LINCOLN, Neb. — The deaths of four Fairbury women reminded Southeast Nebraska residents of an oft-forgotten killer: car-train crashes, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.
Until Monday, the Federal Railroad Administration had recorded no fatal wrecks over the last quarter century for the intersection about 11 miles northwest of Steele City.
The intersection, marked by stop signs, had three car-train crashes on record, the last in April 1983. None involved serious injuries, according to federal accident reports.
“For the rail industry, one collision is one too many,” Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said Tuesday afternoon.
Before Monday, five people had been killed in Jefferson County roadway-rail crashes since 1975, none in the last decade, according to railroad administration statistics.
By contrast, 24 people have died from the car-train crashes in Lancaster County since 1975. Douglas County’s tally showed only nine deaths. Nebraska as a whole has averaged about seven road-rail deaths each year over the last five years.
“This is kind of a hard-hitting one for us, because last year in Nebraska we had three fatalities altogether,” said Shelly Harshaw of Operation Lifesaver, a national organization that promotes rail crossing safety. “Statewide, Nebraska’s stats have been good.”
In December of 2000, Nebraska had 6,575 roadway-rail crossings, 3,816 of which were public streets that crossed rails, Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Warren Flatau said.
Federal statistics show that 124 people died in Nebraska road-rail crashes between 1991 and 2001; 424 people died in highway-rail crashes here since 1975.
About 50 percent of car-train collisions nationally occurred where flashing lights or flashing lights with gates functioned properly, according to federal statistics.
“You are of course much more likely to be in a collision with another vehicle,” Flatau said. “But we don’t want to, at the same time, understate the significance of these collisions, because we believe they are largely preventable.
“Trains can’t stop on a dime. They can’t steer out of the way.”
Harshaw, of Operation Lifesaver, said Nebraska’s road-rail deaths had dropped in recent years, except in 1998, when 11 people died.
Operation Lifesaver uses a three-pronged approach to raise awareness of railroad crossings: They try to educate people about how to more safely cross; they work to consolidate railroad crossings to lessen crash opportunities; and they work with police agencies for stricter enforcement of railroad crossing laws.
“We had been seeing a steady decrease,” she said. “So to have something of this magnitude is truly a sorry thing, both for the families and the communities.”
Federal Railroad Administration officials will be conducting an on-site investigation of Monday’s fatal crash. A report will likely take months to complete, Flatau said.