The issue ~ Car-train crashes

Our opinion ~ Accidents bad for motorists, bad for railroad

There’s something about trains. Ask country music singers. They romanticize the rails.

Ask Orangeburg, too. There is nothing romantic about what is happening here with trains, particularly in the area along U.S. Highway 601 near the universities.

The statistics don’t lie. The area is down-right dangerous when it comes to traveling.

This past week, a man’s vehicle became trapped when the crossing guards on Peasley Street came down as he was on the tracks. The Norfolk Southern train struck his vehicle, throwing it across the four lanes of Magnolia Street. The driver died.

His death marks the fourth fatality at an Orangeburg rail crossing since the maximum train speed through the Garden City was increased to 49 mph. The maximum speed was 15 mph until it was increased to 30 mph in December 2000, and increased again in February 2001.

There were 16 collisions at Orangeburg rail crossings between March 2001 and July 24. Three people have been killed in two crashes and a pedestrian was killed during a May 2006 mishap.

Prior to the increase in train speed, there were six train-car collisions between January 1996 and February 2000. After the increase to 30 mph, there were two accidents in December 2000. None of the accidents was fatal.

The latest crash will rekindle the feud between Orangeburg and Norfolk Southern, a relationship that was strained previously and grew colder with the increase in train speeds.

There appears to be little local government can do about the train speeds, which are legal. The railroads are regulated federally. That hasn’t stopped Orangeburg City Council from being a vocal critic of the railroad and its policies, including parking tanker cars across from South Carolina State and Claflin.

Rail accidents are not good for Norfolk Southern. They are not good for anyone, except maybe the attorneys who will be sought out for legal remedies. Every time there is a crossing accident, the railroad is likely to be taken to court. There is a vested interest in seeing that motorists don’t get hit.

Motorists have responsibility, too. The old saying goes, “The train only runs in one place, on the tracks.” For motorists, that means accepting that and not playing some kind of beat-the-train game at crossings. Regardless of speed, a locomotive hitting a vehicle is a losing situation for the motorist.

Speed does matter, though. At intersections without crossing guards, a motorist can be deceived by how fast the locomotive is oncoming. Inside the city, it is hard to adjust to the reality of a train moving at speeds up to 15 and 20 mph faster than the speed limit of vehicles around it.

The speed has been an issue in other instances, too. Few will forget the day in 2005 when a train interrupted a parade, leaving a band divided on both sides of the track. It was a scramble. Miraculously, no one was hurt.

And there is the matter of leaving rail cars at the location across from the university. It’s serious enough that hazardous materials are being transported in such proximity to thousands of college students, but to leave cars near the schools does not seem like smart business. Too much risk.

Norfolk Southern is within its business and legal parameters in operating as it does. But its complaints about too many small crossings in and around Orangeburg and its seemingly deaf ear to complaints about speeds don’t make the company a favorite corporate citizen. Orangeburg County is the state’s second largest in land area. Even beyond the many city crossings, we have lots of rural roads with crossings. It’s a fact of life that is not going to change. Keeping train speeds at safe levels for particular locations would be smart business.

Train schedules aside, we repeat: Everyone loses in a crash. And the schedule is out the window, too. We urge an accommodation.

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