Cobb Teens Hit By Train in “Quiet Zone”
Decatur Metro | March 14, 2010As Decatur considers installing railroad “quiet zones” at the Candler and McDonough road crossings, Alvin points to this AJC article which reported yesterday that two teen boys were hit by a train in a “quiet zone” in Kennesaw.
It’s very important to note that police have not yet determined whether the quiet zone had anything to due with both boys being hit by a freight train, resulting in one death. Both were reportedly sitting on the tracks when the accident took place, but it’s not clear whether they heard/saw the train.
A while back, I read a bit into the NY Times in-depth, 2004-05 investigation entitled “Death on the Tracks” – a great read in its own right – and while it was quite clear that investigations conducted by the railroad companies were often incomplete and suspicious, I could find no solid evidence either way about the safety of “quiet zones”.
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I don’t know whether the death of the kid in Kennesaw and injuries to his friend are due to the quiet zone, their playing a stupid game of chicken or their being under the influence. Regardless, quiet zones are a bad fit for Decatur.
First, we are a densely populated area with lots of traffic — pedestrian and automobile — and three relatively close grade crossings. Those factors make this area much riskier for a quiet zone. Second, and most importantly, the railroad straddles two schools with lots of other students crossing or walking the tracks as well. Teenagers with headphones are sitting ducks in quiet zones when they walk the tracks. Nothing has ever proven effective as a way to keep them off the tracks and, for safety planning purposes, you should assume the kids will be on the tracks. Third, under the regulations covering quiet zones, the railroads can negotiate the terms of the implementation so that all liability falls on the City for any injuries or deaths due to the lack of horn use. CSX is not a warm and fuzzy civic citizen. They are tough as nails, hide or destroy incriminating evidence kind of folks. They will shift the financial burden on us and we don’t need that.
I handle railroad crossing accident cases. The horn is the last and most effective, most important defense against injury. We should not consider any proposal that would strip our families and children of that protection.
I second this. I have even seen Decatur families walking the tracks, either those in the middle of town or those over by Fernbank. The way our streets, dead-ends, and “hiking trails” work, people are going to be tempted to walk the tracks. Since CSX has not been cooperative with ideas like building pedestrian bridges or tunnels to make life easier for Decatur residents, we should not take any responsibity for safety off its hands. Nationwide, the railroads have used their right of way (or whatever is called) to serve themselves, not those living alongside their tracks. We should hold them to the little public responsibility that they have.
OK, let’s clear up a few facts. While there is a quiet zone in the area where the kids were hit, quiet zones apply to not blowing the horn for a road crossing and doesn’t apply to blowing the horn to warn trespassers of an approaching train between crossings. The kids were trespassing and reportedly laying on or near the track 100 to 150 yards from the nearest crossing, so the crossing quiet zone wouldn’t have applied anyway. Furthermore, it was 1AM in the dark and the train engineer would have had a difficult time seeing anything, much less 2 kids, in the dark low on the track. There would have been quite a bit of noise along the track anyway from a approaching train of several thousand tons. Bottom line: quiet zone had nothing to do with this incident.
“Nationwide, the railroads have used their right of way (or whatever is called) to serve themselves, not those living alongside their tracks.” The stumbling block isn’t really CSX, it’s cost, which is not CSX responsibility.
“Nationwide, the railroads have used their right of way (or whatever is called) to serve themselves, not those living alongside their tracks.” Of course they serve themselves, it’s their property and moving trains on their property is how they make money – it’s their business.
“We should hold them to the little public responsibility that they have” – please explain what responsibility you’re talking about.
Am I wrong or are railroads not an exception as businesses? Compared to other businesses, don’t they have unusual privileges and autonomy from control by the communities they affect, thanks to the land ownership, political, and tax advantages they gained historically and still have today? They seem like far-flung railroad “reservations” with none of the obligations to the impacted local communities that most business have. Despite studies showing that simple, cheap adaptations could make railroads safer or more pleasant for a community, don’t they have a knee-jerk opposition to making adaptations, no matter how easy or who pays? That’s how it seems to me but am I wrong?
