North Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - North Tonawanda officials continue to investigate and put the pieces together with an accident this past Friday between a Dodge pickup truck and an Amtrak train that claimed the lives of three people, including a 6-year-old boy.
Officials released the names of the victims on Monday - 69-year-old David McMinn, 66-year-old Olive Geldart and 6-year-old Ra’Mari Geldart - but haven't released any further details into the incident.
What is known, at this time, is just before 8 p.m. ET on Friday, the occupants of the Dodge pickup truck were caught between the railroad crossing barriers on Felton Street in North Tonawanda after having turned onto the road from River Road.
North Tonawanda Police Chief Keith Glass said Sunday a saturation patrol was taking place Friday night, which included an officer from the Lewiston Police Department having paired up with officers from his department to crack down on warrant arrests, and enforce any traffic violations they might observe. It was during a stop on Felton Street that led to the truck eventually becoming trapped between the barriers.
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Just before the railroad crossing barriers are dropped to prevent traffic from crossing the tracks, there is a bell that goes off at the barriers to indicate to drivers and other pedestrians in the area that a train is incoming. In addition, train conductors will sound their whistle whenever approaching a crossing like the one on Felton Street.
While it may take a freight train a while before it reaches the railroad crossing with its cargo, an Amtrak train can travel much faster, and can reach the crossing within a 40-second period from the time the crossing barriers are activated to lower.
Local business owner Thomas Matusak sets up shop on Felton Street right at the railroad crossing adjacent to River Road. While he was not there the night of the tragic accident, he says he's never seen an incident such as this come close to happening at that railroad crossing before.
While he acknowledges he's no expert on the timing of the barriers being lowered for traffic, he believes studies are done to ensure that events like this don't happen on a regular basis.
"Whether they have those timed for a slower train, it could possibly be, because the Amtrak trains are quicker than the freight trains. If it's a freight train, you're getting more than 25 seconds. If it's an Amtrak, I'm sure they do studies on that," said Matusak in an interview with WBEN. "I've been at this location for quite some time, I've never seen a situation where it seems like it got tense because of a train. It was just the perfect storm there."
According to Matusak, Felton Street is not a heavily traveled road in North Tonawanda, and called it a "fluke" that there was a traffic stop and a tow truck out like this on a rainy day.
"Everything just came together in a bad way, and we have a tragedy because of it," Matusak said.
"I feel for the family, I feel for the first responders. To see that had to be horrific, and I feel for the cop that had that guy pulled over. It had to be traumatizing, it's just a sad situation. But I would think there'd be more likely a fatality if someone getting hit with two cars on the road here than a train hitting the car, just because the odds are probably much, much higher. Unfortunately, bad things happen time-to-time."
Like Matusak, North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec will admit he's not a locomotive engineer or a professional that has a ton of insight on the timing of the barriers. While he understands all trains move at different speeds, he believes there's a couple of factors that play into this factor.
"Sound, visuals, I was talking to someone earlier about railroad crossings, ones that don't even have arms, that don't have lights on them. What if you have people that are deaf or blind that are crossing the road? There's crossings that happen in residential neighborhoods, even in North Tonawanda alone, and all there is is an 'X' sign. And there's a lot of questions that come with it, I suppose. But timing wise, I can't say for certain exactly what that needs to be," said Tylec in an interview with WBEN. "I would imagine that depending on the speed of the train, it probably triggers at one point or another. But I know that CSX is inspecting that intersection too, which I've mentioned in the past. They have been on site I know, the day after, and there was another time since then."
In the days after the tragedy on Felton Street, Tylec has stressed the importance of safety with the public, and making sure residents everywhere are educated about what to do, and also what not to do at a railroad crossing.
"We do actually have a New York State grant that we work with our police department, where they go around patrolling on ATVs, the railways to make sure people aren't walking on them. It's illegal, it's unsafe. We also patrol these intersections and look for traffic violations," Tylec described. "You're not supposed to make that right on red at some of these intersections to go on River Road. We'll pull them over, and my understanding is we won't ticket them, but we'll educate them. You're not supposed to do that. It's a safety thing, it's not a money grab. It's really to educate people on this."
Tylec adds discussions are also being held on expanding that education piece with the public.
"Some of the items are slowing down when you reach one of these intersections, looking both ways. If your car stalls out on the tracks, get out. Make sure the coast is clear, is your vehicle OK to drive? If it's not, call 9-1-1 and they can guide you through it," Tylec said. "Someone came in today to my office and talked about a bus. A bus had stopped on the other side of a track and dropped off kids, and just as they're opening their arm, it caught the person off guard on the other side of the tracks, who was heading in the other direction. They ended up stopping on the tracks - they told me this story, it was this gentleman's wife - and they asked, 'What do you do?' I said, 'You keep driving in the most precautious way you can, and those bus cameras that would have given you a ticket, we can handle that.'"
What Tylec is hopeful will come from this experience is more people being somewhat aware of their surroundings, while also being courteous.
"Leave space between yourself and others whenever approaching these intersections. I was reading some of the facts on where these incidents happen, and oftentimes, your within proximity of where you live oftentimes. There were other stats that the fatality, with the collision with a train, is somewhat 20 times higher than vehicular. There's a lot of reasons with that, but you think about it, if it's train vs. myself, the train is going to win in that situation," Tylec noted. "Everyone does need to be vigilant and do what they can, but we're here to work with our partners, and hopefully CSX, to find ways to improve, because there's always ways that we can improve every aspect of our life, and just make it safer for people in vehicles."
Tylec says action is already being taken, and more action will continue with others local, state and federal leaders to see what more can be done, and how there can be a better connection with other partners.
"With CSX, how can we work together? We can't touch those railways, we can't make those improvements - signage, lighting - without them as a partner. So we're going to be working on relationships, education. There's a lot of pieces to come so this doesn't happen again," he said.
At this time, Tylec says the communication between the city and CSX is not as prompt as officials would like it to be, especially in light of an incident such as this.
"We have not received any kind of report or feedback on the intersection being inspected. There's a local sort of day-to-day operator that we have a contact with, but not a high up. We reached out just to inquire, what's going on? And that's how I knew about the inspection, but he even said, 'That's out of my department. I can't really speak too much on it.' I asked, 'Is there going to be a report or so on that they're going to send our way based on this horrible incident?' He couldn't really comment on that," Tylec noted.
"In government, we rely on regional reps, partnerships with private-public agencies to help each other out. That's really what it is. We build relationships to get the job done. ... I can't be the only politician out there, public official that thinks there could be a better relationship. And it shouldn't take tragedies like this to do that. We should really be approaching it proactively."