One is next to a fire station. Another is by a private dock. Two others are near ferry terminals and one is on a lane leading to a pig farm.

Whether tucked away on private roads or in the middle of towns, at-grade rail crossings are part of the scenery of life in southeastern Connecticut. Many times a day, the gates go down and trains hurtle through crossings at speeds up to 90 mph. The 11 at-grade crossings here are the last remaining ones on the main trunk of the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak's route between Washington and Boston.

A recent Metro North accident in Valhalla, N.Y., and others across the country have focused national attention on the safety of at-grade rail crossings. A public debate has ensued, the Federal Railroad Administration has begun a safety campaign and senators have proposed bills that would require safety improvements. 

The debate locally was largely settled two decades ago. Amtrak had proposed eliminating the at-grade crossings to make way for electrified rail, but succeeded only with some. Public opinion was that closing the crossings would block access to shoreline neighborhoods and hinder emergency vehicles.

In place of closing the crossings, Amtrak installed the United States' first quad gates — four-armed gates that attempt to prevent a motorist from cutting around them — and improved technology to detect vehicles. In the past 15 years, there has been only one fatal grade-crossing accident in Connecticut on the Northeast Corridor's main line, but it took three lives: a 2005 collision on Miner Lane in Waterford.

Amtrak has no plans to close the crossings and largely remains focused on improving railroad bridges and other infrastructure upgrades. But opponents still say only a crossing-free corridor is safe for passengers and drivers.

Safety in technology

Four collisions between trains and trucks or cars have occurred at grade crossings between Waterford and Pawcatuck since 2000. Three had no injuries, but a grandmother and her two grandchildren died in September 2005 in a collision between their car and an Amtrak Acela train in Waterford.

From the perspective of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, the end goal for the Northeast Corridor, where there is both a high volume of train traffic and high-speed rail, would be a completely sealed corridor, said its vice president, Sean Jeans-Gail.

A sealed corridor has only overpasses and underpasses for vehicular traffic instead of at-grade crossings.

Attorney Robert I. Reardon Jr. of New London represented the family of Patricia Metzermacher, the grandmother, and her two grandchildren who died in the Miner Lane collision. Reardon contended that the quad gates in the Miner Lane crossing malfunctioned and secured a confidential settlement from Amtrak in 2009.

Reardon also represented the family of 18-year-old Rick Cima Jr. in a lawsuit against the Providence & Worcester Railroad Co. Cima died in September 2009 after a train collided with his pick-up truck at a crossing at Lillibridge Road in Plainfield. The crossing had no gates, but did have warning lights. Reardon said the morning sun interfered with Cima’s ability to see the lights. He also said the train’s horn was turned backwards.

Unlike that Plainfield freight rail crossing, six of the Northeast Corridor's 11 grade crossings have a "Smart Crossing" system, meant to prevent motorists from driving around the gates. The same six also have quad gates.

This system's technology detects cars stopped at the crossing and sends warning signals to an approaching train to give it time to stop, Amtrak spokeswoman Christina E. Leeds said in an email interview. In the case of malfunctions, the entrance gates are engineered to "fail down" while exit gates are engineered to "fail up."

Amtrak engineers inspect crossings on Amtrak-owned tracks and Federal Railroad Administration signal inspectors check for compliance with "maintenance, inspections and testing requirements," Leeds wrote.

Reardon supports the elimination of all at-grade crossings. He said quad gates, like any mechanical system, are subject to failure. He said the only safe crossing is an overpass or underpass, which eliminates any chance of a train colliding with a car.

Otherwise, "it will happen again and again and again,” he said. “There’s no way to have a perfectly safe crossing with gates."

He said the gates rely on a switch in the tracks to send the signal that the train is coming. If that switch malfunctions, the gates won’t close. Even crossings with vehicle-detection sensors are activated by a magnetic switch that could be subject to failure if the switch didn’t detect the wheels the first, second, third or fourth time the wheels hit the crossing.

“If the engineer sees a car on the track, in almost all instances it’s too late to stop,” Reardon said. The FRA says a train traveling at 55 miles per hour will take at least a mile to stop.

He also took issue with bells as alarms. While pedestrians can easily hear the bell, drivers would have difficulty hearing the “ding-ding-ding,” especially if the radio or air-conditioning is on, he said.

The region has other rail crossings — on freight lines, for example — where there may not even be gates. The region has not had the large number of train and car collisions experienced in other parts of the country where many crossings have no gates, but the potential exists.

Quad gates "reduce the risk," Reardon said, "but it doesn’t eliminate the risk.”

Change requires the cooperation of the railroad, as well as the federal, state and local authorities, he said.

Overall, Connecticut has more than 600 private and public grade crossings. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration ranks public highway-railroad crossings by "predicted collisions per year" to show where "scarce" funding for highway-rail grade crossings could be best allocated, according to its website. The index is based on the crossings' characteristics and five-year accident history up to the end of 2013.

Among the top 50 Connecticut crossings ranked by predicted collisions per year, New London's Governor Winthrop crossing rates 15th. Palmer Street in Stonington is 24th; Miner Lane in Waterford, 31st; School Street in Groton, 40th; Broadway Extension in Groton, 41st; and Latimer Point Road in Stonington, 49th. 

