I am not suggesting that the driver is innocent, but only looking at it through the eyes of a jury. They will likely take into account the poor visibility at the crossing. Technically, visibility should not matter because the driver must yield no matter how poor the visibility. Yet trees are routinely cut back in order to improve visibility, so a lack of visibility could be seen as a hardship when looked at in those terms.
STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN is a cliché, but it may also be a requirement in some cases to accomplish yielding which is always required by law. But yielding does not fundamentally require a driver to stop, look, and listen. Fundamentally, it only requires a driver to look and give way if a train is approaching.
Yielding is a bit fuzzy. If you get hit by a train, you did not yield. That much is certain. If you get missed by ten feet, did you yield? You did not give way, but if you get missed, it could be argued that you did not have to give way. A cop would say that ten feet is too close, and you should have given way, so you did not yield. So it goes to how much danger the train posed with its speed and proximity. Yielding is also confused with merging. I have seen a highway patrol officer on TV lecturing the public on the fact that traffic is backed up at a yield sign entrance to a big highway. He said there is no reason to stop there. He was wrong.
I would say that a crossing such as this one, where yielding is impossible without stopping, should have a stop sign to take the ambiguity out of what would constitute yielding. And regarding the precaution of listening at this crossing: There is no way I would drive across blindly while relying only on the fact that I could not hear a train. They don’t always make a lot of engine noise, and they don’t always blow the horn. And the cabs of big trucks can be very noisy.
BucyrusIf it is the crossing that I think it is on the satellite map, the driver would have approached it on a road running parallel to the railroad, maybe 100 feet away from the tracks, with a solid line of trees between the road and the tracks. Then, the road makes a sharp right, and goes over the crossing. So when approaching the crossing, it would be easy to look to the left side down the track. You could look right out the windshield and see that view.
Yup, that is exactly right. That is the crossing and you have described it well, but...
Why is that road 100' (or so) long before it turns to cross the tracks?
Well, the tracks are well above Alban's yard in elevation, and so that road is going up to meet the tracks, and then it turns right to cross the tracks. So Alban can not see anything on the tracks until he makes that right turn. There he should stop, look, and listen. This is the part that he failed to do.
As for the trees, we have discussed that both here and on the SubChat forum, and the question revolves around whose property the trees are on. Are they Alban's trees, then he failed to clear them. Are they CSX trees, then they failed to clear them. But maybe the trees are there for a reason: maybe for sound abatement, maybe for visual improvement, maybe for stabilization of the rail embankment.
LION has herd arguments both for and against the use of trees as stabilization. It prevents soil erosion, yes, but they also weaken the embankment, thus you will find no trees on an earthen dam.
Maybe there should have been crossing lights, but this is a Private Crossing, so it is Alban's responsibility to stop his vehicles and to look and listen to assure that he can cross the tracks.
He would not have to get out of the truck to look, but he should have opened his windows, and ditched the bluetooth to listen for the train. You can hear the prime movers a mile away (well, ok, I can) and you can hear the horn five miles away. Its not like CSX was trying to sneak up on him.
Speculation we may do, NTSB will get the last word in in about a year.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
In the link at the top of this page, there are 58 photos. I looked through them, and did not see any that showed the crossing as viewed from the direction the driver was approaching. I might have missed it, or maybe there is one in another link. Can somebody tell me where such a picture is posted?
If it is the crossing that I think it is on the satellite map, the driver would have approached it on a road running parallel to the railroad, maybe 100 feet away from the tracks, with a solid line of trees between the road and the tracks. Then, the road makes a sharp right, and goes over the crossing. So when approaching the crossing, it would be easy to look to the left side down the track. You could look right out the windshield and see that view.
But looking to the right would require turning your head about 180-dgrees to the right and looking backward. On a trash truck, there is no such view available because the back of the cab is blocked by the box. So the only such rear view to the right is through the right side mirror. Yet the right side mirror is aimed to see down the right side near the truck and adjacent lane. It would not see the railroad line because it is too far away, and it is obscured by trees.
Now this is how it looks on the satellite map, and I might be looking at the wrong crossing. But it looks like the only way to properly yield to a train when approaching that crossing from the direction the truck approached would be to stop the truck, get out, walk up to the crossing, and look down the tracks.
I speculate that no driver ever did that. They always approached and looked to the left, but not to the right. And because of the odds of an approaching train being present, nobody got hit until this time.
Gentlemen, I went back to re-read the news blog, and that number no longer appears, so I stand corrected.
