Councilmen say there's not much Springdale can do with railroad intersection

There’s not much that Springdale Borough can do with an apparently complicated railroad crossing near Colfax Street.

About 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, a tractor-trailer’s dolly legs got stuck under the rail at the Colfax Street crossing, police said. The driver, unable to get the rig off the tracks, evacuated the truck cab. About 90 seconds later, a train crashed into the truck.

It’s the fourth wreck at the intersection since 2018. No one was injured in any of the crashes.

According to Springdale Council President Mike Ziencik, the borough couldn’t do anything to address the wrecks that have occurred down there even if it wanted to.

“It’s bad luck, that’s all I can think of,” Ziencik said. “The railroad has done their due diligence time and time again.”

“If there was something that we could do … I’d be all for it. But the biggest thing seems to be common sense.”

The crossing includes warning lights and draw-down crossing gates, said Pennsylvania Utility Commission spokesman Nils Hagen- Frederiksen.

Both appeared to have been activated at the time.

“Regardless of a crossing’s warning devices, it’s important that drivers always check for trains and never stop on the tracks,” said Connor Spielmaker, spokesman for Norfolk Southern.

Spielmaker deferred questions about improving the intersection or adding automated warning devices to the PUC.

The PUC is reviewing the incident, Hagen-Frederiksen said.

“The PUC’s rail safety section receives incident reports from railroads and examines accident histories to determine if further steps may be necessary,” he said.

Hagen-Frederiksen also referenced the crossing’s entry in the Federal Railroad Administration’s rail crossing database.

Springdale Councilman Dan Copeland said what could happen at the crossing ultimately is up to the railroad, not the borough.

He said that if people thought it were an issue, the borough could look into it, but previous efforts weren’t successful.

“If that crossing were absolutely terrible, you’d have one (crash) more than every couple of years,” Copeland said.

The Blockdale Street crossing in Cheswick is arguably worse than the one in Springdale, he said.

“If they aren’t going to do anything with the one there, they wouldn’t do anything with ours,” Copeland said.