RED
TAPE, DISTRUST STALL GIFT OF SAFETY
Crossing-Signal Offer Delayed For Testing
THE PLAIN
DEALER
Monday, July 24, 2000
By James F. Sweeney -- Reporter
More than three years ago, a company donated safety signals
to a Stark County foundation promoting safety at railroad
crossings.
Despite the need to improve safety at the 3,020 public railroad
crossings in Ohio that don't have lights, the signals have
yet to be installed. The manufacturer of the signals, a railroad
and the charitable foundation blame the Ohio Rail Development
Commission, a division of state government. The ORDC said it
did everything it could to get lights installed, and blames
the company and the railroad.
But all agree they want to prevent more tragedies like the
one that got the whole thing started.
On March 25, 1995, three youths died and three were injured
when their car was hit by a Conrail train at a crossbuck-only
crossing on the border of Stark and Wayne counties.
Dennis and Vicky Moore of Canal Fulton lost one son and had
another injured in the accident. They sued Conrail and won.
They used the $5.4 million award to establish the Angels on
Track Foundation, pledging to help local governments pay for
lights and gates at crossings.
That got the attention of an Omaha, Neb., company, EVA Signal
Corporation, which is marketing a new technology in railroad
crossing safety.
Put simply, most railroad warning systems rely on electrical
currents passed through the rails. When a train approaches,
its metal wheels and axles close a circuit, triggering the
lights and gates at the crossing.
It is essentially the same system that has been in use for
100 years. It is reliable, but not foolproof. Rain, mud, rust
and snow on the tracks can interfere with the current and activate
lights and gates when there is no train. If that happens repeatedly
at a crossing, drivers learn to ignore the gates and drive
around them ö sometimes into the path of an oncoming train.
EVA uses magnetometers buried next to the track to detect changes
in the magnetic field caused by an approaching train to activate
the lights and gates. Because they are below ground, the sensors
are protected from weather and pranksters who lay metal pipes
across the tracks to lower the gates.
But the company found that the railroad industry and the bureaucracies
that regulate it are not eager to abandon the proven for something
new. Ten years after its founding, EVA Signal has only three
signals operating.
Outside Omaha, the Union Pacific Railroad is testing one at
a crossing by running it parallel with the existing signal
and comparing their performance.
"We're happy with its operation", said Union Pacific spokesman Mark
Davis, who added that the railroad was studying whether it would be cheaper
to use the EVA signal on a wide scale.
Two other signals are in use at chemical plants in Nebraska
and Texas.
EVA Signal had hoped to be in Ohio by now.
Company executives met with state officials in June 1997 to
demonstrate their equipment and offer a free $50,000 signal
to be installed wherever Angels on Track wanted. Initially,
interest was high.
The Ohio Rail Development Commission wanted to buy 10 to 12
signals and install them on a railroad line in southeastern
Ohio. The Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway, a Canton-based
short-line railroad, volunteered to have the donated signal
installed at one of its crossings.
But before buying equipment, the state wanted to make sure
EVA Signal had enough insurance to protect Ohio in case of
a crossing accident and wanted specific costs of installing
and maintaining the new system.
EVA Signal did not provide the requested information in time,
said Thomas O'Leary, director of the ORDC until April.
"Over a period of two to three years·we attempted to work with
EVA signal to put in a test apparatus. Each time we began to push the solution,
it fell apart," O'Leary said.
That's nonsense, said Christopher G. Seitz, president of EVA
Signal. The company has $3 million insurance for a crossing
and could easily have gotten more, he said.
EVA Signal told the state how much the signals cost, Seitz
said, adding that the ORDC simply could have written the price
into a contract.
Another problem, O'Leary said, was Wheeling & Lake Erie's
rejection of the state's condition that the signal be tested
in conjunction with traditional lights and gates at a crossing
before it could be used alone.
Railroad President Larry Parsons said he was satisfied that
the EVA Signal was safe and did not need more testing.
In 1998, the pending takeover of Conrail by CSX and Norfolk
Southern began to occupy ORDC and the ORDC told EVA Signal
its plans would have to wait.
In May 1999, the ORDC got permission from the Federal Highway
Administration to test the EVA signal, but nothing is planned.
"The feeling I'm getting is I just wasn't a top priority for them,"
Seitz said. "I didnât think it would take this long.
I couldn't imagine it would take this long. We just want to
know what to do. How do we overcome this?"
The failure to get the free signal installed also upsets Vicky
Moore of Angels on Track.
She said the ORDC did not do enough to force railroads to improve
safety and blamed it for not installing the EVA signal.
"Somebody doesn't want this to happen," she said.
But EVA Signal might yet get its lights and gates at an Ohio
crossing.
New ORDC Director James E. Seney said he was interested in
testing the technology on different lines and under various
conditions.
But, like his predecessor O'Leary, he is wary of the new technology
and said satisfactory tests done on EVA Signal systems in Texas
and Nebraska were not good enough.
If EVA Signal's technology is used here, it will only be after
it is tested in parallel with existing signals.
"In my estimation, we are really going to have to start from square one,"
he said.
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