Faulty Rail Crossing Gates Vex Neighbors, Officials

When it rains, and sometimes even when it doesn’t, the long arms of the railroad crossing gates unfold across the streets, bells clanging and bright red lights flashing.

Trouble is, at these railroad crossings, there are no trains going by.

During the past several storms, red-and-white wooden arms have closed off Saticoy Avenue in Ventura for hours at a time, snarling traffic or forcing drivers to lurch over the county-owned Southern Pacific railroad crossings at their own risk.

In the east Ventura neighborhood after a light rain last week, the only way in and out was fettered by malfunctioning signal arms all day and night. Warning bells kept neighbors awake long after midnight.

“Sometimes it’s 10 minutes, sometimes it’s 10 hours,” said Tim Wisenbaker, who lives within 200 feet of that broken crossing, one of at least three in western Ventura County. “People just have to drive around it.”

Motorists have been driving around the Saticoy Avenue crossing for years, residents and school officials say.

The same problem cropped up this winter at a crossing on Bristol Road and at one on Alelia Avenue. Hundreds of complaints have been logged on a toll-free telephone line, but Southern Pacific has yet to solve the problem.

“It’s been awful,” said Anna Castaneda, a secretary in the nearby Cabrillo Cooperative Housing Corp. office. “I hate it. You have to make sure there are no trains coming when you go around them.”

Ventura police do not recommend that tactic. Cpl. John Turner said drivers who circumvent the arms are putting themselves at risk--either of getting a ticket or being hit by a train.

“You don’t know whether it’s a malfunction or whether a train might be coming,” Turner said. “Some of these trains go 40 to 60 mph, and they can come up quite suddenly on you.”

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The malfunctions have been limited to the Santa Paula Branch Line, a little-used rail corridor between Ventura and Fillmore. Three of the line’s 28 crossings are known to activate when it rains or water otherwise dampens the wiring.

Only a handful of trains use the line each week--heavy railroad cars headed to the Weyerhaeuser Co. paper products plant in Santa Paula. Freight trains run to the Montalvo station, where the cars are diverted to better-maintained tracks.

The railroad line was purchased from the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. last year, providing county officials with a 100-foot-wide corridor that will one day contain bike lanes, tourist trains or other projects.

But Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, which negotiated the purchase, said terms of the agreement call for Southern Pacific to maintain the signal arms.

She doesn’t want the signal systems fixed. She wants them replaced.

“They’re substandard,” Gherardi said. “Every time it rains, these signals go down.

“This is something that was not brought to our attention prior to the sale,” she said. “I believe it’s an unsafe situation, and I think our attorney feels the same way.”

Mary Gayle, a lawyer for the Transportation Commission, said the agency expects the railroad company to handle any legal liability for the situation. “It’s their responsibility to maintain [the gates], so I would hope we have no liability. But you never know how those things will turn out in court.”

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Southern Pacific officials concede that some of the crossings malfunction in times of inclement weather. But Wisenbaker said he has seen the crossings activate on clear days.

Nonetheless, Southern Pacific has little intention of spending the $200,000 or more that each device would cost to replace, Southern Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney said. Instead, the company will continue to address individual reports of broken signals.

“They appear to have their problems in the rainy seasons, so it’s an economic question of going the full extent of replacing them,” Furtney said.

“Given our economic position, that would be a tough call for SP. We may need to sit down with the transportation folks in Ventura County and see if there’s some alternative.”

Stop signs have been planted on either side of the intersections, and engineers have then been ordered to stop at each crossing to make sure there are no impediments--cars, bicyclists or pedestrians--to the train.

“We did agree to maintain the signaling,” Furtney said. “We would never operate in an unsafe condition [but] we do the best we can with the resources we have.”

Another Southern Pacific spokesman, Jack Martin, admitted that the company could face an expensive lawsuit if the gates are not repaired and someone gets hurt.

But Martin said maintenance crews earlier this week checked all the wiring and declared the crossings to be in working order.

“Hopefully, the problem is solved,” he said.

School bus driver Shirley Bailey is not so sure.

Too many times, the long wooden arms have blocked her way. She has no choice but to stop and baby-sit the children--kindergartners from nearby Juanamaria School--sometimes for hours.

“It happens quite often,” said Bailey, who has waited through about five delays this school year alone. “I just sit here and try and keep the kids quiet.”

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School district transportation manager Max Russell said he has complained to the railroad for five years about the broken sensors at some railroad crossings.

“They say they have fixed them,” said Russell, who praised the drivers for entertaining the children during such delays. “They’ve said that for the last five years, on and off.”

Ventura Unified School District rules forbid children from leaving buses until they arrive at their designated stop.

“When they go down, it’s a problem for the schools,” he said. “We can’t get the kids home. The parents are upset. It’s frustrating.”

Most often, residents say, it is not Southern Pacific maintenance crews who come to clear the intersection. Ventura police or the California Highway Patrol usually respond, and officers must force up the arms by hand.

“The buses have to scoot through while the police hold the arms up,” said Wisenbaker, the nearby homeowner. “If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be hilarious.”

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FYI

Residents can call a 24-hour toll-free number--(800) 767-3884--if the Southern Pacific railroad crossings in their neighborhood malfunction.