Crossing the line into rail’s danger zone

Westside commuter rail trains are coming; are they looking out for you?

By Jennifer Clampet

The Times, Sep 25, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (6 Reader comments)

Jaime Valdez / The Times

TRACKING SAFETY — A man walks on the tracks behind Chelan Apartments in Tualatin on Tuesday at 4:20 p.m. Bad and illegal habits like this have officials concerned that people don’t understand the danger of the train tracks.

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On Tuesday afternoon, a man looked back to see two people peering at him through a fence. He smiled nervously and continued his clumsy walk on the train tracks away from Tualatin’s city center.

The man stepped over the rail as he darted toward a side “goat trail” and from behind a bush he peered back at the opposite side of the train tracks.

He was safe, for now.

Along with concerns for safety at graded crossings and intersections, local police have identified their biggest fear for safety on the WES line to be “people walking across the tracks.”

It’ll be a hard habit to break – illegally crossing the train tracks.

Kate Richmond sees it every day during the summer. Families with children walking their dogs along the tracks that run parallel to her neighborhood off Koller Street in Tualatin.

And young kids use the tracks as a short cut to get to the rock quarry for paintball games. Richmond’s kindergarten-age son Cole began spouting off all the ways that kids use to get on those tracks.

“He sees a bunch of kids walk by in camouflage and he knows all about it,” his mother said.

But with Westside Express Service, a $117.3 million commuter rail line, scheduled to begin running 32 trains a day on those tracks, officials say the bad habits have to stop.

Police in Beaverton, Tigard and Tualatin have committed to patrolling tracks in an effort to warn and educate violators.

Trespassing on train tracks or railroad property carries a fine of up to $5,000 and up to five years in prison. It’s a class C felony.

But more importantly, it can kill.

In Tigard and Tualatin, TriMet erected new fencing in some areas to block off well-established “goat trails” – short cuts clearly visible near the tracks as dirt trails beaten down by constant foot traffic.

And in Beaverton, where the train tracks run in the center of Southwest Lombard Avenue, TriMet erected metal poles connected by a single metal chain.

Different from light rail, WES will run on actual train tracks, and it’s diesel units will travel at speeds of up to 60 mph. The issue of illegal crossings has drawn enough attention that TriMet implemented an education program for school children and communities emphasizing that WES isn’t the normal freight train. It will travel faster, more often and quieter.

So are the chains and fences enough?

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