(The following article by Bonnie Rochman was posted on the News & Observer website on August 25.)
ABOARD OPERATION LIFESAVER TRAIN, N.C. — The train ride was supposed to be a real-life lesson about the potential perils of railroad crossings, but not even the organizers really expected the passengers to see a car trying to outrun a locomotive.
But there it was, a quicksilver blur of blue as what looked like a sport utility vehicle dodged the lowering crossing gate and darted in front of the approaching train.
Brian Matthews, a Hillsborough police officer, was stunned.
“That driver just shot across the track,” he said moments later. “You hear about how this happens, but then to see it for yourself, it’s unbelievable.”
CROSSING SAFETY
Nationwide since 1994, close to 5,100 people have been killed while trespassing on railroad rights of way and nearby property, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Here are some driving tips:
* Never drive around lowered gates.
* Never race a train to the crossing.
* Cross tracks only at designated crossings.
* If your car stalls on a crossing, get out immediately. Call police for help.
Every two hours, a train hits a person or a vehicle somewhere in the United States, according to N.C. Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit rail safety organization that sponsored Wednesday’s journey from Raleigh to Greensboro and back.
The group is trying to raise awareness about the importance of being safe around trains and the tracks they travel. So Wednesday, they corralled politicians, law enforcement officers and reporters on a train to give riders a sense of what it’s like to be the engineer about to slam into someone or something.
During Operation Lifesaver Train, passengers could see the track from the train crew’s perspective, courtesy of a television that showed real-time video relayed from a camera mounted on the diesel engine.
Most of the journey was uneventful, with the screen showing a dizzying picture of empty track rushing by. But between Raleigh and Durham, there was the SUV incident. And on the way back, near the State Fairgrounds, passengers spotted a vagrant clinging to the outside of a passing freight train.
Last year in North Carolina, 76 railroad crossing collisions left 12 people dead. Twenty more people died in trespassing incidents, usually someone walking or riding a bike along the tracks.
Earlier this month, two men in a dump truck were killed by an oncoming passenger train as they attempted to skirt a lowered crossing gate at Rush Street off Hammond Road in Southeast Raleigh.
A car traveling at 55 mph takes about 200 feet to stop, said Gene Robinson, a Norfolk Southern conductor and an Operation Lifesaver presenter. Compare that with a loaded freight train, which can take a mile or more to stop; that’s almost the length of 18 football fields.
So even if the conductor sees someone on the tracks, there’s no way to stop the train in time.
Robinson knows.
After 33 years on the job, he can’t count the number of trains he has been on that have hit people. Once, a drunk man emerged from a thicket alongside the tracks and tried to leap on the moving train. He missed, and the train severed his leg. As the conductor — in charge of the train — Robinson was first on the scene.
“It’s hard to describe,” he said. “Your adrenaline starts pumping, and you race back to try to help.”
Many of the problems happen at or near crossings. But railroad officials are also battling teens who head to the tracks to party. In other parts of the country, “train surfing” is plaguing the railroads. People wait on a bridge for a train to approach, then they jump off and try to land on the train.
The state Department of Transportation decides which crossings need signals or gates based on the amount of traffic and the number of accidents or other incidents there. It can cost as much as $250,000 to install a set of gates.
There are more than 4,000 public crossings in North Carolina, but less than half have flashing lights and gates, said Julie Jarema, DOT spokeswoman. Many crossings in rural areas have just the black and white crossbucks, the signs with the quintessential “X” that stands for “railroad crossing.”
“That’s why it’s so important to stop and look,” she said.