Angels
on Track: Couple turns a tragedy into a legacy
Twenty years ago this
month, Vicky and Dennis Moore lost their 16-year-old son
Ryan in a train-car crash at a remote crossing at the boundary
of Stark and Wayne counties. The tragedy led the former Stark
County couple to establish the Angels on Track Foundation,
which promotes rail safety.
Ed Balint
The (Canton) Repository
March 29, 2015
CantonRep.com / Michael Balash
Twenty years later, it’s
no easier for Vicky and Dennis Moore to talk about the death
of their teenage son.
Last week marked the anniversary of
Ryan’s death in
1995. The car in which he was riding was struck by a train
while crossing tracks south of Canal Fulton along the Stark-Wayne
county line.
There were six teens in the car. Two
others — Alyson
Ley, 16, and Joshua White, 17 — also were killed.
Sitting on the couch in their living
room, tears welled in Vicky Moore’s eyes as she recalled
that day.
The sense of loss never leaves. It comes back when she hears
a train whistle in the distance. It comes back during media
interviews. It comes back at random moments.
“It never leaves you,” she said, voice breaking. “You
just have 20 years under your belt to learn how to deal with
it — one day at a time.”
Their son is never far away, either in their hearts or in
photos of him on shelves in the living room of their home near
Mechanicstown in eastern Carroll County.
“It doesn’t get better, it’s something you
carry with you the rest of your life,” she said. “Others
go on with their lives and you’re still in that moment
where your whole life has changed.”
The tragedy also gave rise to what’s turned into a lifelong
mission — promoting, advocating and fighting for safer
railroad crossings.
The former Canal Fulton area residents founded Angels on Track,
a nationally-recognized group. Roughly $5.4 million of a jury
award from a lawsuit in the crash was used to establish the
private nonprofit foundation to improve rail crossing safety.
“Am I angry?” Vicky Moore asked rhetorically. “I’m
angry, but I’ve tried to turn my anger into something
positive.”
GATES AND LIGHTS
Vicky Moore recounted the crash. Ryan’s
older brother, Jason, was driving; he survived. Jason approached
the railroad tracks on Deerfield Avenue NW. The crossing
had a reputation for being treacherous. An injury crash had
occurred earlier that month. Another collision in January
was fatal.
Vegetation had obscured the remote tracks. The crossing had
no gates or flashing lights, only warning crossbucks. Jason,
18, had stopped at the tracks and looked both ways before pulling
forward slowly, she said.
“My son did nothing wrong,” she said of Jason. “He
lost his only brother (and two close friends), and to this
day he still carries that with him and will for the rest of
his life.”
“If I would have been at that crossing the same day,
the same thing would have happened,” she said.
The mother balled one of her hands into
a fist. “The
thing that makes me angry is eight months later, they installed
gates (and lights at the crossing).
“There haven’t been any accidents or fatalities
(at the crossing since then), and that’s because I feel
gates are saving lives.”
At that particular crossing, the gates
and lights weren’t
the result of her son’s death, she said. Lights and gates
had already been planned. But the Moores discovered that a
vast number of dangerous crossings existed throughout the state
without the same protection.
“When the accident happened, we were like everyone else — ‘How
could this happen?’” said Dennis Moore. “But
when we saw the crossing our son was killed at, and realized
at that moment what wasn’t done — the sight line
and the vegetation at the bottom of the hill (and gates and
lights had not been installed) — we just thought, ‘How
could they let this go on?’”
That crossing haunted the mother. She would crawl from bed,
in the small hours of the night, driving her car to the crash
site. In her pajamas, she sat in the car, listening in silence.
“I was drawn to the crossing in the beginning,” she
said. “I had to be where my son took his last breath.”
Inside the car, she thought about Ryan,
asking silent questions. “Was
he afraid? What was he thinking?”
A train would roar past. “I used to just scream as loud
as I could and just beat on the steering wheel,” she
said.
GROUP CHANGES FOCUS
Despite the efforts of the group, and its positive impact,
the Moores have grown frustrated over the years.
Vicky Moore firmly believes the political influence of railroad
companies makes it difficult to accomplish more.
“We’ve talked to numerous politicians that will
look you in the eye and agree with everything you say (and
they) want to make changes,” Vicky Moore said. “But
the minute their back is turned, they do nothing.”
