Senior Patrick Wheeler recalls a night when he and a friend were walking near the railroad tracks on W. Trollinger Avenue. They heard a train coming.
But they didn’t stop for the train to go through.
“We decided to get right across,” Wheeler said. “We beat it, but if we would have tripped, that would probably have been the end right there.”
In the past 10 months, there have been four fatalities on the railroad tracks in Alamance County, including two in Elon. It’s one of the highest numbers among counties in North Carolina, despite Alamance being the 18th largest county in the state.
For perspective, there were 26 fatalities on tracks across North Carolina in 2014. Three of them, or 12 percent, were in Alamance County, an area that accounts for less than 2 percent of the state’s population.
Measures are being taken to improve rail safety, but it all boils down to the same simple message: stay off the tracks.
According to Paul Worley, the director of the Rail Division at the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), walking on the train tracks outside a designated crossing is legally trespassing. Most rail deaths involve individuals who are trespassing.
“It’s unsafe, and it’s also illegal,” Worley said. “Part of the message we want to get out to people is that trains can come as fast as 79 miles per hour. It takes thousands of feet for a train to stop that’s moving at a high rate of speed. That’s certainly not a situation you’re in if you stay away from the tracks.”
Worley said many of the incidents involve alcohol and a lot appear to be suicide, but sometimes it’s unclear if a person doesn’t leave a note. For that reason, Worley said NCDOT works with suicide prevention task forces across the state.
When someone is killed on the tracks, the driver of the train often asks for a period away from the job.
“We continue to try to stress the need for trying to stay away from the tracks, and how it impacts other people, and how it’s more than just one individual that’s involved,” he said.
The most recent death on the tracks in Alamance County occurred Jan. 27, when Franklin D. Gwynn, 25, was struck by an Amtrak train near the Fisher Street overpass, not far from the Burlington Amtrak Station.
In December, Doris Miles Pinnix, 80, was in her Dodge Caravan on the railroad crossing at East Washington Street in Mebane when the van was hit and she was killed.
On May 20, 2014, Malcolm Cornelius Sims, 22, was struck while walking on the train tracks just west of Elon’s campus. Justin Lamar Swanson, 27, was killed two weeks later while standing on the tracks at the crossing by Gilliam Road and Park Road Extension at the border between Elon and Burlington.
The last Elon student killed on the tracks was James Michael Elzar Foreman when he was struck on the crossing at Oak Avenue in April 2007.
Senior Matt Albers crosses the tracks every day when walking to campus from his Mill Point apartment while wearing headphones. He trusts himself, but he also acknowledges the possible dangers.
“I think that’s the biggest danger is when a kid’s walking around with his headphones in,” Albers said. “They’re going to get hit when they don’t even hear it.”
The tunnel connecting North and South campus was completed in April 2010 and cost approximately $2.2 million, funded by Elon University and the North Carolina Railroad Company.
“It’s quite a public investment,” Worley said of such tunnels. “You have to do everything you can to get people to use that.”
Albers thinks more safety measures like the tunnel would benefit in the area on the west side of Williamson Avenue.
“I would figure there’d be more than a bit of fence that’s maybe 4 ½ feet tall,” Albers said. “It shocks me that it’s so easy to walk across.”
In its March Rail Report, NCDOT announced that Dual Matrix Vehicle Detection Radar systems will be implemented at nine new locations in the state during the next two years, including three in Alamance County — Oak Avenue in Elon, Elmira Street in Burlington and 3rd Street in Mebane.
The systems detect vehicles as they cross the tracks, evaluating how effective a simultaneous gate drop is in deterring drivers from going around the gates hoping to beat a train. If a vehicle is in the crossing when a gate starts to drop, the lowering of the gate is slightly delayed to give the car a clear way out. The systems also have video cameras which give continuous footage of the areas.
These are being funded through FHWA Section 1103(f), Freight Rail & Rail Crossing Safety and Highway Safety Improvement Program.
They were tested at three locations — on Williamson Avenue in Elon and another on 5th Street in Mebane. The spots were chosen, according to Worley, based on geometrics and how complex the crossing is.
Worley said the main purpose of the radar systems is to cut down on violations where people speed through to beat the train, sometimes trying to swerve around the crossing itself. But they also sense where vehicles are on the tracks, so they prevent cars from being trapped when a train is coming through.
“They went through quite a bit of testing,” Worley said. “It raises the effectiveness of the four-quadrant gate and gives added security.”
NCDOT’s BeRailSafe program is constantly trying to inform the public and law enforcement officers on safety precautions regarding the railroad tracks. In 2014, BeRailSafe worked with Amtrak on First Responder training sessions, partnered with CSX Transportation, North Carolina Operation Lifesaver and NASCAR on a railroad crossing safety event and conducted a number of crossing blitzes, during which workers deliver safety information to motorists when they’re stopped at a crossing.
BeRailSafe’s goals for 2015 include working with School Resource Officers to bring its messages to children and to increase its outreach to university campus radio stations.
“It doesn’t only work as far as public outreach and the individual contact with citizens, but there’s also an effort there to coordinate with local emergency forces so they have a better understanding,” Worley said. “There may be a percentage of things that you can’t reach, but you try to reach what you can and you try to strive for zero incidents.”