ROSSFORD — Trains continue blocking roads despite promises to the city administration from CSX in June.
The continuing issue came up during Councilman Chris Heban’s reading of safety committee meeting minutes at Monday’s council meeting.
Police Chief Todd Kitzler updated the council on the progress, which had seemed to be going well, but now appears to have hit a snag.
He said that CSX management agreed to cut the trains if there is a blockage for an extended period of time.
Councilman Greg Marquette asked Kitzler to define what was to be considered an extended time.
“Their in-house rule is 10 minutes. But I can tell you that they have not been cutting trains. I got that from (the CSX communications department) in Columbus, that ‘Anyone who doesn’t do it will have to look for a new job.’ But from what I’ve seen, they are still not cutting the trains,” Kitzler said.
“The problem is, if they cut the train it takes another half hour, after the blockages, to do all the safety checks on the train,” he said. “They are still not complying. And the guy won’t return my phone calls now.”
Marquette asked if there has been a problem getting emergency equipment out, because of blockages.
City Administrator Allyson Murray was not aware of any recent emergency incidents with delays.
“It’s another three to four minutes to go around,” Kitzler said.
Council President Carolyn Eckel asked if Kitzler’s CSX contact told him what he should do.
“Columbus isn’t responding. The guy who told me that won’t return my calls. I don’t know,” Kitzler said, while shaking his head. “He had suggested that we apply for the billion dollars that’s available from the federal government to bypass the crossings with overpasses.”
“Really?” Eckel asked.
Heban suggested that the topic be discussed in more detail during the next safety committee meeting.
Mayor Neil MacKinnon III was not present, but excused. In a follow-up interview he said that Glenwood and Lime City roads were being blocked at the same time, since the June incident that had an eight-hour blockage that included both roads.
Kitzler confirmed that, to his knowledge, both had not been blocked at the same time since June 27.
“They don’t block both of them and it’s usually just Glenwood Road that they block,” Kitzler said in a follow-up interview, commenting on incidents in the last couple weeks.
“It can go on for hours. It’s hard to track. If we don’t see it, and no one calls it in, then we don’t know it’s been blocked. I know it’s been several hours, on a pretty consistent basis, where they block Glenwood Road,” he said. “I talked to the yard master, in Walbridge, and he told me they weren’t going to cut the trains.”
MacKinnon reiterated a desire for the infrastructure money from Columbus, to secure a more permanent and reliable solution, for safety purposes. He added that he has confidence in the current city administration in getting money for infrastructure work.
Kitzler said he was disappointed in CSX.
“They are breaking their own procedures by not cutting the trains,” he said.
“It’s kind of disheartening when their PR guy tells me this is the rule. They’ve been instructed by the higher-ups to cut these trains and they just refuse to do it,” Kitzler said. “If they have a rule, they should be following it.”
