Ohio county railroad crossing deemed dangerous

A Clinton County, Ohio, railroad crossing has been called "a dire safety hazard" and a "very dangerous intersection" by current and former railroad safety advocates, as well as by one Ohio foundation that works to make the nation's railways safer, the News Journal reports.

The crossing, on Stone
Road near State Route 22, has been reported nine times to the Angels on Track
Foundation as a "dangerous crossing" because of overgrown vegetation and a
sharp angle which make spotting oncoming trains difficult, said Vicky Moore,
founder of Angels on Track.

"There are no gates on
this crossing, only a sign which acts as a yield sign," Moore said. "But how can
you yield to something you can’t even see?"

Ohio law says the owner
of the railroad, Indiana and Ohio Railway, is responsible for maintaining the
visibility of the intersection "for a distance of 600 feet from the roadway."
Numerous calls to RailAmerica, the parent company that owns the Indiana and
Ohio line, were not returned on Wednesday.

Moore said the IAOR
trimmed the overgrown Stone Road vegetation once in 2008 but it has since grown
back.

The Clinton County
Engineer’s office said they attempt to contact railway owners whenever a
complaint is filed about a crossing, but rarely is action taken.

"I’m not saying they
never respond, but they are very hard to get a hold of," said County Engineer
Jeff Linkous.

Of the 68 railroad
crossings in Clinton County, 14 have been reported to Moore’s organization,
which is based in Salineville. Only one other crossing, on Starbuck Road, has
been reported multiple times. Twelve have been reported once. Twenty-one
traffic accidents have been recorded at Clinton County crossings since 1990,
according to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which regulates railroad
safety. In that time, only one accident occurred at the Stone Road crossing.

"Basically what we want
to do is document the hazards, so if something happens, the people who are
responsible for the railroad can be held accountable," Moore said.

To be sure, Moore has a
reason to care about railroad safety. Her son Ryan and two of his friends were
killed in 1995 when a car he was riding in was struck by an oncoming train.
Moore’s other son, Jason, was driving the car, and he was "inching forward onto
the track to get a better view" when a train struck the back of the car, she
said. All three backseat passengers were killed.

"There were no gates on
that crossing, either," Moore said. "Had there been a gate, my son would still
be here today."

When someone submits a
Dangerous Crossing Report on Moore’s website, angelsontrack.org, a copy of the
report is instantly sent to the two state agencies who regulate railroad
crossing safety, the Ohio Rail Development Commission and PUCO.

Cathy Stout, a PUCO
safety manager, said there are many criteria that her agency and ORDC use to
determine if a crossing requires a gate, flashing lights or just a "crossbuck"
sign similar to the Stone Road crossing.

"The number of trains in
a day, the amount of traffic, the number of accidents at the site, among other
things, are all factors in deciding [which crossings get gates]," Stout said.

Another factor is the
number of school buses that cross the tracks each day, she said. The Federal
Railroad Administration lists the number of daily bus routes that cross Stone
Road as zero. But Jo Vance, supervisor of transportation for Wilmington City
Schools, said one bus crosses the tracks twice every day. A transportation
representative from East Clinton local school district said her buses normally
cross the tracks too, but recently there have been no students living on Stone
Road who use the bus service.

Bruce Beam was one of the
Clinton County residents who filed a Dangerous Crossing Report for the
intersection. A retired locomotive engineer of 17 years, Beam said he cares "greatly
about railroad safety, and so do railroad companies."

"That crossing is a dire
safety hazard," he said. "People have to use extreme caution when crossing it."

Beam was driving to work
along Stone Road early one morning in 2009. Because it was dark, Beam said he
almost didn’t notice that a train had stopped on the tracks until he came close
to wrecking into it.

"You ever step on a pop
can? That’s exactly the sound it makes when a train hits a car," he said. "You
don’t have much of a chance if you get hit. A few of us in this state are
trying to make sure that no one is killed or maimed at these crossings."