However, there are lots of pics included in the official police report (well written), and one in particular shows what the truck driver would have seen had he stopped, and glanced to his right.
petitnjHow could the train go into emergency 4000 ft before impact.
LION thought the same thing (but for some strange and unknown reason held his piece), for 4000 feet is almost a mile, and it is very clear from the overheads that they was no possibility of 4000 feet of vision.
1) could be some stoopit reporter wrote 4000 instead of 400, an easy mistake.
or
2) The train was in emergency for 4000 feet before it came to a stop.
Either way one should never let a reporter within 4000 feet of a pen or a computer keyboard.
petitnjWhy isn't the truck liable for all of the damage in this accident?
Liability is a funny thing. The truck driver is 100% liable. But him has the MINIMUM insurance that the law allows, and confiscating all of his property would likely be no more than assuming his debts, so... anybody who wants to be reimbursed must go after the railroad, which after all, does have lots and lots of money. But you gotta PROVE (Proff in SubChat speak) liability.
And it is clear that the railroad IS LIABLE since it granted this dork an easement across its railroad tracks. The should have made him build his road someplace else.
WTH: you do not have to believe this, only a jury must be so persuaded.
How could the train go into emergency 4000 ft before impact. 50 mph is 75 feet/second. The truck never stopped and was not visible to the engineer until maybe 4 seconds (200 or 300 ft) before impact. It may have gone into emergency 4000 feet before it stopped. The train did roll for 40 seconds or so after impact. 31 cars pass the crossing until the train stops. If we take the average train car length to be 50' we have 1550' of train travel from impact to stop. Where did this 4000 feet come from?
Why isn't the truck liable for all of the damage in this accident? If you drove your car into the side of a building, you would pay for the building damage (or at least all the owner could get out of you and your insurance).
Another case of folks being unable to drive and talk on the phone at the same time. And making it "blue-tooth" (ie. hands free) obviously doesn't make it any different.
blue streak 1 The driver is now getting caught in misstatements. Eyewitness & cameras are disputing his statements.
The driver is now getting caught in misstatements. Eyewitness & cameras are disputing his statements.
What are they disputing?
The driver is now getting caught in misstatements. Eyewitness & cameras are disputing his statements. Baltimore sun article. ---
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/parkville/bs-md-rosedale-crash-20130628,0,5240318.story
According to the interview the driver finally granted to the Baltimore County Police, he admitted to talking on his blue-tooth during the incident, and didn't hear the train until it was about to strike his truck. Also, train went into emergency brake application some 4000 feet before impact, so doesn't look like point of possible perception was an issue. (you can see the actual report on-line).
CSX has filed suit for $225k against driver/truck co.
Perception is that affected home owners/businesses need the railroad to share in the fault, so that losses may be recouped.
I wonder if the driver should not also be charged with causing the release of a hazardous substance (note at end of the News Wire item).
Johnny
Thanks Paul. Our situation with the lumber yard first started when they stored lumber on the ROW that was owned by Southern Pacific. We purchased the ROW 6 years before we started building our light rail in this area and discovered the trespass. Our transit agency, being a government entity, was exempt from adverse possession but the question came upregarding ithe trespass occuring initially with the prior owner. (Railroads are not exempt from adverse possession in Texas.) Our legal staff deemed it better to buy out the lumber yard rather than go into a legal action. The question of when the adverse possession occured with a prior owner could negate our rights as a gov org. It was cheaper to buy them out than fight them in court. Also there was the PR situation. We wanted to keep neighbors happy rather than being the 600 pound gorilla and making enemies.
ccltrains Be aware of adverse possesion. If someone occupies piece of ground for 10 years (varies by state) they get a legal right to it. If this private crossing has been there for 40+ years CSX might have a problem. Our transit agency had a lumber yard that had been storing lumber on our ROW for several years and we had to buy them out to get them off "our" property.
- Paul North.
Welcome to my world. What most people "know" about adverse possession and for that matter, NITU rail-trails is most often fairy tale instead of fact. Difficult to resolve headaches - frequently.
In the private crossing cases I've been dragged into, A/P or A/E (Adverse Easement) arguments almost always fail. Many times the crossing goes away in the end and is diverted to an existing public road nearby.
BroadwayLion My parents have a weird situation in Pennsylvania.
My parents have a weird situation in Pennsylvania.
