Fifth Street at Las Posas Road Now the Deadliest Rail Crossing in Ventura County - 2016

 

Fifth Street at Las Posas Road Now the Deadliest Rail Crossing in Ventura County

April 21, 2016, the Fifth Street at Las Posas Road grade crossing in Camarillo, California regained the title of “Deadliest Rail Crossing in Ventura County”. Around 6 PM, Garrett Vongunten, 26, piloted his 2015 Harley Davidson motorcycle south on Las Posas Road toward Fifth Street. On the rear seat, Nadya Unger, 23, rode as his passenger. With the late afternoon sun in their eyes, they approached the railroad crossing at an undetermined speed.

At 4:33 p.m. that day, Metrolink Train No. 117 had departed Los Angeles Union Station, heading toward its final destination at the East Ventura Station. Near 6:00 PM, the train approached Las Posas Road from the east at normal speed, which can be as high as seventy miles per hour.

If the traffic control system operated properly at the grade crossing, the approaching train would activate warning bells, flashing lights and crossing gates to warn vehicular traffic of an oncoming train. According to Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) guidelines, the rail crossing gates should be down at least twenty seconds prior to a train crossing Las Posas Road.

For reasons that included impairment from unspecified drugs and possible excessive speed, Vongunten may have seen the warning lights and gates too late to stop safely. As a result, Vongunten’s motorcycle broke through the crossing gate arm and struck the side of the Metrolink train. Passenger Nadya Unger died at the scene and Vongunten sustained critical injuries, including partial loss of one leg. The motorcycle, missing its operator, its passenger and its front wheel, came to rest upright, facing in the opposite direction of original travel. "You could assume that the motorcycle wasn't in the middle of the track per se because of the location that it ended up," California Highway Patrol officer Gregory Bowcock told the Ventura County Star newspaper.

With the collision unseen by the Metrolink engineer, Train No. 117 proceeded to the Oxnard Transit Center, which was its next scheduled stop. Prior to arrival in Oxnard, a passenger who had witnessed the collision notified the train’s conductor of the event. Metrolink held the train in Oxnard until officials could inspect it for signs of damage. A preliminary report indicated that there was evidence of a side impact, including motorcycle parts embedded into a coach and blood on the side of that coach.

In recent years, there have been multiple train collisions on the Oxnard Plain. In February 2015, a train collision at the Fifth St. and Rice Ave. grade crossing in Oxnard took the life of Metrolink Senior Engineer Glenn Steele. By that time, Fifth & Rice had gained notoriety as the “deadliest rail crossing in Ventura County”. In recognition of the many deaths and injuries at Fifth & Rice, Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village) secured $1.5 million in federal funds for the design of a grade separation at that location.

With the recent death of Nadya Unger, the Las Posas Road and Fifth Street grade crossing now takes the mantel as “deadliest rail crossing in Ventura County”. Here is a chronology of four prior rail collisions at Fifth & Las Posas:

- At 10:49 AM on December 30, 2013, as an Amtrak train passed by, a car entered the grade crossing at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. The driver of the vehicle died at the scene and a nearby railroad service worker received injuries resulting from the accident.

- At 10:30 AM on January 24, 2014, crews responded to a train collision at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. A seventy-seven year old woman who drove her minivan into the side of a passing Amtrak train succumbed to her injuries at the scene.

- At 8:25 AM on April 23, 2015, a Union Pacific freight train collided with an SUV at the intersection of Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. The driver, a fifty-seven year old man, drove through the crossing gate arm and into the side of the freight train. The driver succumbed to his injuries at the scene.

- At 10:30 AM on November 21, 2015, a twenty-three year old man drove his car through the crossing gate and into the side of a moving Amtrak train at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. At the time of the collision, the crossing gate arm was down and the safety lights were flashing. The driver died days later at a local medical center.

In less than three years, there have been five fatal train collisions at Fifth & Las Posas. The common denominator of all five collisions was that the crossing gates were down, warning lights were flashing and bells were ringing. Even so, each ill-fated vehicle entered the railroad right of way and collided with a moving train. There is no evidence that any one of the five most recent fatal accidents at Fifth & Las Posas was a suicide.

