A stretch of railroad track between Manassas and Fairfax County had the second-highest number of reported trespassers in Virginia last year.
Today, police from Norfolk-Southern Railway and Manassas police officers were out in force walking along the tracks in Downtown Manassas. The mission: bring attention to a new stepped-up enforcement campaign aimed at keeping people off the tracks or walking alongside them.
“Trying to walk around the front of a train trying to save time… you just never know when that train is going to get permission to move, and when he starts moving, many don’t realize that the engineer can’t see you,” said Hugh McCormack, a special investigator with Norfolk-Southern police.
Last year in Virginia, 17 people were struck by a train, and 10 of those victims died. One of those victims was killed while walking along the tracks at Wellington Road and Godwin Drive in Manassas.
McCormack said many railroad trespassers illegally walk on the tracks to save time.
“A lot of people have been doing for years and don’t realize it’s actually illegal to cross or to walk around a stopped train if it’s not a normal crossing clearly marked as a crossing,” said McCormack.
If a pedestrian is struck on the tracks, police must investigate, temporarily halting rail traffic along the affected line. Keeping trains moving, and people off of the tracks is not only good for safety, but it’s also good for business.
“If train crew calls out and says they can’t move the train because of people are crossing through, we can’t move that train until we come out to make sure its clear. That has a lot to do with on-time for performance for our customers getting them freight from point A to point B because now they have to wait for us to respond to that location to make sure it’s safe for that train to move,” said McCormack.
Local police also play an important role in keeping people off the tracks. Manassas officers joined forces with railroad police at a press conference at the Manassas Train Station at noon Wednesday to discuss the problem of railroad trespassers.
“So it’s a learning curve for everybody, not just the public-at-large, is he also in the local police departments…If [the local police] see something, you can actually handle it yourself and just notify us afterward that you had a trespasser…” said McCormack.
The railroad tracks in Manassas are owned by the Norfolk-Southern Railroad and are also used by Virginia Railway Express.