Had a co-worker once who encountered a similar situation - he bought a house, and in the process of having the property surveyed, found that both he and the neighbor apparently held legal title to a plot of land between them. Have no idea how that could happen in the first place, and I don't recall how they resolved it.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Be aware of adverse possesion. If someone occupies piece of ground for 10 years (varies by state) they get a legal right to it. If this private crossing has been there for 40+ years CSX might have a problem. Our transit agency had a lumber yard that had been storing lumber on our ROW for several years and we had to buy them out to get them off "our" property.
Who was paying the tax on the property. If you were paying the tax, then it was not abandoned.
Railroads are very protective of their property etc. Just because they grant you a crossing does not mean that you own the crossing. The railroad was using it every day so the dump yard can hardly make any claim to the crossing.
LIRR recently deposed encroachments that were extending their back yards onto the ROW. Now people who want to grow vegetables on the ROW must pay the LIRR for the privilege. It is not a large sum, just enough to let them know who owns the land. What the heck, if a homeowner wants to maintain the embankment LIRR is not going to complain too loudly.
My parents have a weird situation in Pennsylvania. Much of what looks like their property is not so at all. One corner is the platted ROW for a street that was never built, but the Catholic High School built a road on their own property right next to it. The city offered the original ROW for $1.00. The neighbor who is a big wheel told him not to take the deal. It would raise his taxes, and he would become responsible for any issues since that is a steep embankment and it may come tumbling down one day.
The other corner of his "back yard" actually belongs to a neighbor. There is a band of woods between the back yard and the neighbor's ROW. The neighbor can hardly use it, and really is not interested in using it, they told mom and dad to use it to their heart's content. But mom and dad do not pay the tax on it and if they sell the property, the actual boundaries are well known.
Would love to see in the report a portion about "how that crossing has a right to be there", but I doubt we'll see that from FRA or NTSB. I expect CSX Asset Management and Law in Jax are both digging into to it and some of the answers will be troubling to those not aware of the historic issues with these type crossings. [ on any railroad, not just CSX ]....
Balt: remarks in the DOT sheets & record going back to 1978 refer to it as "Dump Road"
This incident will have quite a "shelf life" and will be remembered for years to come.
The crossing is referred to locally as - Dump Road. It has existed for over 40 years to my personal knowldege, and how many years before my personal knowledge is unknown. It has always been considered at Private Crossing and only protected with crossbucks.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Ed and Mudchicken,Thanks for your insight on this. I must be looking at the correct crossing on the satellite map. The road only exists to connect one business to another on the opposite side of the tracks. Both look like eyesores. They appear as though they may be related. The crossing appears to be just a fill of asphalt.
Here it is: http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=39.31096,-76.51993&z=19&t=H&marker0=39.31096%2C-76.51993%2C1.1%20km%20SxSW%20of%20Rosedale%20MD
If the crossing is just a case of trespass, and CSX is powerless to stop it, then it seems like an unsolvable problem. Ccltrains, I don’t know if parking freight cars on a track there would solve the problem. They could just move their crossing. It sure looks like trouble waiting to happen.
While on the board of a transit agency which owned 200+/- miles of underused rail lines held for future light rail expansion we had an occsional problem with unauthorized private crossings popping up. Our initial step was tosend a cease and decist letter which usually did not work. The worst offender was a car race track that put in an unathorized crossing as it cut five miles from the drive to the race track. We put up barricades which were torn down or the crossing was moved 20 feet. Our best solution was to park a string of box cars at the offending place. This really worked as the race track soon went out of business.
Since CSX has a problem with an active rail line their best option would be to build a short spur covering the offending crossing and parking a few rail cars on it. This will work!
Bucyrus zugmannIt's a private crossing (from what I read on here). What more do you want them to do? I don't know if it is a private crossing or what the visibility is. But from the video, it looks like a wall of trees along the track with the truck coming out of a notch in the wall of trees. If that is the case, they could cut back the trees to increase the visibility, add red stop signs, and add advance "Look For Trains" signs. I think those measures would pay.
zugmannIt's a private crossing (from what I read on here). What more do you want them to do?
I don't know if it is a private crossing or what the visibility is. But from the video, it looks like a wall of trees along the track with the truck coming out of a notch in the wall of trees. If that is the case, they could cut back the trees to increase the visibility, add red stop signs, and add advance "Look For Trains" signs. I think those measures would pay.
(1) Because it IS a private crossing, state regulation in most states has little or no bearing.. (FRA has posed the idea of regulating private crossings, but it was a long way from being made statute....too many cooks spoiling the outcome right now .