At the same time, hanging out or hiking on railroad tracks is stupid. At the risk of making my kids track-phobic, I emphasize their danger as we encounter them on our daily trips. To the annoyance of cars behind me, I won’t stop on tracks for red lights or backed up traffic. But stupidity on the part of local residents doesn’t negate the fact that railroads do not seem to have much civic responsibility given their considerable privileges and advantages.
As I said, the situation of the kids in Kennessaw may have nothing to do with quiet zones. I’m guessing the kids were drunk or playing an insane game of chicken.
The zones are still bad for Decatur. As to Karass’ points, yes, railroads have exemptions from laws that every other participant in commerce must obey. They do not have to obey any local laws regarding speed when they come through a community. Under a horrid U.S. Supreme Court ruling, train speeds are limited only by the condition of the track. If the track is straight and level, as it is Decatur, they can go 60 mph whether it is somewhere in the country or through a heavily congested metropolitan area. The railroads also obtained unbelievable exemptions from liability in the quiet zone regulations for their failure to use their horn as they go through grade crossings. Finally, under state law, railroads have secured almost complete immunity for determining what safety devices are needed at grade crossings despite the fact that railroads have the primary experts on what is needed — bells, gates, lights, etc. — to make a grade crossing safe. Their lobbyists work our legislature like a hot knife through butter to offload responsibility for that to counties and cities, entities with almost no expertise in grade crossing safety and entities that are frequently immune from liability if their negligence injures you or your family. I have been in hearings where, to borrow from Rep. Stephanie Benfield, the “babalicious” railroad lobbyists comes up to the key representative, leans closely in to him, and asks if that issue with the grade crossing in their district has all been taken care of. (Of course, the railroad has built some sort of great grade crossing protection at THAT crossing.) Then, inspired by the force of logic of the railroad’s “argument,” the representative goes along with legislation insulating railroads from responsibililty for their actions in the rest of the state.
Finally, Steve is an incredible resource on rail issues and a source of excellent information. Rail, for example, in no small part due to Steve’s hard work, someday may provide passenger service around our state. That being said, while Steve is right that “the property is theirs,” that is not completely true. The track that runs through Decatur is railroad owned. However, the track that runs from Chattanooga through Atlanta is owned by the state — us — and leased by the railroad. Moreover, you own your front yard, but the local government controls the first ten feet. So, property owned by almost everyone else in the community is subject to at least some control by the government, but not so for the railroads. It gets worse, by the way. I have seen Decatur public works employees mowing the grass and cutting the shrubbery in that railroad right of way. When someone else asked our City why we were doing that, they were told that, if we didn’t, the railroad would not do it and it would get ugly.
Mostly, though, quiet zones are not an issue involving a fight with railroads. They may like or dislike them, but they don’t push them. The advocates of these insane zones are developers, perhaps such as the one who bought the property where the Relax Inn used to stand next to the Dairy Queen. Those are the folks you have to confront and fight. They want to sacrifice safety for our kids to bump up the sales price of their properties. I don’t know where the push for quiet zones came from, but, until that property was sold, there was not a hint of a push for the change.
If residents at least got some passenger service from the railroads, railroad privileges and advantages would seem more warranted. Right now, communities seem to get little local benefit and zero civic responsibility in return for the noise, inconvenience, and danger posed by trains.
So, considering quiet zones and crossings, is CSX operating new stealth trains?
First, a couple caveats: 1) Any death is a tragedy and shouldn’t be discounted. 2) The railroads truly are crafty lobbyists and back room a-holes.
