NORWOOD, N.Y. Village officials say local law enforcement is prepared to ticket the engineers of CSX trains if they continue to stop the trains in the middle of the village for an extended period of time, the Watertown, N.Y., Daily Times reports.
For several years, problems have occurred when a train is attempting to make a sharp curve in the middle of the village and sometimes stalls out and remains stationary for a period of time. It essentially cuts Norwood in half, according to village officials.
Village residents have been frustrated with the fact that the long, stalled train has sometimes caused emergency vehicles and school buses to take significant detours to reach the other side of the village.
Trains have blocked crossings at Whitney and Bicknell streets. The trains cut off access to homes along Pine, Depot, Felton and Lang streets and Morgan and Town Line roads.
Safety concerns also have been raised about children playing around the stalled train cars.
Norwood Mayor James H. McFaddin told trustees this week that there have been recurring problems with the train stopping; the situation was thought to be rectified a year and a half ago.
At that time, Mr. McFaddin said, village officials had to travel to Jacksonville, Fla., CSX's corporate headquarters. Officials had the problem resolved, but now it has resurfaced, the mayor said.
He said the village Police Department is prepared to ticket the engineer of the train if it stops in town for more than five minutes.
"The train has to be moving," he said.
(This item appeared in the Watertown Daily Times July 23, 2009.)
We have a Branchline that generates good traffic, some of which is stone products, lime etc. Its track thats been there since before the civil war, and the tracks go right thru the small towns that built up around it. One a notably large, lets say you could consider it a city. This is where the station is used to base the various locals that work on that end of the Branch. The cars of stone products need weighed, and there is a scale on one of 3 yard tracks in the middle of this town. To weigh the cars means tying up a crossing or two for a couple minutes while shoving the cars onto the scale, stopping, then shoving the next car up. Anyway this enraged the city folk, they complained to the FRA. It just so happened that the FRA man coming to investigate got tied up in the traffic jam created the day of the incident. The local crew had a extra Conductor who had never worked the job before, and a seasoned old head who was the brakeman. They were taking thier time, and someone called the Coppers. Even the Chief himself came to pontificate. A car load of cops swarmed on the scale and asked the Brakeman who was in charge, and he said over there is the Conductor...thats when one of the cops said they were going to ticket somebody, then he told them the engineer was on the engine, down by the station. They were blocked by the traffic so they called on the radio, and the Chief said he was at the station. The Chief of Police got up on the Engine, ticketbook out and said something about needing ID. The Hawg stood up in his seat and yelled at the Chief..."Get the F*** off my engine, You're Trespassing" ( or something to that effect). Out came the handcuffs. The story goes the Trainmaster was called by the Police who were going to take the crew downtown, and they asked him what to do with them, and the TM reportedly said "Lock 'em up and throw the key away". Anyway by now the FRA man was on the scene and told the Coppers they couldn't remove the crew from the train, neither could they ticket any crew members. They could ticket the Railroad, that was it. The cops still gave the crew summonses and the TM, the company had to pay for a lawyer to represent everybody, and the city found out that they could not ticket the train crew as the FRA had told them, they could write a ticket to Jacksonville that was about it. The crew got paid a day to go to court, Everybody was happy 'cept the coppers and the TM. Oh, and the Hawg was told he had a problem with authority. To which he just smiled like a Chessie cat.
The last sentance cut off says STEPS WILL BE TAKEN TO PROVIDE APPROPRIATE FEEDBACK TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES WHERE WARRANTED.
-- Edited by Calvin on Friday 24th of July 2009 06:11:56 AM
Thank you, Clavlin, for that helpful post. I seem to faintly remember reading something like that on a bulletin on whatever division my trackage rights division was being called at that time. It's changed several times.
