malfunctions are rare and seldom cited as accident causes.
“Year to year, it’s something like less than 1 percent of these incidents would be caused by that type of malfunction,” Flatau said. “One of the things we do know is that half of the collisions that do occur are at locations that have active lights and gates. There are, unfortunately, some motorists that are impatient or exercise poor judgment and take unnecessary chances and in some circumstances, unfortunately, accidents happen.”
That does little to assuage the families and friends of victims killed or injured in train/vehicle accidents.
Kitti Kemp died as a result of her injuries. Sister Lillian Kemp was left with serious brain damage, showing signs of dementia or early Alzheimer’s disease. Sisters Melanie Prud’Homme and LaShara James recovered from their injuries but bear the emotional scars of that crash.
And the girls’ mother, Marian, was left severely disabled, semi-comatose, partially paralyzed on her right side, and unable to communicate, court records and newspaper accounts revealed.
KCS eventually agreed to pay the family $37.5 million in October 2006 to help take care of Marian and her children. The money is small compensation for a family wrecked by a preventable accident, one of the family’s lawyers said.
“This particular case was really heartbreaking — it was so senseless and it did so much damage,” said Johnny Dollar, a Monroe-based lawyer, who represented the Kemp family in a lawsuit against KCS. “They’ve been through a horrible ordeal.”