Rail deaths plague Abington
 Officials investigate a fatal accident at the Birch Street railroad crossing in Abington Monday as workers prepare to remove the pickup truck. The train can be seen where it stopped, two blocks down the tracks, in the upper left corner of the photo. (CRAIG MURRAY/THE ENTERPRISE) |
ABINGTON — A spate of collisions at an Abington rail crossing —including a fatal one Monday — have focused attention on the system used to keep people and vehicles off the tracks when a train is coming.
Since April of 1998, there have been nine collisions at train crossings in Abington, including four fatal ones.
The latest came Monday when Tyrone Tabbi, 31, of Whitman, was killed after his black Ford F150 pickup truck was struck by an inbound Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority commuter train shortly after 9 a.m. on Birch Street.
"It's still under investigation," Abington Deputy Police Chief Christopher Cutter said Monday afternoon. "It is inconclusive at this time whether he tried to beat the train or whether he had some other motive at the time of the collision."
Railroad crossings in Massachusetts have what is called a dual gate system, meaning there is one gate on each side of the tracks for motor vehicles and one on either side at sidewalks. Some also use flashing warning lights, traffic signs, traffic signals or painted boxes on the pavement to alert drivers to upcoming railroad tracks. Others may use a warning bell or whistle system, too.
According to Orange County Road Department, the Crotty Commuter Rail proposal would cross 80 roads in Orange County alone - 40 don't have ANY rail crossing systems! Every 30 minutes an empty commuter rail train would cross all east/west roads... think about it!
There are no quad gate systems in Massachusetts — a system that would place two gates on either side of the tracks for motor vehicles, making it more difficult to drive around them— but that is about to change as the state extends the Greenbush line which is expected to open in 2007.
"They are very rare around the country," said Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the MBTA.
But the four-quad gate system is a growing trend.
"They are not that widely deployed at this juncture, but they are increasingly being placed at grade crossings around the country," said Warren Flatau, a spokesman with the Federal Railroad Administration, based in Washington, D.C.
Along the Greenbush line, five quad gates will be built among 23 grade crossings, Pesaturo said. The quad gate system was one that officials in the towns of Hingham and other Greenbush communities had fought for and were included as part of the project mitigation, he said.
"To avoid having to do larger land takings and enhance safety, we suggested the T use the quad gates," said state Sen. Robert Hedlund, R-Weymouth.
That compromise was reached after a meeting two years ago that Hedlund and other lawmakers had with high-ranking MBTA officials and then-state Transportation Secretary Dan Grabauskas.
Pesaturo said the four-quad gates along the Greenbush line is estimated to cost $5 million, roughly $1 million apiece. A dual gate system costs an estimated $400,000, depending on the configuration needed at the rail crossing, he said.
NO safety measures have been budgeted or proposed by Boss Crotty for the central Florida rail boondoggle!
Whether a four-quad gate system is safer is still under debate.
"No study or report has ever been produced that quad gates ever make a crossing any safer," Pesaturo said.
But Flatau said one study, which he believed was conducted in Southern California, demonstrated the quad gate system did cut down on drivers going through the gates at rail crossings.
"I believe it was an over 60 percent reduction at the highway rail crossing," Flatau said.
In 1998 for an eight-week period, a four-quad gate system was installed at the Wales Street crossing in Abington for a demonstration of the technology. Cameras also recorded driver's behavior patterns at the crossing. The study reported 13 "incidents" where pedestrians, drivers or bicyclists went through the crossing after bells, flashers and the gate arms were activated, according to the FTA.
An executive summary of the demonstration report states that the technology could "be effective and reliable to control motorist movement at an activated highway-rail crossing" but also states that it was not a one-size fits all solution for every rail crossing.
That four-quadrant gate system was removed after the demonstration was completed.
Pesaturo said as there were no reported collisions at the Wales Street crossing before the demonstration or during it, he could not say whether it led to an improvement or a degradation there.
"There is no baseline from which to judge," he said.
Cutter, the police deputy chief, said the town, at this point, is not thinking about installing quad gates at its crossings.
"I suppose we'd have to look at some the studies and findings," he said.
One concern with a quad system is how a vehicle that crossed those warning gates would get out once inside when a train is approaching, Cutter said.
Abington is not the only town where there has been tragedy on the tracks.
Last summer in Hanson, a 41-year-old Pembroke woman was struck and killed by a southbound commuter train. A month following her suicide, her boyfriend, a 39-year-old Plympton man who was despondent over her death, was seriously injured after he was also struck by a commuter rail near the same area.
In February of last year, several people in West Bridgewater escaped injury after they fled their SUV after it got stuck on the tracks and was destroyed by a train.
In Holbrook earlier this year a Brockton man and his passenger also escaped injury after they abandoned their vehicle after it also became stuck on the tracks. That driver was charged by MBTA transit police with trespassing on a railroad right of way, among other charges.
Pesaturo emphasized that rail crossing gates serve as warnings for people.
"No one should be under the impression that they serve as protection," he said.
Ax the Commuter Rail Tax