Unlike the Fifth & Rice grade crossing, the Fifth & Las Posas grade crossing has only the minimal safety features mandated by law. At the tracks, Rice Ave. is a divided road, with overhead safety lights, signage, and four crossing gates intended to seal the rail corridor from errant vehicles. At the tracks, Las Posas Rd. is undivided, with no overhead safety signage and only two crossing gates. Even if the gates were down, a driver could cross over the double-yellow lines and drive around the crossing gates. To the unsuspecting driver, the Las Posas Rd. southbound approach to Fifth St. looks like a little-used rural grade crossing.

On Friday April 22, 2016, one day after the death of Nadya Unger and the critical injury to Garrett Vongunten, the Ventura County Transportation Commission (VCTC) voted to support a half-cent transportation sales tax for Ventura County. Nineteen of the fifty-eight counties in California have such a tax, including all the major counties in Southern California. If it makes the November 2016 ballot, the measure will still require approval by a two-thirds majority of county voters. If it passes that hurdle, the new sales tax will provide $70 million annually, earmarked for transportation improvement projects within Ventura County.

Five fatal train collisions at Fifth St. and Las Posas Rd. should be enough to place that grade crossing at the top of Ventura County transportation improvement projects. Suggested improvements include realigning Las Posas Rd. to make it a divided road as it crosses the tracks, installing overhead warning signs and creating a four-gate system of vehicle barriers. Although foot traffic is light at that location, the new safety plan should include sidewalks and pedestrian gates there, as well.

Proposed upgrades to the rail crossing will not stop speeders from trying to beat a train to the crossing nor end inattentive driving, but they will increase the chances that motorists will receive warning in time to stop safely at Fifth & Las Posas for an oncoming train. I hope that public officials throughout Ventura County support a half-cent sales tax dedicated solely to transportation improvement projects.

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By James McGillis at 02:01 PM | Railroad Safety | Comments (1) | Link

Substandard Safety Prevails at the Fifth and Rice Railroad Grade Crossing in Oxnard, California - 2015

 

Substandard Safety Prevails at the Fifth and Rice Railroad Grade Crossing in Oxnard, California

I have lived in Ventura County, California for almost half my life. I love the place, but I know its history as a formerly remote, rural county whose patron families did not like change. In the 1950s and 1960s, their mantra was, “If we don’t build roads, no one will come”. With or without adequate roads, the people came. In 1970, the county population was 400,000. In 2013, it had more than doubled, to 840,000.

In 2004, Ventura County voters spurned a half-cent sales tax that would have been devoted to transportation projects. In 2008, county officials again ran that idea up the flagpole, only to see it shot down from every direction. Continued attempts to raise sales taxes in Ventura County was like a parody of the famous line in the movie, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. “Roads? We don’t need no stinkin roads!”

In July 2015, the Ventura County Transportation commission announced the results of their most recent poll regarding a new half cent sales tax in Ventura County, which would fund transportation improvements. Although sixty percent of respondents favored the idea, a ballot measure would require a two-thirds positive vote to succeed. If the measure appears on the 2016 ballot, we can expect a groundswell of opposition. Their likely rallying cry will be, “Taxes? We don’t need no stinkin taxes”.

In July 2015, train crash survivor Marc Gerstel and I visited the February 2015 Metrolink Oxnard collision site. First, we paid our respects at the memorial for engineer Glenn Steele, who died from injuries sustained in the collision. Then, Gerstel and I agreed that we would use my characters, Plush Kokopelli and Coney the Traffic Cone to make our visit more meaningful. Almost immediately, Plush Kokopelli jumped up on the Rice Ave. “crossbuck”, which is the generic term for the big overhead railroad warning sign. Aiming his flute down toward ground level, Plush Kokopelli pointed out a serious safety deficiency. If left unattended, the deficiency could have catastrophic consequences for motorists and train passengers at the crossing.

On the cast metal base of the crossbuck, one of four support flanges was split wide open, thus weakening the entire structure. Since the split flange faced Rice Ave., I assumed that a speeding vehicle had hit the metal base quite hard. If another vehicle were to strike the base at that vulnerable spot, the crossbuck tower-sign could collapse onto the roadway and even the railroad tracks.

