(The following article by Benjamin Niolet was posted on the Durham News and Observer website on March 30.)
DURHAM, N.C. — The railroad industry has a name for people who walk on railroad tracks: trespassers. Still, the broken beer bottles, the bed made from cushions and cardboard, the discarded sneaker along the railroad line in downtown Durham on Monday were signs that some view this place as a refuge.
Authorities have not yet identified the mangled bodies of two men killed Sunday by a 5,000-ton freight train. But a day later, people continued to walk across the tracks in downtown Durham, even as freight and passenger trains blared by.
Last year, 17 pedestrians were killed by trains in the state, the ninth-highest total in the country. In all other hazard categories, the state doesn’t rank in the top 15 nationwide, according to N.C. Operation Lifesaver, a rail safety organization.
Police say that in Sunday’s incident, the engineer sounded the horn, but the men on the tracks near the Roxboro Street bridge did not get out of the way. He also hit the brakes, but trains can take hundreds of yards to stop.
The railroad industry uses police and education to keep people off the tracks. But at times, it’s a losing campaign. The companies keep counselors ready to help the horrified rail crews, who can only watch as their machines end lives on the track.
“I go home at night and worry and contemplate and try to figure out what makes the human being attracted to a set of railroad tracks,” said Vivian Speight-Bridges, executive director of N.C. Operation Lifesaver.
Speight-Bridges said alcohol seems to play a part in many injuries and deaths. Some people use the trains to commit suicide. Other victims are homeless or drifters. Homeless people often take shelter under railroad viaducts. In many cities, homeless shelters or soup kitchens are close to railroad tracks and people may cross the line for a shortcut, she said.
Other homeless people, such as Josh Le Randall of Raleigh, say they use railroad tracks as a convenient path. Randall has been living in a tent on the east side of a track near Atlantic Avenue.
On Monday, word buzzed around Urban Ministries in Durham about the deaths. Talk at the shelter and kitchen was that one of the dead men might be someone known around the shelter, said Lloyd Schmeidler, executive director of Urban Ministries.
The line that runs along the southern edge of downtown would make a relatively flat and easy walking path from one end of downtown to the other, Schmeidler said.
“It doesn’t explain why they would not have heeded the train,” he said.
It remained unclear why the men were on the tracks and why they did not move as the ear-splitting horn and thundering noise of a 6,800-foot train got closer and louder. The stretch of track where they died is in view of the county offices and the Durham County jail. The men could have used wide grass margins on either side to get out of the way.
Speight-Bridges said research has shown that a train moving toward the observer at 70 miles per hour seems to move at the same speed as a train going 20 mph. By the time the observer realizes the difference, it might be too late.
Ernie Ringgold has been on the rails for 30 years. He is an engineer for Norfolk Southern who lives in New Bern. The types of track used and the engines on trains are much quieter than in years past, he said. Were it not for the blaring horn, trains might not make much noise. But even when they do, people sometimes don’t back off.
In the late 1970s, Ringgold was running a train in Eastern North Carolina. At a crossing, a small car raced into the path of the train. Ringgold had time to see a 3-year-old boy in the back seat pointing at him. The impact killed all four people inside.
“It’s something we just don’t ever forget,” he said.
Ringgold contemplated quitting his job but instead kept driving and started speaking for Operation Lifesaver.
Speight-Bridges does not call train fatalities “accidents” because she wants to underscore that the person would not be dead if the rules had been followed.
Norfolk Southern has its own police, who issue warnings and can even arrest people for trespassing on the line, said Robin Chapman, a company spokesman.
“We can’t patrol every mile of track,” Chapman said.