AUBURN, Wash. — The cab of a Union Pacific locomotive provided a railroad engineer’s view Wednesday of the danger outside when cars, trucks and pedestrians cross the tracks.
Steve Reveley, 59, with 30 years’ experience as an engineer, was at the controls. He knows firsthand the danger those crossings pose.
Ten years ago he was driving a Union Pacific train through Centralia one night when he hit a 10-year-old boy who rode his bicycle onto the tracks in front of his train.
“It’s not an easy thing,” Reveley said. “After that I would see him in my mind’s eye. I would see him in the lights and hear the thud.”
Preventing more deaths and injuries is why Reveley volunteered to be part of a four-hour sting operation Wednesday in Auburn that targeted railroad crossing scofflaws, drivers and pedestrians.
Two locomotives connected back-to-back made at least 50 trips through the intersections, blowing horns in warning and activating the crossing lights. At the crossings, Auburn patrol and motorcycle officers waited and watched. They were ready to issue citations.
The safety patrol was the first in the city in three years and was prompted by a recent survey in the city that found 34 railroad crossing violations in a 12-hour period. The survey was taken when Boeing workers were on strike and traffic was lighter than normal.
Every railroad community in Western Washington lives with the danger.
A News Tribune analysis of pedestrian trespass train fatalities in Pierce and South King counties found that at least 54 people have died on railroad tracks in the past 10 years.
In 2008, the state Utilities and Transportation Commission, which oversees railroad safety, reported nine people killed in trespass and crossing accidents.
In the locomotive cab Wednesday, Auburn police Sgt. Tony deChoudens sat next to Reveley and helped spot anyone found illegally crossing or stopping on the tracks at two major street crossings on the line: W. Main Street and 15th Street SW near the SuperMall.
The patrol officers didn’t have to wait too long.
State law requires that once warning lights start flashing at a crossing, vehicles and pedestrians are required to stop at the marked stop lines and clear the tracks. Stopping on the tracks or between the stop lines at any point, even without the warnings activated, is also prohibited. Crossing railroad tracks at other than a designated crossing also is illegal.
Though no drivers Wednesday tried to drive around the safety arms once they were down, a number of them ignored the flashing warning lights before the safety arms came down.
After the locomotives passed by, others didn’t wait until the warning lights were out and the safety arms were completely up before crossing the tracks. That also is illegal.
By the end of the emphasis patrol, deChoudens said Auburn officers as well as special agents for Union Pacific and BNSF Railway issued citations for 12 crossing violations. Thirteen warnings also were handed out, primarily for trespassing on the tracks.
DeChoudens said failure to obey railroad crossing lights carries a $124 fine for drivers. Trespassing anywhere on railroad tracks by pedestrians outside a crossing carries a $56 fine.
“I think people start to take (railroad crossings) for granted,” said Auburn officer Todd Beyers, who waited on a motorcycle near W. Main Street to catch violators. “We have so many railroad crossings for the size of the city.”
Dave Pratt, transportation safety director for the Utilities and Transportation Commission, lauded both the railroads and the city of Auburn for the sting operation. He said at least two sting operations are held in communities in the state each year.
“My experience being at railroad crossing stings is that you get a good feel for what the public does,” he said Wednesday. “I think they highlight that the public regularly ignores safety devices.”
Pratt said the commission recently completed a study of all railroad crossing accidents in the state between 2000 and 2008. He said it found that in half of them the crossings had gates, which means people were driving around the gates. Eighty-three percent of the accidents occurred when weather was good and 80 percent when the pavement was dry.
The study also indicated that 79 percent of the drivers were men between the ages of 30 and 50.
“You would have thought it would young and reckless drivers,” Pratt said. “It’s middle-age guys like me ignoring crossings.”
Auburn officer S.E. Sills spent the afternoon chasing down drivers. Of three drivers he ticketed, he said one said she didn’t even see the red lights. A second said she didn’t realize she’d done anything wrong. A third said she thought she could cross the tracks as long as the safety arms weren’t down yet.
Sills stopped the driver of a black Saab, Marc Steingrebe of Issaquah, who appeared to speed through the crossing as the safety arm was coming down. He told Sills that he didn’t have time to stop when the red lights came on.
In a roadside interview, Steingrebe said he wasn’t upset about being stopped.
“It’s always good to look out for the best safe practices,” he said.
Sills decided not to cite him.
“I gave him the benefit of the doubt,” Sills said. But he did issue him a citation for no proof of auto insurance.
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