West Georgia lawmaker’s bill seeks to stop trains from blocking crossings

A West Georgia state lawmaker says he knew he was facing opposition but still wanted to sponsor legislation this year to have trains not block road crossings for long periods of time.

District 19 State Rep. Joseph Gullett, R-Dallas, is sponsoring a bill in the Georgia General Assembly to limit trains to a maximum of 15 minutes blocking road crossings in the state.

Gullett, whose co-sponsors include two Bartow representatives, said some railroad companies park trains for days at a time on some crossings.

“This is a big problem in Hiram and many other legislators have told me it’s a big problem in their districts across this state,” Gullett said in a Facebook post recently.

Georgia would be joining 37 other states which have laws related to blocked crossings, Gullett told a reporter.

He said he understood trains sometimes needed to temporarily stop and block crossings for a variety of reasons, such as safety concerns. But they should not continue to remain stopped “if there’s no real reason,” he said.

Freight trains often are so long they can block multiple crossings and affect heavily traveled routes if stopped in a densely populated area, Gullett said.

They also can lengthen the time emergency vehicles need to get to hospitals, which Villa Rica officials complained about during a blockage of two major crossings in early 2018, he said.

“This is a public safety thing,” Gullett said.

The bill, House Bill 375, was in the House Transportation Committee March 5. The committee would have needed to approve it and send it for full House passage by March 7 for it to have time to to be considered by the Senate and gain final passage this year. It can still be considered in 2020.

Gullett said he knew railroad companies likely had concerns. Their lobbyists already told him they opposed the bill “on its face,” he said.

In addition, he noted he was a firstterm legislator. Such lack of experience often means a freshman wields much less influence than more senior lawmakers.

“I knew this would be a tough sell,” Gullett said.

Among the co-sponsors of Gullett’s bill are Villa Rica’s former mayor, District 68 State Rep. J. Collins, R-Villa Rica. Other co-sponsors include two Bartow County freshmen House members, District 14 State Rep. Mitchell Scoggins, R-Cartersville, and District 15 State Rep. Matthew Gambill, R-Cartersville.

Norfolk Southern was the railroad which stopped its train over a weekend and blocked two crossings in Villa Rica in early 2018.

The train stopped on its tracks and blocked two major routes to a hospital over a three-day period twice in early 2018, Mayor Jeff Reese told an Atlanta TV news station.

Reese said it forced emergency vehicles to take a longer route to the hospital.

The company said staffing issues prompted it to leave the train idled and blocking two crossings. But they said it left two crossings open and was in communication with city officials about it.

Norfolk Southern, which recently announced it was moving its corporate headquarters to Atlanta, also operates all railroads running through Paulding County.

Gullett said it has stopped its trains and blocked a crossing in Dallas which forced an ambulance to take a longer route to WellStar Paulding Hospital.

In Hiram, the railroad formerly stopped and blocked Main Street at the south end of the downtown area for long periods of time, city officials said.

Norfolk Southern’s trains have blocked one crossing that was not a hospital route but still vital to merchants in the historic downtown retail area, Hiram Mayor Teresa Philyaw said.

She said it also stopped its train on a section that included Main Street for days at a time, including during the town’s annual Christmas tree lighting in late November.

Gullett said a train blocked the crossing during the holiday event and forced attendees to use a narrow sidewalk along heavily traveled Hiram-Douglasville Highway to walk from their parked vehicles to the event site.

Spokesperson Susan Terpay said Norfolk Southern “remains committed to working with officials, business owners and residents in individual communities to prevent or reduce crossing issues.”

Philyaw said city leaders met with Norfolk Southern officials in late 2018 and “committed to try to stop that from happening.”

“We’re hoping with their cooperation (it will) stop being an issue,” she said. “They agreed to work with us.”

Gullett said the bill states that train crew members would not be violating the law if they can prove they were ordered by their employer to do so.

It makes exceptions for trains forced to stop to avoid striking any object or person on the track, and to comply with railroad track safety signals.

The legislation also allows stoppage longer than 15 minutes for “circumstances which are beyond the control of the railroad common carrier”; or to comply with a federal safety regulation or other federal law.