Published: May 15, 2008 05:45 pm         

Tickets increase railway safety, awareness says BNSF

Thirteen citations were issued by the Gainesville Police Department for illegal railroad crossing Wednesday afternoon.

BNSF Railway, in conjunction with the Gainesville Police Department, set up two train engines back-to-back with a mission of running from the BNSF rail yard to various points south of Main Street several times from between 2 and 5 p.m. One of the goals was to show representatives of area media outlets how many motorists cross railroad tracks illegally.

Gainesville Police cruisers waited at every intersection, with officers poised to give tickets to any motorist crossing tracks prematurely.

J.A. White, of the BNSF police department, said during a briefing to Gainesville officers that the purpose was not to raise revenue or to give tickets but to increase awareness of railway safety.

“In all of my years of doing this, we’ve never had an instance where someone didn’t run the tracks,” he said. “So it’s going to happen today.”

White said there are more safety issues at stake than just the well-being of the driver gunning it across the tracks. He said, for example, if a car cuts across the tracks in front of a slow-moving train, that engineer may have to brake and stop the engine. Once the train comes to an emergency stop, the engineer must walk outside and inspect each wheel of the train on each side before resuming his route. In the process, the train could block several intersections. Also, he said, especially if there are hazardous materials involved, an evacuation could be required in the event of a derailment.

White explained that crossing a railway is a violation as long as the red lights are flashing. It’s a violation to cross until the lights darken, he added.

“State law says you don’t move until you see the gates go all the way up and the lights extinguish,” he said.

However, White added, an officer must use his or her judgment in situations where a train is stalled on the tracks near an intersection. White said it’s a good idea for a motorist not to move in front of a stalled train if the train is blowing its horn.

Ralph Banks, a bus driver for the Gainesville ISD, said he was put in a questionable situation due to Wednesday’s maneuvers.

Banks said he received a call from another bus driver that a GISD bus was pulled over by police at the Broadway crossing. Banks said he was suspicious of the dual-engine train and decided to stop and not cross the railway at Moss Street with it so near.

Banks said he passed California and Main to get around the slow-moving short train.

“Then I go on down to Moss Street, and I pull up. And I lock my brakes, open the doors, open the windows, and there’s a train about 200 yards down the tracks, and it doesn’t look like its moving,” he said. “I didn’t know what was going on, so I stayed there.”

Banks noted that the crossing gates were up and lights off. But he remembered from bus driver training that an accident between a bus and a train is the “worst kind of disaster,” he said. He waited about 3-5 minutes at the crossing, and saw a nearby police officer.

He said an officer approached the bus and advised Banks he would not receive a ticket if he crossed the intersection.

“I told him he could give me all the tickets he wanted to,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re doing it for revenue, or what.”

Banks said he felt it was the equivalent of a speed trap and perhaps could have been conducted at a better time.

Gainesville Police Chief Steven Fleming said officers distributed about 450 pamphlets at railroad crossings Saturday to teach safety at crossings, and waited until Wednesday to begin the enforcement end of the operation.

Capt. Kevin Phillips of the Gainesville Police Department, who rode on the train and coordinated communication with officers on the streets via radio, said he got a better perspective of how fast a train moves.

After reporters unboarded the train, he said the train ran at about 55 mph.

“You could see, even running at slow speeds, how dangerous it is for a car to cross. And it’s even more dangerous at higher speeds — a fast-moving train is nearly impossible to stop,” Phillips said.

He continued: “I personally didn’t expect us to see that many citations. I hope that through the different ways, that people who got the tickets tell others and people who saw the tickets being given tell their friends.”

Reporter Andy Hogue may be contacted at andyhoguegdr@ntin.net