Police dismayed by train blockage ruling
Indiana Supreme Court strikes down law that allowed fining railroads for blocking streets
Railroads in Indiana no longer can be ticketed for blocking street crossings with their trains — and local police are not happy about it.
The Indiana Supreme Court on Monday struck down a state law, on the books for more than 150 years, that allowed local governments to fine railroads when a stopped train blocks a street for more than 10 minutes.
The justices unanimously agreed that the 1865 Blocked Crossing Statute was pre-empted by the 1995 Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act. The act prohibits states from
enacting a law or rule that manages or governs rail transportation.
“We’re not happy,” Highland police Cmdr. John Banasiak said. “We are disappointed in the ruling. But police do not make the laws, we only enforce the laws.”
Banasiak said ultimately the fine did not always solve the problem but police did what they could within the parameters of the law.
“It hampers the response of police, fire and ambulances getting to places,” he said. “The general public is going to suffer — there is no doubt about that.”
Norfolk Southern Railway Co. challenged the statute after receiving 23 citations in Allen County from December 2014 to December 2015. The railroad’s lawyers said the company faced a heavy compliance burden of having to run trains at higher speeds, operate shorter trains more frequently or temporarily pull trains apart at crossings to limit blocked crossings.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill had argued that regulating rail crossings for public welfare still falls under the state’s police powers.
But the state’s high court rejected the argument, stating that the statute “dictates key operational choices” for rail companies and contradicts the federal deregulation act.
Griffith police Chief Greg Mance called the ruling “disappointing.”
“The court ’s ruling stripped away the only tool, albeit a weak one, that state and local law enforcement officials had to combat abusive rail blockages,” he said. “While we have issued tickets for blocked crossings, the $200 fine authorized by the statute wasn’t much of a deterrent to the rail companies.”
Mance said with the statute now gone, they will continue to document traffic disruptions and work with the railroads to allevi- ate continued occurrences of blocked rail crossings in the future.
In Highland, Banasiak said if police know a stoppage will be lengthy, they will relay the info to fire and EMS personnel that they may run into a roadblock at the crossing.
Banasiak said police averaged about 15 to 20 tickets a month to rail companies.
Hammond police typically write about 1,500 citations a year for trains blocking the city’s major roadways. Trains at times block roads for more than an hour and calls pour into the dispatch center asking for something to be done.
“Striking down the law which enables police to cite trains for blocking intersections is detrimental to communities,” Hammond police Lt. Steve Kellogg said.
Kellogg said a lot of calls come in to report children jumping or climbing under the trains so they are not late for school.
“It’s a clear public safety hazard,” he said. The police do enforce legal action against anyone caught doing this but most times the children are not observed by the police. This only leaves the option to try and keep the trains from blocking these intersections for an extended period.” Kellogg said in exigent circumstances, the stopping of a train for the safety of railroad personnel or civilians is paramount. However, those types of circumstances are few.
“Typical emergency calls for assistance are much more frequent,” he said. “Emergency personnel’s ability to get to locations of the emergency without delay is a more common occurrence.”
Kellogg said minutes and even seconds matter when responding to the scene of an emergency and that a delay can cost lives.
In St. John, police Chief James Kveton said trains blocking crossings were a significant issue back in 2016, which created safety concerns for residents and made responding to emergencies by first responders extremely difficult when train crossings were block for very extended periods of time.
“After many unsuccessful attempts to collaborate with the railroad toward a solution, the St. John Police Department issued the railroad numerous tickets for blocking the crossings in town,” Kveton said. “The railroad subsequently made scheduling adjustments, which resolved the issue.”
Kveton said he understands that a railroad regulated by the federal government would find it difficult to comply with possibly thousands of different regulations imposed by thousands of different communities, counties and states that the railroad transverses to transport and deliver commerce throughout the nation.
He said the Federal Railroad Administration can create the regulations, but they do not have the ability or resources to respond to or address these types of violations on a state, county or community level.
“When there is a blocked crossing where subdivisions are cut in half or an emergency responder can’t get to someone in need of assistance a report can be made to the FRA but it may be weeks before the incident is investigated or the railroad is addressed on the matter,” Kveton said. “In most cases local jurisdictions can send someone out to investigate as the incident is happening and try to resolve it right then.”
Kveton said the solution would be if the Federal Railroad Administration could create a regulation that would dictate, nationwide, how long is too long for a railroad to block a crossing and then grant authority for state, county and local law enforcement agencies to enforce the regulation.