Meanwhile, Coney had waited patiently while we took pictures of the damaged base of the crossbuck. By then, he could hardly contain himself. While standing by the crossbuck, Coney had made friends with a large Caltrans traffic cone, which was lying on its side, unable to right itself. After Coney got my attention, I tipped the Caltrans Coney up, so that it could stand on its own base. Since I have channeled Kokopelli and Coney for years, I could see that my Coney wanted to help Caltrans Coney once again be a productive member of the safety cone community.

Most news reports about the February 2015 Metrolink collision are incomplete. The driver of the F-450 work truck, Mr. Jose Sanchez-Ramirez was not a “recent transplant from Tucson, Arizona”. In fact, he was making his first-ever trip from Tucson to the Oxnard Plain. There, he was to deliver welding equipment to one of the local farms. The previous day, after driving from Tucson to San Diego, his original rig broke down. After waiting for delivery of a replacement truck, he headed north toward Ventura County. Somewhere along the way, he was in a minor traffic accident, which only delayed him further.

After driving all day and all night without rest, Jose Sanchez-Ramirez arrived before dawn on Rice Ave., heading south toward Fifth St. Having no GPS guidance, Sanchez-Ramirez relied on a printout of an internet map to guide him. There, exhausted and in the dark, he mistook the railroad tracks for Fifth St. and turned too soon. Eighty feet west, he stopped on the tracks, thus setting up the pre-dawn collision with Metrolink Train No. 102.

In July 2015, Marc Gerstel and I stood where Sanchez-Ramirez made his fateful turn. Beyond the crossbuck, but before the railroad tracks, I placed Caltrans Coney in his rightful place. If Caltrans Coney had been there, silently standing guard between the crossbuck and the tracks on that fateful morning, there would have been no collision. The vigilant Caltrans Coney would have warned Jose Sanchez-Ramirez against his errant turn. If that turn had not happened, Glenn Steele would be alive today and Marc Gerstel would still be an adjunct professor of dental technology at LA City College.

I found my first Coney the Traffic Cone almost a decade ago. Since then, I have collected many of the mistreated and abandoned traffic cones that I have found along the highway. Some were in good shape while others were nearly shredded. The good thing about a traffic cone is that if run over by a vehicle, more often than not, it will pop back into shape and keep on coning. If you look along the roadsides of America, eventually you will spot a Coney, standing or lying there with nothing productive to do.

If you find an abandoned Coney along the road, please pick it up. If you are in Ventura County, please carry it to the Fifth and Rice grade crossing. Once there, place it along the side of the road, between the crossbuck and the tracks. Then, drive away smiling, because you may have prevented the next Metrolink collision at Rice Ave. and Fifth St. in Oxnard, California. As Marc Gerstel, Coney, Kokopelli and I drove away from the scene; the battered and beaten Caltrans Coney proudly stood guard at the deadliest railroad crossing in Ventura County.

After visiting the collision site, Marc Gerstel gave me the latest facts regarding that intersection. “According to David Golonski, the chairperson of the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, this is the second busiest rail corridor in the nation. For the past twenty years, the Rice Ave. and 5th Street crossing has earned the label as the ‘deadliest crossing in Ventura County’. With a total of fourteen accidents and four deaths, it is in the ‘top-23 list’ of most dangerous crossings in California. It ranks as the third most deadly in Southern California. The proposed solution by Mr. Leahy, which is to install ‘pavement sensors that would be faster and cheaper’ than a grade separation is like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.”

According to the office of Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D - Agoura Hills), from 2006 - 2014, the Federal Highway Administration California Division has received over $42 million in federal money intended specifically for remediation of dangerous rail crossings. According to Malcolm Dougherty, Director of Caltrans, the grade crossing at Rice and Fifth is not high enough on the statewide priority list to receive any of that funding. Despite Dougherty's statement that, "We are committed to expeditiously obligating and utilizing all federal funds for this (safety) effort", to date none of the $42 million has been obligated or spent.

