Vinings railroad crossing guard a safety concern

Early last week, a car struck a transmission pole at the intersection of Windy Hill Road and Cobb Parkway that resulted in about 10,000 Georgia Power customers in Smyrna-Vinings temporarily losing power for several hours.

The traffic long jam in the vicinity of accident was a nightmare. But several miles away in the heart of the Vinings Village, traffic was also a disaster.

The at-grade CSX railroad crossing at Paces Ferry Road operates in a “fail-safe’’ manner when there is a loss of power, and on the night in question, the crossing guard lowered into place by gravity. It stayed that way for approximately two hours (between 6 and 8 p.m.) and created a traffic standstill along the main artery road that cuts through Vinings.

Ultimately, some people got out of their vehicles and lifted the guard up to allow other vehicles to pass through. But as Betty Smith, the immediate past president of the Vinings Village Civic Club, pointed out in an email, “the fire station EMT unit would have been unable to exit the station.’’

Patch contacted the Cobb Fire Department to inquire about what appears to be a significant safety issue considering fire units would not have been able to come down Paces Ferry in case of an emergency. Cobb County Fire Lt. Dan Dupree said that in such a case, the unit at Fire Station No. 5, located at 4336 Paces Ferry Road, would radio to Fire Station No. 4, located at 1901 Cumberland Parkway, that they wouldn’t be able to respond and that backup was needed.

Smith also communicated a recent story of one citizen witnessing the train having to blow its horn continuously and come to a screeching halt right before the intersection because the crossing guard had not come down.

The problem here appears that there is no manual override system in place. Patch has contacted CSX no less than four times in the last week to inquire about such. Each time, a CSX representative has told Patch that a media relations representative would return the call, but no call has been returned as of this writing.

In an email, David Montanye, a division manager with the Cobb Department of Transportation, wrote, “It is rare for us to experience a long outage similar to this most recent outage; however, we will work with Cobb Public Safety and the railroad to develop emergency response procedures for similar situations. It would be up to the railroad to make operational changes including the addition of battery backup systems and/or manual operation.’’

There is a CSX number to call to report Paces Ferry crossing gate issues and it is 800-232-0144 (option No. 2). It is for crossing No. 340-370-R at Mile Post OWA 10.97.

CSX will maintain a malfunction log based on calls.

So, do you feel CSX and other local agencies need to review the emergency railroad crossing procedure in Vinings?