Who are the rail trespassers?

I always have mixed feelings when I read statistics that show the continuing decline in rail fatalities. I’m delighted that far fewer people are being injured or killed, but I’m saddened because so many of these incidents were totally avoidable.

Railroads recorded 55 fatalities in January, a 17.9-percent decline from the 67 deaths reported in January 2007, according to Federal Railroad Administration statistics released March 31. Grade- crossing fatalities were down 27.3 percent to 23 and trespassing deaths dropped 12.1 percent to 29. There was only one employee fatality in January, compared with three in the same month last year.

Total accidents and incidents declined 11.0 percent to 961 in January. Train accidents were down 4.7 percent to 203 and derailments declined 8.7 percent to 147, though collisions increased 12.5 percent to 18. Yard accidents declined 8.1 percent to 228.

The problem with these numbers, good as they are, is that they’re just numbers. There’s no way they can reflect the grief of the families of those involved, the lives torn apart, the missing fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters who will never be seen again.

And they can’t reflect the emotions of the train crews who operated the equipment involved in these accidents. It’s easy to say there was nothing they could do. We all know the laws of physics prevent trains from stopping on a dime. That’s fine intellectually, but emotionally it just doesn’t do the job. Counseling can help, but the individual railroaders have to actually process the emotions.

People trespassing on railroad property represent a significant percentage of all train-related fatalities, totally almost 500 per year. I have a particularly difficult time when I hear about this kind of accident because they simply do not have to happen.

Apparently some folks in government also wondered why these accidents are happening and they conducted a study.

According to FRA, “In order to better understand who is trespassing, their locations and the reasons they are on railroad property, FRA issued a report using three years of reported trespasser fatalities. Medical examiners and coroners across the country were surveyed, and, based on the best information available from those who elected to participate in the study, the average trespasser is most often a 38-year-old Caucasian male under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, with a median household income of $36,000. More than 25 percent did not graduate from high school, and 18 percent were determined to be suicides.”

Only 13 percent were female.

The report, Rail-Trespasser Fatalities: Developing Demographic Profiles, includes a state-by-state breakdown and shows California and Texas recording the highest number of such events. The report strongly recommends additional demographic analysis to reinforce and expand on these results in order to develop targeted educational and outreach programs and law enforcement initiatives to reduce the number of rail trespassing incidents. The 78-page report is available at http://www.fra.dot.gov/downloads/safety/tdreport_final.pdf.

Consultants have recommended that FRA work with railroads to confirm or refute that the assumption that those in this study are representative of all trespassers.

Also, FRA should require reporting of all deaths while trespassing, including suicides. The consultants recommended that FRA work with suicide prevention groups to develop a response kit for distribution to local media outlets following railroad suicides and that the agency convene a meeting of principal stakeholders to present the report’s findings and discuss outreach options.

I’d be very interested in learning what options there are. Some one impaired by drugs or alcohol by definition isn’t using good sense, so how do you keep them off the tracks? But I sincerely hope people with more expertise than I have will come up with some viable solutions to a problem that just shouldn’t exist.