ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Visit www.journal-news.com to see exclusive video of the Hanover Twp. roads impacted by stopped trains.
AT A GLANCE
Stopped trains have shut down some Hamilton and Hanover Twp. roads for hours at a time in recent months. Here’s a look at major delays that were recorded with city and township officials this year. Please note, Hanover Twp. does not have complete records of all of the train stops. Interviews with residents living in the area indicate railroad crossings have been closed because of stopped trains as recent as April.
HAMILTON
March 11, 2015
Trains break down and block crossings at Millville and Kenworth Avenue around 6 p.m. The Kenworth Avenue crossing is closed until 9:30 p.m. and the Millville crossing reopens at 10:45 p.m.
March 10, 2015
Around 12:30 p.m. a train loses power and blocks railroad crossings at Millville Avenue and North Washington Boulevard. By 5 p.m., the train is moved.
HANOVER TWP.
Jan. 31, 2015
Darrtown Road’s railroad crossing, which sits at a dead-end street, is shut down for three-and-a-half hours starting at 1 p.m.
Jan. 26, 2015
Hussey Road is again blocked just before 9 a.m. The township has no record of when the scene was finally cleared.
Jan. 25, 2015
Hussey Road is blocked while a train sits at a standstill for more than one hour just after 4 p.m.
A Florida-based train company faces more than $400,000 worth of fines from the city of Hamilton for stalled rails that have forced road traffic to a standstill for multiple hours within the last year.
And, just down the tracks, dozens of residents living in Hanover Twp. have also been cut off from leaving their homes or accessing roads because of the same company’s halted trains.
CSX trains have stopped on tracks and disrupted traffic for more than 36 hours total in Hamilton and at least another 18 hours on three roads in Hanover Twp. since March 2014, according to township and city records obtained by the Journal-News.
The company’s crew is supposed to break the trains, allowing traffic to pass through, when they’re stopped for five minutes, according to state law.
But, all too often for Shawna Campbell, a Hanover Twp. homeowner, five minutes turn into hours. Her family has missed her child’s baseball games, her children have missed hours of school and her husband’s been late to work thanks to the stalled trains. She’s even been late to a funeral.
Hussey Road, where she lives, is a dead-end street so when trains block it, there’s no way for Campbell’s family to leave their home – unless they hop the trains.
“Once you’re stuck back here, you’re stuck,” Campbell said. “We didn’t realize we were going to be trapped back here. It’s just very frustrating.”
It’s not just an inconvenience. Campbell along with other long leaders, fear the trains could one day impede access for fire trucks or ambulances to the Hanover Twp. roads.
“We would like them to pay a little more attention,” said Hanover Twp. Administrator Bruce Henry of CSX. “How are we going to an issue, if there’s a house on fire or a medical emergency? Every minute counts.”
He said ambulances have had to make runs to that part of town before, and he knows of several elderly people who live on the roads the trains block.
A spokeswoman for CSX said, in a statement, the company is aware of stopped trains in the area. CSX is a publicly traded company that operates trains across North America and reported a $1.9 billion profit last year.
“We’re looking into the issue of blocked crossing in Butler County,” said spokeswoman Kristin Seay. “We apologize for the inconvenience to community residents and are looking into what operational adjustments can be made.”
‘They laugh at us’
Township officials have recorded 17 times within the last year where Darrtown and Hussey Roads — both of which are dead ends — have been blocked for longer than 15 minutes and sometimes as long as four hours. Roughly 24 homes are located on those roads.
Hussey Road resident Wendy Breehne said the trains have obstructed the roads several times in recent weeks. She’s lived on her property for 21 years.
“It seems like, lately, they’ve been blocking for a couple of hours at a time,” Breehne said. “It just seems like the last couple of weeks.”
In two separate letters dated March 16, CSX apologized to both Hamilton and Hanover Twp. for the road obstructions. Specifically, in the letter addressed to Hanover Twp., the company’s vice president said employees had been instructed not to block one of the dead-end roads. Both letters also attributed some of the problems to mechanical malfunctions that they planned to alleviate with more staff and new equipment.
A reporter on scene at Hussey Road April 28 witnessed CSX trains stopped on the tracks, but the trains were broken so traffic could move through the crossing.
When the trains are stopped, sometimes law enforcement cannot find any personnel on the locomotives because they’re swapping out crews. Federal regulations require trains to switch out crews
Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkens said other train companies travel through Butler County but CSX trains block roads most frequently. He said the county wrote CSX a “scathing letter” in 2011 over “cooperation and attitude” with the county.
“We’ve been down this road before,” Wilkens said. “This problem has plagued us.”
Frustrated homeowners have turned to township leaders to help solve the problem. When trains are blocked, Campbell said she’s received little help from calling CSX.
“We’ve told them before, when we’ve called, you guys will be fined,” Campbell said. “They laugh at us and tell us, ‘we have a huge budget for our fines so it doesn’t matter.’”
But, local leaders say they’re not able to threaten CSX with the hefty fines cities and villages can levy because of state laws that limit the offense to a minor misdemeanor, which comes with a $125 penalty. The sheriff’s office issues the citations for Hanover Twp.
“We’re talking, possibly, increasing the penalties,” Henry said.
Hamilton, for example, has their own municipal code that governs the cost of fines for railroad blocking. The city’s fines sit at $1,000 for every five minutes of railroad blocking.
So, when an CSX train broke down in Hamilton March 10 and blocked multiple railroad crossings — essentially cutting the city in half — for a few hours, city officials responded by citing CSX, resulting in $106,000 worth of fines which are still pending in Hamilton Municipal Court. So far, CSX has only paid $2,000 and many of the fines — nearly $400,000 has been levied against the company for five separate incidents this year alone — are working their way through Hamilton Municipal Court.
State Rep. Tim Derickson, a former Hanover Twp. trustee, said he plans on proposing legislation that would give the township more powers over the fines.
“We really need to do something about this,” Derickson said. “What we need to do is to allow the Hanover Twp. trustees to impose the fees they feel are warranted.”
Derickson said he’s directed the state’s legislative service commission to survey area municipalities on how much they fine trains for blocking roads. He said he’s unaware of any other townships in the state dealing with a similar locomotive issue, but that could change once word gets out about Hanover’s problem.
Derickson wants to propose new legislation shortly after that research has been done.
“We’re certainly not going to drag our feet on this,” Derickson said. “It’s a safety issue.”
Cost of doing business
Sgt. Ed Buns of the Hamilton Police Department said recent train blockings in the city were mostly the fault of mechanical errors. Buns said he’s maintained a good relationship with CSX leaders and regularly communicates with them about potential delays or problems.
“They’re usually calling me when they have a breakdown,” Buns said. We’ve developed a relationship. They try as much as they can.”
In February and March, stopped trains halted traffic five times in just weeks. Buns said since that “bad period” only one other train blocking has been reported that resulted in a 20-minute delay.
“The thing I’ve found with them is they don’t want those trains to be stopped,” Buns said. “If those wheels aren’t moving, they’re not making money.”
Buns said he doesn’t think big fines keep the problems from happening.
“Do the fines have an impact? I’m not sure they do,” Buns said. “To them, that’s the cost of doing business.”
In fact, recent news reports show similar train blockings have been a problem for cities in Alabama, Florida and New York.
Campbell, the Hanover Twp. resident, agrees that more fines probably won’t stop the trains from stopping on the tracks. But, at least, she said if fines are increased, CSX would have to pay more for the serious inconvenience they cause to her and her neighbors.
“I think it will continue,” Campbell said, “They’d just as soon pay the fine.”
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