CHICAGO — The Federal Railroad Administration will hold six regional workshops in response to an alarming increase of the number of fatalities along railroad rights-of-way, in or near locations where such incidents are most prevalent.
FRA Trespassing Program Analyst Michail Grizkewitsch announced plans for the workshops last week at Metra’s “Breaking the Silence: Restoring Hope, Saving Lives” conference on trespasser prevention. FRA data shows trespasser fatalities increased nearly 40% in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period a year earlier. [See “Rail Safety Week focus: prevent trespasser deaths,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 25, 2019].
Although dates and exact locations have yet to be determined, the workshops will be held in or adjacent to the ten U.S. counties where incidents are most prevalent:
— The San Francisco Bay area (Contra Costa, Alameda, San Joaquin counties)
— Southern California’s Inland Empire in California (San Bernardino, Riverside)
— Los Angeles
— Chicago (Cook)
— South Florida (Broward, Palm Beach)
— Houston (Harris)
The FRA will hold a “Grade Crossing Technology Symposium” in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 19 to highlight the new technologies for grade crossing warning systems, and Grizkewitsch says, “We plan to take that on the road and make the meetings two-day events. The more we educate our communities on the root cause of railroad trespassing—and involve local law enforcement, the better everyone is going to be.”
He demonstrated how drones can detect trespassers, and related instances in Florida where activity was so prevalent that Tri-Rail and Brightline engineers regularly have had to sound horns in quiet zones.
Other speakers at the program discussed suicide prevention efforts and campaigns to discourage “selfie” photography along the tracks.
Local resident Amanda Kies shared her battle with anxiety, mental illness, and depression before she decided to go public with her struggles.
Metra Chief Safety and Environmental Officer Henry Konczal discussed his agency’s “Question, Persuade, Refer” employee intervention education program, based in part on a successful initiative undertaken in Britain. He showed participants a moving British Network Rail public information video about a woman who had decided to take her own life, but changed her mind because someone took the time to talk to her.
Konczal says that based on Metra documentation and police reports, observant employees had been able to successfully intervene to prevent suicides in more than 150 instances since the program began in 2017.
“Now we have an opportunity to go one step further and involve the public,” he told the group.
Its takes a real idiot to not know to put the camera down and move away from a train. I say as long as the railroads have surrendered the property to vandals take your prom photos on the tracks in earnest but be safe.
The hypocrisy here is outrageous as every graffiti plastered rail car advertises trespassing to “tag” trains is accepted and possibly even encouraged by every major railroad. The railroads don’t give two hoots in hell about trespassing. They only fear the associated lawsuits.
They continue to sit with their thumbs up their collective rear ends clueless how to create a deterrent, remedy damage and catch a legion of free roaming vandals. Quit cherry picking your trespassers. Stop the rampant graffiti and then maybe you’ll look serious about addressing trespassing.
Unfortunately, we Railfans encounter these blithering idiots using the railroad for a photo backdrop quite frequently. It runs the gamut from parents lensing their infants to prom couples and even to nude photo shoots.
Sure, it irks the heck out of me to see such stupidity while I’m taking the “scenic route” home. Fortunately, I’m prepared with every railroad police department emergency number East of the Mississippi loaded into my cell phone book.
When the railroad police don’t respond quickly enough (which is quite common) I call 911 and let the local law enforcement personnel handle it by telling them what’s going on AND that the individuals are “trespassing on railroad property”.
I stand by a safe distance away just in case a train shows up so I can warn everybody involved of its approach. I also never confront the offenders and make sure their first contact with education about their stupidity is with a badge. After all, you never know who’s packing heat, so I make sure they never know it was me that ratted them out. The Public’s Safety comes first even though they can be some of the dumbest people on the planet!
Rick Shivik
Conyers, GA
Yes, David ROW pictures would be difficult to litigate. But fine a few yearbook photographers for students sitting on the track and that would end quickly.
As far as making noise to be heard over headphones, cannot be fixed with more noise. Hopefully education will help.
I mostly agree with Noel Petit’s points but would add a fourth: people, and not just young people, are often walking around with earbuds, Airpods and other ear-filling sound devices which considerably reduce aural situational awareness. A key “safety” element to railroading has always involved using noise to make people aware: horns, whistles and bells, bolstered by the noise of the locomotives and trains themselves. Today’s lifestyle and fashion tends to largely negate noise as a useful warning device. And we don’t know what to replace it with.