That said, a little perspective please. Give or take, pedestrian/train fatalities run around 500 a year. Pedestrian/auto fatalities run more than 10 times that, and pedestrian/auto injuries run more that 200 times more. Which is all to say that, for ourselves and our kids, the chances of injury or death are way, way higher as they relate to our streets vs. our tracks. But no one here is demonizing the DOT or our fellow drivers. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable addressing problems to which we–those who drive–actively contribute. It’s a lot easier to have a big, bad boogeyman.
My point is that we accept as a matter of course the responsibility to teach kids to use and cross streets safely. In a world where rail may have an increasingly prominent role moving forward, there’s no reason we can’t apply the same diligence to safety there. I live on the tracks and, personally, am a lot more uneasy when my kid crosses Howard/Dekalb than I am when she crosses the rails.
Re perspective: Completely agree that many things Decaturites do every day in terms of driving, exercise, nutrition, etc. have a much bigger impact on their mortality than dangers from railroads. I don’t think this thread claims otherwise. I think it’s more about whether quiet zones are dangerous and the responsiveness of railroads to communities like Decatur.
Jim’s point about short whistles vs laying on the horn is interesting. Where I live, I can hear so many trains at night that I can’t tell direction or whose horn is whose. I actually kind of like the sound (since it’s not in my backyard). My daughter used to ask “What’s the train saying?” (Strategic response: “Time to go to sleep, children!”) I’m surprised that the Fernbank area doesn’t have horns because those wooded tracks with curves seem much more dangerous than the straight tracks going through town where you can see the train lights a mile away. People seem to hike on the tracks a lot in the Fernbank area because they take you places more directly than the roads and are close to “trails” and the Fernbank playground.
Don’t know if this is as apples to oranges, but having lived proximate to the train crossings in Decatur for nearly ten years, I often wondered why the conductors would lay on the horn at 2 or 3AM in the morning, despite the lowered gates, lights, etc. to the detriment of nearby residents. Barely a mile away where the train goes through the Fernbank neighborhood ( less than 100 ft. from homes), they have drop arms and lights, but the conductor doesn’t sit on the horn through the intersection.
I now live in Marietta, where we have no less than FIVE street crossings within a half-mile length and all are one block from the downtown square, with constant car and pedestrian crossing traffic all day and until nearly midnight. When the trains barrels through ( and it does, believe me), the conductor does sound an appropriate whistle alarm, to go along with the drop gates at intersections. But I noticed they DON”T lay on the horn for 10- 15 seconds straight like they do in Decatur, day and night, with less crossing traffic, less promixity to buildings, pedestrian loads, etc.
I find the difference very interesting, having experienced both. Someone may know WHY there is such a pronounced difference in how these intersections are handled.
While I understood the need for the horn at the crossings while living in Decatur, I never understood why it was necessary to blow the horn for such a long period, regardless of whether it was 3 PM or 3AM.
Jim, first a little semantic correction. Despite what uninformed media types write, the train’s conductor is not the one operating the train. That would be the engineer.
Second, the thing about short/long soundings is sometimes a personal thing with the individual engineer. In the end, though, the FRA requires the sounding in a certain pattern. The engineers may get a little carried away, but they may feel they have reason to, because in the event of any kind of accident, they are squarely in the sights of the investigators and they want to say they followed or exceeded the rules.
I would also submit, without have any stats to back me up, that there are more idiots who try to beat the train at 3AM than at 3PM. Perhaps the learned Mr. Stubbs could enlighten us on this.
Merely pointing out the dramatic differences in length and pattern, my friend! But not sure why one needs a 15-20 steady drone/whine at 4AM, regardless. Given the apparent total immunity to any responsibility which CSX operates under in the public domain, doubt if they are CONCERNED about rules, investigators, etc (OR residential folks ability to sleep soundly or their children) !
Idiots, whether inebriated or not, inhabit all the hours of the day, per my experience.
And I am ok with the pedantics…er SEMANTICS- re: conductor/engineer.
