KANSAS CITY, Mo. — One month before the deadly Amtrak train derailment at a crossing in northern Missouri, the county commission there alerted the state that overgrown brush was obstructing drivers’ views.
Evan Emmerich, Chariton County Presiding Commissioner, provided a timeline to The Kansas City Star showing the commission’s involvement with the Porche Prairie Avenue crossing where two locomotives and eight cars derailed on Monday, killing four and injuring 150. As of Wednesday, at least 13 remained in Missouri hospitals.
The crash occurred when the train struck a dump truck that was on the track near Mendon, Missouri, about 100 miles northeast of Kansas City. Residents in the area have shared concerns for years with the state and the BNSF Railway, which owns the track, about what they describe as a dangerous crossing.
The presiding commissioner’s timeline included a complaint from local residents that a commissioner received on May 23 about the crossing where the approach to the track has a steep grade.
“The Commission contacted MoDOT Railroad Safety by email about the visibility issues but never received a response,” Emmerich wrote in his notes and timeline.
According to Emmerich, the commission first spoke to local farmer Mike Spencer in December 2019 about his concerns regarding what he saw as dangers at the crossing. The commission and members of the community have been trying to get improvements ever since.
When asked Wednesday about the May 23 complaint and that Emmerich said the commission didn’t receive a response, MoDOT spokeswoman Linda Wilson Horn said in an email that she was “checking into the status of that request.”
She included in her message that “the rule for sight distance is when a vehicle is stopped at the stop sign on the post with the railroad crossing sign that they have clear sightlines for 250 feet in each direction.”
A week after alerting MoDOT, Emmerich made a notation on May 31 that the commission called “the Roadmaster with BNSF (Railway) to express our concerns with the visibility issues at the Porche Prairie Ave rail crossing.”
Lena Kent, a BNSF Railway company spokeswoman, said she can’t comment on “the incident itself given the [National Transportation Safety Board’s] involvement.”
“What I can tell you is that BNSF does have a vegetation removal program across our network,” she said.
‘It is not getting taken care of’
Paul Speichinger, who farms the fields adjacent to the railroad, said the thick brush on the railroad’s property can be a hazard to drivers trying to cross the double tracks.
“The railroad is not concerned about taking the brush off so you can be able to (safely) cross in and out of there,” he said. “It is not getting taken care of. And it limits your view of oncoming trains until you get up right next to the rail.”
Mary Schiavo, former U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general, told The Star that the brush is an issue “for the railroad, the track owner, to address.” However, she added, “the state can stay on their case” to get something done.
In a follow-up email to The Star, Emmerich gave further detail about the brush complaint last month.
“Because the visibility issue was brought up to us as a concern by citizens, we forwarded that information on to MoDOT Rail Safety since they have better and more updated contacts with the railroad than we do,” Emmerich said. “To my knowledge, it would be the railroad’s responsibility to clear any brush in their right of way.”
Investigation continues
On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the derailment site with a 14-member team to investigate the crash. It isn’t known whether the brush was a factor.
NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said the safety board would examine the events leading up to the crash and analyze information from the on-board recording system. That digital download will show factors such as the use of the train horn, the speed of the train before impact and how the brakes were applied.
The safety board did not have any concerns about mechanical issues on the train or the tracks, she said. The NTSB was aiming to release certain findings about the crash, including the train’s speed, as early as Wednesday, Homendy added.
Authorities released the identities Wednesday of the four — the truck driver and three passengers — killed in the derailment. Two passengers — Rachelle Cook, 58, and Kim Holsapple, 56, were from DeSoto, Kansas; one, Binh Pham, 82, was from Kansas City; and the truck driver, Billy Barton II, 54, was from Brookfield, Missouri.
A GoFundMe page set up for Cook and Holsapple and their family says the two are sisters and were on a trip with their mother and a daughter of one of the sisters. According to the page, the relatives were on a four-day getaway to Chicago.
“They were excited to be on their first trip together in many years,” the page said.
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