Students Rewarded for Rail Safety Projects

The statistics aren’t funny.

California leads the nation in the number of pedestrians killed by trains each year: 73. A train crashes into a vehicle every 90 minutes.

But at a ceremony Tuesday honoring high school students who produced public service announcements promoting rail safety, one winner proved you can use humor to get the point across.

In his spot, Moorpark High School junior Adam Finlay faces St. Peter at the entrance to heaven after being run over by a train. He gets into the pearly gates, but must bear the shame of wearing a scarlet T for train.

The video drew laughter from the other students from film, video and drama classes at 24 Southern California schools that gathered at Union Station.

The young rail safety advocates said they were inspired by the teachers who told them to enter the contest and the $500 prizes they could win for their schools.

In the process, they learned about the dangers of trespassing on tracks and playing chicken with trains.

“Those trains can’t stop really quick,” said Josh Logan, a senior at Chatsworth High School, who wrote one of three winning entries from the school.

Most projects featured images of trains approaching pedestrians wandering along the tracks, or impatient drivers who fail to cross the tracks before the train smashes into them.

“I wanted to do something different,” Finlay said. He got the idea for his story, titled “Judgment Day,” as he pondered, “If you get hit by a train, what do you say to God?”

“You can get killed at any time,” Finlay said, “but stepping on the tracks is the worst thing you could ever do.”

He and other students in his video communications class shot the scenes at a Moorpark church and edited them at school. Their teacher, Guy Aronoff, said the community was all too familiar with the dangers of trains. Last July, a 17-year-old Moorpark girl was killed by a freight train as she walked along a trestle.

The third annual contest was sponsored by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Operation Lifesaver, Southern California Regional Rail Authority and the Los Angeles Clippers.

From the 54 entries, two were chosen in each category: 15-second, 30-second, 60-second and longer.

The announcements will be played during Clippers games at the Anaheim Pond.