(2) Private crossing incidents have been on the rise (along w/ pedestrian incidents) while public crossing accidents have decreased.
(3) The problem Ed described is out there, it is dependent on how aggressive the railroad is on removing the trespasser. UP & BNSF are justifiably hyper-active on getting rid of crossings, especially private crossings used by scofflaws. New private crossing application require insurance and locked gates frequently in this part of the country, which usually has the crossing user howling in protest. Frankly, the people Ed describe ought to be thrown in jail to save them from themselves.
(4) The road is more like a driveway....IT IS NOT DEDICATED FOR PUBLIC USE, COUNTIES AND CITIES CANNOT TURN A PRIVATE CROSSING INTO A PUBLIC ROAD. There is a state agency ( in this case MD-DOT, now that there is no longer a railroad commission) that determines what is or isn't a public road.
(5) The big problem seen from the railroad side is how frequently contracts are broken simply because the adjoining landowner fails to assign the contract to the new owner. You almost never see railroads ever granting easements for these things, almost always contracts/permits/licenses where there are ways of enforcing accountability / specific performance. The real estate industry/ title industry has a horrible reputation for failure to follow through on private crossings during changes of ownership. I'm sure NTSB and/ or FRA will be looking at this in their report and discuss what the status of the private crossing here is.
Doubt you will find any name to go with the ”road” as it is a privately owned road…the crossing is not sanctioned by CSX, the land owner simply constructed it himself to have convenient access to his property.
CSX could remove the material, but the land owner would simply replace it or create another crossing.
We have crossings and roads like that all over the place down here, guys want easy access to a deer lease or a lake, they dump a load of dirt on the tracks and smooth it over, even seen a few built with removed ties pulled from a junk pile.
If this is the case, and I suspect it is judging from the video, then CSX has no legal obligation to place any signage, or even acknowledge it exists.
Without knowledge of the state laws there, odds are CSX has no option as to what grade crossing protection is installed anyway; down here TDot chooses the type of protection, the design of the crossing, all the signage too.
If anyone has a obligation, it is the entity responsible for design and installation, which often is not the railroad, they simply get stuck with the maintenance and lawsuit that follow.
23 17 46 11
I see the location of Rosedale, MD on ACME MAPPER. I see the tracks and several grade crossings, but I can’t find any reference in the news to the name of the road. I see one road without a name that looks like it could be at the location shown in the video. It looks like the visibility would be quite limited by trees when approaching from the southeast.
In one link to the story, it says this:
“There is dense foliage on either side of the crossing, which is marked with signs but no flashing lights or moving barriers. Sumwalt said investigators would be looking into whether there were any obstructions that limited visibility for drivers using the crossing.”
That is from this link: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/us/article/Feds-investigate-Md-train-derailment-explosion-4555869.php
The driver clearly is at fault. But on a positive note the number of collisions at crossings is way down. The numbers are encouraging, and suggest we're heading in the right direction.
http://oli.org/about-us/news/collisions-casulties
Ed,
Being double track I'm thinking the ROW would be a minimum of 50 ft wide. Google Earth does show the trees somewhat pared back at the crossing but one must stop to be able to see an approaching train. We have some private crossings in Michigan with STOP signs.
With the truck driver clearly at fault and surely without enough insurance to cover the damages, I don't think he'll be in business much longer.
Norm
While I may be mistaken, the truck driver was the owner of the business and the truck, yes?
And assuming CSX owns anything more than a few feet of easement might be a mistake, down here, the Navigation District, the part of the Port Authority that leases the ROW for the PTRA, often has the boundaries or edge of our ROW marked inside the refineries our main lines runs through, and it is often less than ten feet beyond the width of a railcar.
Add to that the fact that here, state law allows the owner of a private crossing to not have any signage at all, and you can see the issue.
Case in point, Thursday morning, a grain truck decided to see if he could sneak past one of our grain trains shoving Cargill, (the very plant he was headed to) and timed it all wrong, note the only signage is cross bucks, and we put those up, not Cargill.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=9120879
zugmann Norm48327 George Orwell's 1984 IIRC. I was thinking Minority Report. Wasn't 1984 was more about editing the past to support the present? It's been ages since I've read it.
Norm48327 George Orwell's 1984 IIRC.
George Orwell's 1984 IIRC.
I was thinking Minority Report.
Wasn't 1984 was more about editing the past to support the present? It's been ages since I've read it.
In part, yes. It was also about tyranny. Wikipaedia has a decent article on it.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.