The risks of crossing the line

With passengers on the lookout for flattened Fords or splintered sport utility vehicles, a Norfolk Southern train glided from Roanoke to Christiansburg and back on Wednesday.
Happily, there weren't any crushed cars or even close calls to witness, but the trip -- a safety awareness exercise -- offered a trainload of media, law enforcement officials and others a vivid look at the potential for carnage on the tracks.
The guests rode at the invitation of a safety organization on a special Norfolk Southern Corp. train watching televised images from a front-mounted camera pointed at the tracks ahead. The idea was to highlight the risky choices that drivers and trespassing pedestrians, who for their various reasons walk rail lines, make all too often.
"It's actually unfortunate we have to do this," said Clifford Eby, deputy administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.
Eby stood and announced this year's annual federal grant to Operation Lifesaver, the event's not-for-profit host. Operation Lifesaver said that thanks in part to its public education programs, collisions at railroad crossings dropped from 12,000 in 1972 to fewer than 3,000 last year.
Richard Brown, a division road foreman, said one of the main problems is impatience -- motorists in a hurry who drive around gates or otherwise disregard warnings.
The potential for train-human encounters is all too real in Western Virginia, where Botetourt County has 96 crossings; Roanoke County has 91; Salem has 19; and Radford, four. A figure for Roanoke was not available.
Pedestrians, a good many of them drunk or high, ambling along the tracks or rock ballast is another danger, Brown said.
According to the FRA, 368 motorists and passengers were killed nationwide last year in vehicle-train collisions at railroad crossings, while 530 trespassers died from injuries inflicted by trains. Virginia saw no crossing deaths involving vehicles, but seven pedestrian fatalities. Suicides are excluded.
The carnage has taken a toll on railroad personnel, who say it's horrible lifting deceased victims into body bags.
"You see tibulas and fibulas sticking up," Brown observed.
Elliston fire Chief M.L. "Pug" Wells said the threat is real. He recalled a farmer who drove across an unprotected crossing in Lafayette, in Montgomery County, only to be hit and killed by a train he could not see because of parked rail cars on an adjacent track. "We've got many others but not fatals," Wells said.
As a warning, engineers activate the train's whistle about 20 seconds before reaching a public crossing, routinely delivering two long blasts, a short blast and a long blast. That's except in those communities that have received federal approval to be no-whistle zones, such as Salem and Vinton. The existence of quiet zones "scares me to death," said Tom Sharp, manager of grade crossing safety for NS.
Wednesday's special train excursion pulled out of Roanoke shortly after 9 a.m. bound for Christiansburg on a westbound track. A woman in a van waited patiently at a crossing as she talked on a cellphone. Two Kroger big-rigs waited at another crossing. Between crossings, a few galloping deer darted carelessly in front of the approaching locomotive and scampered into the woods. Two boys on bicycles rode over a private crossing ahead of the train during a brief stop.
But, with 65 observers watching intently on camera monitors in two passenger cars, no one committed a citable offense, much less risked their neck by driving around crossing gates in the down position.
That was fine with the men driving the train. Coming upon a motorist or pedestrian on the tracks is a gut-wrenching thing, they said. It's every bit as traumatic as seeing a child run out in front of your car. But while a driver can stop quickly, an engineer powering a 12 million-pound train needs at least a mile to halt its 100 or more cars.
"It's heart-stopping," engineer Andy Townsend said.
By the time the train reaches the subject, "I've done everything I can," he said.
Do you close your eyes before impact?
"No," Townsend answered.