(The following story by Fred Afflerbach appeared on the Temple Daily Telegram website on July 31, 2009.)
TEMPLE, Texas — An executive vice president for Delta Centrifugal Corp. said he is “livid” with the railroad company whose trains sandwiched a fire truck between two rail crossings and cost firefighters precious time reaching a fire at his manufacturing facility on Tuesday night.
The fire truck that responded to the call was only a minute away, finishing up on a nearby medical emergency, and had an opportunity to attack the fire at an early stage. But the driver was forced to make a U-turn when the alarm and crossing arms on Center Street dropped before them. Circling around the other entrance, firefighters were again thwarted by a train, this one stopped.
All told, two trains blocked three crossings, rendering the fire truck helpless to reach the fire.
“They are not supposed to block both entrances into this area,” Mark A. Anderson said. “And they had trains on both of them blocking it, and the fire trucks sitting right across the street there . . . and the fire’s just burning. We could have limited the damage significantly had they been able to get in there and stop it.”
Anderson isn’t the only one upset with how BNSF operates in the industrial park, where tracks run both to the north and south of several manufacturing businesses.
“We’re trapped if there’s one on both sides,” said Judy Wilson, officer manager at Permocast Corp., just a few blocks from Delta. “And they just stop there and sit. I don’t know if they’re changing cars or what. It is a problem. What about somebody getting hurt also? The ambulance can’t get here. It’s very scary.”
Ms. Wilson said she’s complained to the railroad several times, but that was years ago. Still, with Temple’s manufacturing base growing, she’s adamant “something needs to be done.”
Temple Economic Development Corp. President Lee Peterson said he’s heard complaints about blocked tracks in the park, but mostly as an inconvenience to workers. The problem, he said, is that without the railroads there would be fewer jobs in the area.
“So we’ve kind of got a two-edged sword there in delivering rail cars to folks and getting people in and out of the park,” Peterson said. “Most of the time it works really good. This time it didn’t work well at all. That one little spot there, evidently is a difficult place.”
Peterson said the current Rail Park extension, now under way nearby, should provide some relief to the busy rail section near Delta and other businesses on Center Street. Completion is expected this fall.
Temple city ordinance prohibits trains from blocking a railroad crossing for more than five minutes unless they are rolling or engaged in switching. But the law doesn’t address the situation in which two trains simultaneously block adjacent crossings.
Looking at a 2005 opinion from Texas Attorney Greg Abbott, that law may not have many teeth. Abbott opines two 1995 federal acts from transportation agencies would preempt city ordinances.
BNSF Director of Public Affairs Joe Faust said the railroad keeps in close contact with emergency crews. But moving a train can be like turning a battleship.
“We work very hard with all emergency responders in every area we operate. And there is a plan. We’ve also done so with the emergency responders there in Temple, Texas,” Faust said. “We acted as swiftly as we could. “
That statement is little comfort to Anderson back at Delta. Although damage to their facility was confined to office space, and local production for customers as far away as Asia was uninterrupted, he says something has to give.
“I am livid over it,” Anderson said. “They haven’t heard the end of it because we’re going to investigate what kind of action we can take against them.”