If the previously allocated, yet un-utilized federal funding were to be allocated for improvements at the Fifth and Rice grade crossing, there would be sufficient funds to build and dedicate the proposed "Glenn Steele Memorial Overpass" at the site of his fatal injuries. If not, I expect the sixth extinction to be complete and the next ice age to commence before we see any mitigation of the dangers still evident at Fifth and Rice, in Oxnard, California.

This is Part 2 of a two-part article. To read Part 1, please click HERE.

To read all of our Ventura County railroad safety articles in one place, please visit 5thandRice.com.

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By James McGillis at 11:57 AM | | Comments (0) | Link

Ride the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad from Durango to Silverton, Colorado in 1965

 

Ride the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad from Durango to Silverton, Colorado in 1965 (Part 2)

In August of 1965, my father (Dr. L.N. McGillis) and I visited Durango, Colorado. One of the highlights of our visit was a ride on the old Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) from Durango to Silverton, forty-five miles north. At the time of our visit, the Durango to Silverton line was already 83 years old. By the 1960s, steam locomotives had largely disappeared from the main railroad lines throughout the U.S.

Today, over forty-eight years later, a few heritage lines like the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad continue to roll. What makes the Durango & Silverton line interesting to me is how little it has changed since its inception the 1880s. Although heavier tracks now support the larger K-36 “480 Series” locomotives both those and the original K-28 “470 Series” locomotives began service in the early 1920s.

Built to roll on tracks that measured a mere 3 ft. between their rail heads, the 470 Series engines were purpose-built for the narrow gauge. The larger, 480 Series engines started life at standard gauge, measuring 4 ft. 8 1⁄2 in. from wheel flange to wheel flange. In 1965, old rails, which weighed about 45 lb. per yard, lay stacked alongside the tracks in many places. In preparation for the heavier 480 Series engines entering into service on the line, crews installed new tracks weighing up to 90 lb. per yard.

In preparation for our 1965 excursion, my father and I had visited the Durango Depot early in the morning. With our film cameras in hand, we had snapped pictures of the first section, powered by Engine No. 476 as it departed Durango for Silverton. Soon, it was time for us to board the second section, led by Engine No. 478. In those days, the tender cars of both engines featured a stylized “Rio Grande” logo. Reflecting a change of ownership in the early 1980s, the same trains today feature the “Durango & Silverton” name.

Although Engine No. 478 sported a traditional black and silver paint scheme, the ten passenger cars in our train were painted bright orange, with black trim and silver roofs. At that time, each passenger car still featured a rooftop chimney. In earlier days, the chimneys vented coal-fired stoves, which heated the cars during the colder months. Although most of the passenger cars on the line today retain their traditional livery, the stovepipes are now gone.

After we departed the Durango Depot, the steam whistle sounded each time the train approached another grade crossing. With no less than eight grade crossings in town, the engineer and fireman were busy watching for cross traffic and letting the steam whistle wail. After making its way across the Animas River Bridge north of town, the train began its slow ascent through the picturesque Upper Animas Valley.

Unlike current diesel locomotives, steam engines use a constant flow of water to recharge their boilers. At the old Hermosa Station, we stopped to fill the water tank on the tender car. Once we were moving again, the 2-8-2 Mikado began a more serious climb into the former San Juan mining district. In the 1880s, passenger and freight service to the numerous mines was the original impetus for laying tracks up the series of steep grades. Built in less than two years, construction required the blasting of solid rock from the canyon walls. Construction crews shuttled the resulting rubble to create a riverside bench for tracks laid along the lower sections of the line. Despite periodic flooding along the Animas River, the rubble rock staved off the floods and supported the tracks. Over one hundred thirty years after railroad tracks first linked Durango and Silverton, the route remains essentially unchanged.

In the early twentieth century, when regional gold and silver mining collapsed, various abandoned mines remained, some hanging precariously on the canyon walls. Built with wood from nearby forests, many were unpainted and thus exposed to the elements. In 1965, we were amazed to see how many of the old mines remained in the Animas River Canyon. In the 1960s, they were a picturesque reminder of an earlier day. In the 1960s, professional photographers hiked up into the canyon and meticulously photographed every remnant of that short lived but industrious time in Southeastern Colorado. Many of the photographs found their way into wall calendars of the era. While researching this article, I was sorry to find that none of those earlier mine photos has survived on the internet.