Municipal role

Municipal police departments assist Amtrak police when there is an incident.

Stonington Police Capt. Todd Olson said police occasionally respond when crossing gates stuck in the down position and are holding up traffic when no train is coming.

“I believe citizens are used to them functioning and obviously crossing them on a daily basis,” he said. “Certainly, there is an element of concern that they’re operating properly.”

Olson said he can’t recall an incident when the gates didn’t come down in time for an approaching train, but said the dispatch center is prepared to respond to such an incident and contact Amtrak to stop a train.

Amtrak Police handle incidents at the three railway crossings in New London, according to New London Acting Police Chief Peter Reichard.

“We do assist Amtrak upon request and routinely call them if and when incident[s] occur on their property/jurisdiction,” Reichard wrote in an email interview.

Waterford First Selectman Dan Steward said he thinks the technology at the Miner Lane crossing is good, but “needs to be constantly watched and taken care of by Amtrak.”

Steward said drivers need to be able to travel the entire length of Miner Lane, and the rail crossing is the only option. He said building a bridge over the crossing, as recommended by Reardon, is not a “bad idea” in terms of function, but poses a “difficult challenge.”

He explained that building a bridge would cost millions of dollars and might serve an area with only five or six houses. On the other hand, he said, the possibility of saving one life is worth any cost in some people’s minds.

He said he would not use town funds for an overpass or underpass. He said crossings are Amtrak’s responsibility.

Can more be done?

Emil H. Frankel, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, said most people understand that there isn’t sufficient funding to replace the crossings, though each crossing might be analyzed.

Frankel, a former commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, as well as assistant secretary for Transportation Policy for the U.S. DOT, also pointed out that there are reasons the crossings remain. He said they are the fastest way to get from point “A to B,” allowing easy access for emergency personnel.

As such, he foresees the system of crossings will stay similar to what exists today.

“We just have to invest to make sure they’re as safe as they can be,” he said.

He said upgrades to the crossings will “mostly be incremental improvements driven by technological change."

“When you look at the record in terms of grade crossing accidents along the Northeast Corridor, it’s been pretty good,” he said. “Not that it can’t be perfect.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., jointly proposed a bill this winter that would allocate additional federal funds to boost safety at rail crossings, close some and promote awareness about the remaining ones.

A five-year capital plan released last month by the Northeast Corridor Commission does not mention any proposals for the crossings along the corridor's main trunk between Washington and Boston. The document does reference plans to eliminate at-grade crossings at parts of the Northeast Corridor branch that runs from New Haven through Hartford to Springfield, Mass., under Connecticut's development of a new commuter rail.

The FRA regulates classes of track and maximum speed limits. Amtrak then determines the standard for maintaining its track structure and signal speed and the maximum speed, Leeds said.

The FRA's new campaign to promote safety at rail crossings begins with a first phase encouraging the “local law enforcement agencies to show a greater presence at grade crossings, issue citations to drivers that violate rules of the road at crossings and consider rapid implementation of best practices for grade crossing safety,” according to its website.

Its next phase is “to employ smarter uses of technology, increase public awareness of grade crossing safety, including distracted driving, improve signage, work closer in partnership with states and local safety agencies, and call for new funding for greater safety at grade crossings.”

Leeds said Amtrak already conducts outreach to promote safety and also works with Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit organization supported by several railroads and federal agencies to provide education on grade-crossing safety, including driver behavior.

John D. Ireland, a transportation analyst for R.L. Banks & Associates, a rail consulting firm based in Washington that has worked with rail lines including Amtrak, said quad gates are a top safety feature. He said sensors that indicate the presence of a car on the track are “the next frontier.”

“I would say if they have quad gates and a way to detect if there is a vehicle, that is the most high tech there is,” he said, adding that if the opportunity to close the grade-crossings along the "legacy line" of the Northeast Corridor existed, Amtrak would have already done it.

“It’s not an easy fix,” he said.

k.drelich@theday.com

Twitter: @KimberlyDrelich

Rail crossings by the numbers

11: Number of at-grade rail crossings on Amtrak's main route from Washington to Boston. They are on Miner Lane in Waterford and on Bank Street, State Street and Governor Winthrop Blvd. in New London; School Street in West Mystic; Broadway Extension in Mystic; Latimer Point Road, Wamphassuc Point Road, Walkers Dock and Elihu Island (Freemans Crossing) in Stonington; and Palmer Street in Pawcatuck.

25 to 90 mph: The range of maximum speeds for approaching trains, depending on the crossing.

209,704: Number of at-grade highway-rail vehicle crossings in the United States, as of October. 

626: Number of at-grade highway-rail vehicle crossings in Connecticut, including privately owned crossings. That represents 0.3 percent of all the crossings in the country.

90: Number of crossings in New London County, 14 percent of the state's crossings.

17,442: Number of at-grade highway-rail vehicle crossings in the United States closed between 2008 and October 2014, a 7.68 percent decrease.

86 percent: Reduction in violations at grade crossings when quad gates are installed.

$220 million: Funding allocated by the Federal Highway Administration each year to improve safety at public crossings.

Sources: Amtrak, Federal Railroad Administration