The Moores say they also must battle the frequent misperception
that drivers are to blame for most car-train crashes.
Angels on Track has changed its focus since its inception.
The group helped start multiple rail safety task forces across
the state. Few are active today, she said.
The foundation discontinued its task
force program; it no longer awards grants to the groups because
requirements weren’t
being met, including providing photos of crossings and vehicle
counts, Vicky Moore said.
Angels on Track provided roughly $470,000 in reimbursement
grants for 17 sets of crossing gates installed in Stark, Medina,
Huron, Delaware and Wayne counties.
Crossbucks, the only warnings at many
crossings, are not enough, Moore said. “It isn’t even protection — it’s
minimum signage, it doesn’t protect you.”
The group now focuses on reporting the location of dangerous
crossings throughout Ohio and highlighting the need for gates
and lights at those spots.
Lights and gates have been posted at nearly 50 of the reported
crossings, Vicky Moore said.
According to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, federally-funded
safety upgrades are chosen based on a priority list that ranks
the crossings in order of risk of accident.
Dangerous crossing reports also are sent by Angels on Track
to the Ohio Rail Development Commission, which partners with
the utilities commission on selecting the location for crossing
projects each year, said Megan McClory, secretary-treasurer
for the ORDC.
“We look at that closely when looking at potential projects,” she
said of the reports generated by Angels on Track. “They’ve
been very active.”
The overall efforts are making an impact, McClory said. According
to the utilities commission, the number of train-vehicle crashes
in the state has decreased from 123 in 2001 to 61 in 2013.
Fatal crash statistics show that 53 occurred in Ohio in 1990;
25 in 1995; 14 in 2006; 4 in 2011; and 7 in 2013.
The Ohio Rail Development Commission oversees the spending
of roughly $15 million annually in Federal Highway Administration
funding for crossing improvements in the state, McClory said.
Another group, Operation Lifesaver, a national nonprofit organization,
works to reduce collisions, deaths and injuries at highway-rail
grade crossings and along railroad rights-of-way.
Although crossing crashes have decreased
greatly since the 1970s, Operation Lifesaver agrees that
more can be done, said Libby Rector Snipe, the group’s
director of communications. Every three hours, in the U.S.,
a person or vehicle is hit by a train, according to the group.
Rector Snipe noted that while Operation
Lifesaver receives the majority of its funding from “federal
government safety partners, major freight railroads and Amtrak
are also contributors.”
On the issue of political influence,
she wrote in an email that “from our perspective, railroads
are vitally interested in reducing vehicle-train crashes.”
HELPING OTHERS
Angels on Track also promotes rail safety
with roadside billboards, including some in Stark County.
The group’s message is: “Bad
Crossings Kill Good Drivers.” Public service announcements
are broadcast on radio and television, urging Ohio residents
to report the location of dangerous crossings.
Dangerous Crossing Reports can be filled out online at www.angelsontrack.org.
A database, operated by the husband and wife tandem, also
tracks dangerous crossing locations for use by the foundation.
The couple has considered stopping Angels on Track. The constant
reminder of losing a child weighs on the parents, always there,
always in the shadows.
But the group also helps those who have
lost a loved one in a train crash. Sometimes it’s another
parent. They call, write a letter or send a card.
Vicky Moore relates to those who are grieving, her own loss
still raw two decades later.
“She ends up being a great counselor,” Dennis
Moore said of his wife. “She reaches out to these people
and they reach out to her.”
But helping others isn’t easy,
Vicky Moore said.
“If I get a call from somebody, I immediately go back
to 20 years ago,” she said. As she spoke her eyes stared
off distantly. Emotion filled her voice.
“I don’t tell them what to do,” she said,
her eyes wet with tears. “I say, ‘I can’t
take away your grief...’”
The Angels on Track correspondence isn’t always positive.
Some of it’s nasty. The worst: “Your son deserved
to die.”
“I can’t even think of the words to describe it,” Vicky
Moore said. “I would try to respond to those idiots ...
and explain what we’re about and what we’re trying
to do.”
Positive encouragement is also received, including from past
and present employees in the railroad industry, Vicky Moore
said.
The memory of their 16-year-old son stokes their desire to
accomplish more.
“I don’t think we’ve ever thought we’ve
accomplished enough,” the husband said.
Added his wife, “I’ve dedicated
the rest of my life to do this for my sons, for both of my
sons.”
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