One point where I take some issue with Noel, however. If there are to be criminal fines every time a ROW picture shows up in a high school yearbook, are there also to be criminal fines every time a ROW picture shows up in Trains magazine? Or on this website? Or in the similar magazines and websites of the other railfan media? My hunch is that a lot more railfans (including some famous “big names”) than “civilians” routinely take pictures that run afoul of trespassing laws (particularly given the broad notions of what “trespass” is that some railroad security people seem to employ, such as public station platforms). Maybe Trains screens out the most obvious offenders, but they don’t get them all. Nor — speaking selfishly – do we want them to.
So we are part of the problem in terms of consistent and fair enforcement, are we not?
Short of the impossibility of fencing every mile of right-of-way, and there’s no guarantee some idiots won’t cut the the fence, there’s very little anyone can do. Of course, that doesn’t mean an attempt shouldn’t be made.
Education, education, education. Blitz the schools, especially the grade schools, with safety packages to show the very real dangers of tresspassing on the tracks. Be a bit graphic if you have to, the kids can stand it and they will remember.
New Jersey Transit faced the same problem several years ago and tried the education solution. It worked. Unfortunately there was a side-effect, suicides went UP. It’s almost as if those poor souls said “Gee! Why didn’t I think of that?”
And of course, there’s the “tough love” solution. If I remember correctly Conrail had a problem with tresspassers back in the 80’s. They put the word out that if an engineer spotted a tresspasser on the tracks he would NOT put the train into “emergency” to avoid the hit, brakes would only be applied after the strike, and in the normal manner. They weren’t going to risk a derailment and further injuries and damages over someones foolishness. That seemed to work as well.
Three problems: mental health, photographers who believe the railroad is a good background and short cuts. We have ignored #1 to protect the rights of the ill. #2 is easily solved with criminal fines every time a right-of-way picture shows up in a high school year book. We even had a right-of-way picture on the local school district’s web page.
The third problem of shortcutting across the tracks can be solved with education and subsequent fines. Technology will not help. If a fancy grade crossing detects an trespasser and the train doesn’t stop, the victim will sue the railroad for not using information available.
I highly doubt that graffiti taggers (vandals) are doing their work on the main lines so I think comparing them to posers is like comparing apples to oranges.
Gerald McFarlane – Presume you mean assisted suicide. If an unassisted offender kills himself, doesn’t matter whether it’s legal or not. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve never heard of the crime of “attempted suicide” by an individual. We have strayed from commenting on the story. I apologize.
I agree with you Mr McFarlane. I to am tired of the rants about graffiti. Besides the property you have mentioned, think of all the railcars being stored on little used rail lines out there. Are we going to put a cop at all of these locations as well as in railroad yards? that is going to take a lot of security and a ton of money. The fact is taggers are going to attack anything thats not moving, whether it be a rail car, bridge abutment, building or abandoned motor vehicle. I don’t have the answer here, but a lot has to change in our society to even make a dent in this problem. I await a realistic and workable solution from anyone out there.
I’ll address several of you that have already commented, first Noel Petit, with the technology the FRA is touting for grade crossings…it’s not to detect trespassers, it’s to prevent people from trespassing in the first place.
Wayne Antoniazzi, I wouldn’t say it’s impractical to fence off every bit of right of way…granted Great Britain isn’t anywhere near as big as the U.S. is, but take a look at their right of way, even the right of way in Europe and you’ll find that there’s fencing along almost all of it that is in population zones…even rural areas when it comes to GB, so it can be done, it’s whether or not anyone wants to take the initiative to do so. Finally, and I’m really getting tired of this one, Jim Norton and Loren Keiser, graffiti isn’t happening 100% on railroad property…it’s happening on either public property or private non-railroad properties that are accessible from public property, not every industry has 7/24/365 security…and consider those private sidings that extend outside of a fenced area but aren’t yet on the railroads property…who’s responsible for that area?
It’ll take a combination of many different tactics to solve this issue, and it’s won’t be curtailed 100%. Unfortunately I’m one of the few people that think suicide should be legalized, with authorized methods of doing so, but that’s not a discussion for this site.
Jim Norton – Amen,brother. When Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York, his philosophy was that the little things (graffiti, broken windows) led to disrespect for the big things, so his police enforced accordingly. So it is with most of the freight car fleet covered with this “art.”
I agree with Norton.
Rick, I’ll bet the nude models aren’t packing heat!
A typical railfan grab shot is probably taken quickly, and possibly from a grade crossing . The “studio” shots might be from a place like that, too, but there’s no way of knowing that’s the case when you see the yearbook/wedding results. However, I’d call the police on a studio who includes a track backdrop in a scene posted in their display window, if that happened.
I called 911 once when I saw a posing of a bride (I think) on our main line through town. They were gone by the time my call was responded to, sadly.