Railroad, cops clear the track

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Police officers peered out of the windows of the train as it crept along the track just south of Santa Barbara’s Amtrak station.
One officer cried out as he spotted a man walking near the tracks and radioed up to the cab to the engineer, who brought the train to a halt. Half a dozen officers jumped out and promptly handcuffed the man, bringing him back to the railcar after a brief search.
As part of a railroad safety demonstration, Santa Barbara police joined Union Pacific authorities in an enforcement effort along the Santa Barbara rail corridor yesterday morning, picking up more than 20 trespassers and citing them for misdemeanors and detaining those with outstanding warrants.

California has the highest number of trespassing fatalities on railroad tracks in the nation, said Tim Nehrling, western region public safety officer for Union Pacific Railroad. The state is also third in the number of collisions between cars and trains.
In 2006, 91 trespassing fatalities and 59 injuries occurred on California railroad tracks.
“It’s not a statistic we’re proud of,” said Tracy Berge, safety education and environmental coordinator for Metrolink. Berge said preventing trespassing is a high priority in Santa Barbara due to the large homeless population in the area.
Yesterday’s event gave railroad authorities a chance to speak with Santa Barbara police officers to give them an idea of what laws they can enforce at crossings and in terms of trespassers on the tracks, Berge said.
A railroad officer on board yesterday said the tracks are off limits within any walls that run parallel to them or 50 feet if they are in open areas. The only legal and safe place to cross are designated pedestrian or road crossings, he said.
Since 1972, when a national nonprofit organization dedicated to rail safety called Operation Lifesaver was formed, collisions between trains and cars have dropped 76 percent, according to the Operation Lifesaver website, www.oli.org.
“The crossing incidents are definitely going down,” Berge said. “But trespassing is such a concern in this area.”
In July, a 60-year-old Santa Barbara man was struck and killed by an Amtrak train in Carpinteria as he walked his dog near Santa Claus Lane and Sandpoint Road. While authorities participating in yesterday’s safety event didn’t have statistics for Santa Barbara County specifically, the Federal Railroad Administration listed at least five train-related incidents in the past five years on its website.
Nehrling said Union Pacific partners with Operation Lifesaver to offer certified classes for police officers on how to handle any issues involving trains, including collisions, toxic spills and trespassers. They also conduct outreach to drivers and hold presentations at schools.
In addition, Berge said a safety team consisting of Metrolink, Amtrak, and Union Pacific officials, along with other transit authorities, also give presentations at driver education schools and for professional drivers.
Work is also done by that safety team on engineering aspects of the rails that make crossings safer, Berge said, such as medians that prevent people from driving around warning gates.
Authorities said due do an optical illusion, people cannot accurately judge the speed or distance of a train, making it seem further away and moving slowly.
“You can’t tell the difference between a train going 10 miles per hour and a train going 40 miles per hour,” Berge said.
Officials asked the public to be alert near railroad crossings, obey any warning signs and always expect a train, even if one isn’t visible.