Chief’s Column: How do you stay safe from trains? Stay off the tracks!

About every 90 minutes, a vehicle and a train collide in the United States.

Did you know you are 30 times more likely to die in a crash with a train than with another motor vehicle? To avoid a crash with a train, be it a vehicle or pedestrian, always obey pertinent laws and traffic warning signals. Use caution and be prepared to stop, look, listen and live.

To help keep everyone safe and avoid needless tragedy, the Grafton Police Department would once again like to offer the following railroad safety tips from Operation Lifesaver. This and more information may be found at http://oli.org/education-resources/safety-tips:

• All train tracks are private property. Never walk on tracks, near the rails or on railroad bridges; it’s illegal trespass and highly dangerous. By the time a locomotive engineer sees a trespasser or vehicle on the tracks it’s too late. It takes the average freight train traveling at 55 mph more than a mile—the length of 18 football fields—to stop. Trains cannot stop quickly enough to avoid a collision.
• Trains have the right of way 100% of the time over emergency vehicles, cars, the police and pedestrians.
• The average locomotive weighs about 400,000 pounds or 200 tons and can weigh up to 6,000 tons. This makes the weight ratio of a car to a train proportional to that of a soda can to a car. We all know what happens to a soda can hit by a car.
• Freight trains don’t travel at fixed times and schedules for passenger trains change. Always expect a train at each highway-rail intersection.
• Today’s trains are quieter than ever producing no telltale “clackety-clack.” Any approaching train is always closer, moving faster, than you think. If you see a train approaching, wait for it to go by before you proceed across the tracks.
• Trains can move in either direction at any time. Sometimes their cars are pushed by locomotives instead of being pulled, which is especially true in commuter and light rail passenger service.
• A train can extend three feet or more beyond the steel rail, putting the safety zone for pedestrians well beyond the three-foot mark.
• If there are rails on the railroad ties always assume the track is in use, even if there are weeds or the track looks unused.
• Stay alert around railroad tracks. No texting, headphones or other distractions that would prevent you from hearing an approaching train and never mix rails and recreation.
• Remember to cross train tracks only at designated pedestrian or roadway crossings, and obey all warning signs and signals posted there. Look both ways, and cross the tracks quickly, without stopping. Remember that it isn’t safe to stop closer than 15 feet from a rail.
• Never drive around lowered gates – it’s illegal and deadly. If you suspect a signal is malfunctioning, call the 1-800 number posted on or near the crossing signal or call the Grafton Police Department at 508-839-5343.
• Never race a train to the crossing – even if you tie, you lose.
• Do not get trapped on the tracks. Only proceed through a highway-rail grade crossing if you are sure you can completely clear the crossing without stopping.
• If your vehicle ever stalls on a track while a train is coming, get out immediately and move quickly away from the tracks in the direction the train is coming from. If you run in the same direction the train is traveling, when the train hits your car you could be injured by flying debris. Call the police department for assistance.
• At a multiple track crossing waiting for a train to pass, watch out for a second train on the other tracks approaching in either direction.

Normand A. Crepeau, Jr.

Chief of Police