In order to personalize our photographs of the journey, I hiked from one end of the train to the other. Whenever we would go around a dramatic curve, I would lean out from a platform or a window. At that time, no one told us to keep our heads, hands and arms inside the train. By the time we finished our trip, we had many images of me looking back toward the camera, or rounding a curve and one as we pulled into the Silverton Depot.

As first time passengers on the Durango & Silverton line, we did not realize how long it would take to complete the trip. Including time for several water stops along the way, the train took three and one half hours to travel the forty-five mile route. That meant we averaged just less than thirteen miles per hour. As exciting and interesting as the experience was, we were happy to arrive in Silverton in time for a late lunch.

Until its peak in the early 1900s, Silverton had serviced the needs of miners from throughout the high country. By the 1960s, Silverton was living off its legacy as a former mining and commercial center. Many buildings were empty and falling into disrepair. Land and property in the remote town was selling at an all-time low. Only a few restaurants and old time hotels supported the town. When I visited again in 2007, I met a white haired old man who had bought property in Silverton in the 1970’s. As modest as the man was, the list of properties he then owned in town was worth in the millions of dollars.

In the 1960s, passengers could wait in line for a chance to visit with the engineer in the cab of the locomotive. When it was his turn, my father climbed into the cab of Engine No. 478 and took a seat in the fireman’s location. In the picture that I took of him that day, looking forward and down the track, he looked every bit like a professional railroad engineer.

Although the steam engine was huge, the area between the cab and the tender was not spacious. There was barely room for the fireman to take a scoop of coal, step on the lever that opened the firebox door and toss the fuel in. Like a pizza oven, the idea was to minimize the frequency and duration of door openings, thus keeping the firebox hot at all times.

While waiting in Silverton for our return trip to Durango, we had time to inspect all of the running gear on the huge engine. Dripping hot water and emitting small jets of steam were the twin air-brake compressors that hung low and wide near the front of the engine. Using a system originally devised by George Westinghouse in 1868, steam from the boiler would occasionally cycle into each compressor. There, a steam driven piston would pump air into a reservoir. Within the Westinghouse air-brake system, low pressure in the brake lines activated the brakes. With the train parked on level ground at Silverton, the occasional cycling of the air brake compressor was the only sound that the engine made. When it was time to depart, the Head Brakeman used a valve within the cab to increase pressure in the lines, thus releasing the air-brakes along the full length of the train.

After a couple of hours in Silverton, a blast from the steam whistle indicated that it was almost time to depart for Durango. In those days, the train parked head-in at the station throughout the visit. Upon departure, workers threw manual switches along the tracks, thus allowing the engineer to back the train on to a wye track. Once safely on the wye, other switches were thrown, thus allowing the train to proceed down canyon toward Durango. Over time, these procedures have changed. Now, while the passengers are enjoying lunch in Silverton, the trains back on to the wye, pull forward briefly and then backs into the Silverton station. When it is time to go, the engine is facing in the correct direction for travel.

When the old Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad began service between Durango and Silverton, the train was far faster than the wagon road previously used. Today, that is no longer the case. Although the route of U.S. Highway 550 (the Million Dollar Highway) between the two towns is three miles longer than the rail line, it takes only an hour to make the trip by automobile. With a three and one half hour train trip back to Durango, the final hour of travel can become tedious. Passengers now have the option of taking a motor coach in one direction and the train the other direction. Also today, passengers can opt for more luxurious seating, beverage service and snacks in one of several parlor cars.

Any way you go, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is piece of American history that travels through some spectacular scenery. Several times in its history, the railroad almost went broke. With its current popularity, the line now boasts up to three trains per day during the peak summer season. With that revenue stream, I expect to see the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad prosper for many years to come.

This Part Two of a two-part article. To read Part One, Click HERE.

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By James McGillis at 03:00 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link