As I recall, most of the issue that residents proximate to the track had with noise was mostly the long whistles throughout the hours between midnight and six AM…not whistles/horns in general.
CSX or any other railroad does not operate under “total immunity”. They answer to the FRA and many other authorities. The reason they often appear to be absolved of liability is that the accidents are caused by trespassers on their property when the railroad has followed all the rules.
I hear the horns also and I would take issue of the 15 to 20 second long sound. As for the 4AM, perhaps the engineer sees some idiot who looks like he’s going to race the train at 4AM and is trying to get his attention to prevent an incident.
Steve is partly right. Most crossing accidents are due to idiot drivers. He is also correct that railroads don’t have “complete” immunity. They just have more immunity than any other private entity. So, for example, the regs for the quiet zones give the railroads complete immunity for failure to use their horn. The 1993 Easterbrook decision by the Supreme Court gave the railroads complete immunity for any speed-related claims as long as the train is traveling within the “rated” speed for the track. (The “rated” speed is just a function of track condition — straight, curvy, flat, hilly, banked, well-maintained, etc. — without regard to the surrounding area — rural, urban, etc.) The state legislature immunized railroads from liability for inadequate warning devices at crossings so that, even if you found a memo in the railroad headquarters that says a particular crossing is dangerous and should have gates, they have no statutory responsibility to advise the local governmental authorities of that.
Moreover, the fact that most crossing accidents are due to idiot drivers should not be the end of the inquiry. When we have street intersections with lots of accidents, we look at the intersection design even though each accident probably was caused by someone behaving stupidly. If accidents happen at grade crossings with frequency, regardless of the cause of those accidents, we should try to figure better safeguards. In that regard, the statistics are better today, but, as of 2001, Georgia had more crossing accidents than any of its neighboring state; more deaths from grade crossing accidents than any of its neighboring states; and more non-fatal grade crossing accidents than any of its neighboring states. In response, as noted above, our legislature actually eased the responsibility railroads have for crossing safety even though they are the primary repository of expertise about grade crossings.
So, railroads don’t operate under “total immunity,” but they come closer than most folks, and the FRA is largely a captive agency with little interest in seriously enforcing safety regulations. You cannot count on the guvmunt for safety when it comes to railroads.
“as of 2001, Georgia had more crossing accidents than any of its neighboring state; more deaths from grade crossing accidents than any of its neighboring states; and more non-fatal grade crossing accidents than any of its neighboring states.”
Tom, you need updated figures (you can always go to the FRA website for the most current). One reason Georgia has more crossing accidents and the attendant injuries, etc, is that, by virtue of a large geography, we have more miles of railroads and highways than adjacent states. It’s not apples to apples.
Also, the national figures for 2009 just came out and incidents and fatalities were way down.
Finally, lunch break so I can respond, for what it is worth.
After ten years a half a block away from the track on Olympic, I remember many nights counting the seconds of the horn non-stop while they approached and then crossed the intersection at Adair. It was always at LEAST 15 seconds.
I no longer have a dog in this fight, thank goodness. Now train whistles have become, once again, quaint and comforting in their plaintive wail via their distance from my home. But I do wish a change for many of my friends along College who have to deal with this overly strident alarm system 24/7 for what is a remote statistical possibility vs. simply sleeping through the night. While I don’t believe anyone advocates its’ removal, there are more than a few folks who feel it entirely reasonable to have some sort of reduced horn level between say, midnight and 6AM.
Gee, aren’t I the caring type! Now have at it!
For what it’s worth, I am well within earshot of the railroad and the horns never bother me. I guess it’s what you get used to.
The FRA does not recognize any reduced levels of warning at any time of the day. Either it’s there or not. The horns cannot be modulated, they either blow or not. I revert to my premise that, due to reduced visibility and “other” impairments, the warning is needed more after hours than in the daytime.
I do have a dog in this fight. I live two houses away near the Olympic railroad crossing. I’m a light sleeper. But I have just gotten used to the train whistles. My two children were born in Decatur and the middle-of-the-night horn never woke them up. I just don’t really notice it.
I’d say this. If a train whistle in the middle of the night may bother you, it’s a good idea not to move into a home that is near a train intersection.
Despite all sorts of efforts by school officials to prevent students from crossing those tracks at proper intersections, students continue to cross the tracks illegally. I even wonder whether this is truly dangerous. I think if a kid crosses the tracks right at Trinity, without the crossing, they are in no danger of being hit by a car, unlike if they go to a legal crossing, where cars are turning. At both intersections, they are at risk of being hit by a train, but I think it’s much easier for you to hear a train horn coming. I guess the legal train crossing also has those gates, that would deter illegal, unsafe crossings.
Yep. Hindsight is 20-20. I am a painfully light sleeper (read restless), but had no idea my due diligence as a potential homeowner was to check decibel levels of train whistles at 4AM!
I quickly learned the folly of my ignorance in that regard.
Still amazed that over the years, Decatur and CSX have NEVER worked out a safe way for kids/citizens/cyclists to cross over those tracks…night or day. Whistle or no whistle. Horn or no horn.
May places around the country you see the flyover walkways.
I’m sure the City would be glad to have you step up and fund a flyover, Jim. With ADA, liability and other compliance issues, I’m guessing a few hundred thousand might do it.
Then, you have to address the issue of getting people to use it in lieu of just crossing the track like they do now.
I’d be willing to bet the only situations in which a flyover is consistently used is when big, tall, razor wire-topped fences make it impossible to cross any other way.
Agreed. A flyover in Decatur is a solution in search of a problem. Safety education is a whole lot cheaper. Plus, people actually use it.
Let me be the first and last to ask: what the hell is a “flyover”?
DM, a “flyover” is an elevated walkway 20 feet or so above the track accessed by steps and ramps. Climb up, walk across, climb down. I’ll see if I can find a picture later. I have to go to a meeting right now.
Steve, no need to get snarky…unless that is what you do. Last time I checked, I was allowed to have an opinion.
I retract my opinion and thoughts on the subject and will let you monitor this thread as you see fit.
I’m not getting snarky, just dealing with reality. A flyover is expensive and I was seeing who wanted to step up.
Steve, it was just a suggestion on a blog, not a proposal! The point was meant to be that there are solutions that could be considered to make it safer to pass across these rail/street intersections. But we digress, as this is a discussion on quiet zones.
DM, a fly-over (if I am using the correct term,…ahem) is a cantilevered ramp attached to an elevated, overhead walkway that crosses over a street or railway for pedestrian safety. Kind of the reverse of what the “underpass” or the tunnel does near Agnes Scott.
STG, you are probably right. The same principle as fits the process when sidewalks are provided on a campus/ office park, humans will begin to bisect it to shorten the distance. We humans tend to take the shortest route, even at the expense of safety or legality.
Thanks for the clarification guys. I figured that’s what it would be…but I had visions of people taking regional jets over the tracks.
But back to the flyover: in the interest of cost, couldn’t we just lean a couple of ladders together?
Or maybe just a couple of poles. It would be great PE for the students.
Naughty, naughty, naughty! CSX owns that airspace! I don’t think even slingshotting the kids across would be permitted.
I’m thinking if $46,630 is on the table for a website, a few hundred thousand for flyover isn’t all that far outside the realm of possibility.
There are pedestrian walkovers in FL – see Google for photos. I thought the actual cost was calculated for a pedestrian bridge over the tracks many years ago, and it was laughably expensive when compared to the possibility of anyone being willing to hike up two stories of ramps or stairs just to cross the tracks then go back down two stories to street level. To cross an interstate, maybe. But hey, wouldn’t the skate boarders love some new ramps? A dual purpose structure, and it should sound awesome!
A walkover would be nice if it would extend over Howard and College.