Fighting
the Good Fight
The
Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine
8/8/99
by James F. Sweeney
The hill comes as
a shock. Deerfield Avenue humps along the border between
Stark and Wayne counties, running due north-south, but rising
and falling over gentle hills between fields of corn and
soybeans.
The hills are rounded
enough to give a driver traveling at 50 mph that pleasant
little lift in the stomach that comes from fooling gravity
for just a moment, but not steep enough to make any but the
most timid ride their brakes.
Until this hill.
A southbound driver
who crests it expecting the usual dip will stab for the brake
pedal. It's a 16-percent grade, meaning that for every 100
feet of road, it drops 16 feet. The two-lane blacktop falls
away in a corridor of tall trees before bottoming out and
crossing a bridge over a creek. The impression is of falling
into a chute.
At the bottom of
the hill, just before the bridge, railroad tracks run across
the road.
Even with new crossing
gates and lights and even though the trees and tall brush
were cut back after the last fatal accident to give drivers
a better view of approaching trains, it is still intimidating.
Even today, Jason
Moore's parents don't know if their son had been on the hill
before, but on the afternoon of March 25, 1995, Jason did
what he was supposed to do. He stopped at the tracks, then
marked only with crossbucks, looked left, saw nothing, looked
right, saw nothing, and slowly pulled out onto the tracks.
The engineer on
the eastbound Conrail train approaching from around a curve
on the left saw the car carrying six teenagers pull out in
front of him, but, at 58 mph, didn't even have time to hit
the brakes.
"I want to
tell you about the accident," says Dennis Moore, father
of Jason, who lived, and Ryan who died.
"When
the car was hit, Ryan and Joshua were ejected out the back
window and traveled more than 200 feet. They both landed
in the creek. Actually, Joshua landed on the other side
of the creek and Ryan wound up at the base of an oak tree,
a big oak tree.
"I
don't know why I'm bringing this up except that people
don't know what can happen when a train goes fast."
The train speed,
which was traveling within the speed limit, struck the back
door on the driver's side. The three passengers in the back
seat, Ryan Moore, 16, Alyson Ley, 16, and Joshua White, 17,
died. The three in the front seat, Jason Moore, 18, Jennifer
Helms, 15, and Rebecca White, 16, lived, but Jason and Rebecca
each lost a brother.
A jury ordered Conrail
to pay the Moores $9 million - even though it found Jason
bore 55 percent of the responsibility for the crash. The
Moores decided to use most of the jury award to bring something
good out of the tragedy. They created the Angels on Track
Foundation to place lights and gates at dangerous railroad
crossings throughout Ohio.
But Dennis and Vicky
Moore are finding it takes more than millions and an unimpeachable
goal to do good--and to feel good.
A tangle of state
and federal bureaucracies have a say in whether and when
gates and lights are erected at crossings: the Federal Highway
Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, the
Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), the Ohio Rail
Development Commission, local authorities and, of course,
the railroads. None of them moves quickly.
The Deerfield Avenue
crossing was known to be a killer. After the accident, neighbors
talked about their own close calls and other fatal accidents.
Ryan, Alyson, and Joshua were the sixth, seventh, and eighth
deaths there since 1975. Their March 1995 crash was preceded
by an injury accident a week earlier and a fatal collision
in January of that year.
Just three months
before the accident, the PUCO had ordered Conrail to install
lights and gates at the crossing, but the agency gave the
railroad the customary year to get it done. Not even the
three deaths, subsequent headlines and publicity-seeking
state legislators could speed up the process with the railroad.
The gates and lights were not installed until November 1995
- eights months after the accident and 11 months after the
PUCO order.
"If they had
installed it before November, then we would still have our
son and the other children,"
Vicky Moore says.
That sense of urgency,
that feeling that other parents are going to lose a child
to a train unless the Moores get there first with gates and
lights, is what drives the Moores to campaign for safer railroad
crossings.
"I get angry," Vicky
says. "Why should we have to do this? This shouldn't
be our job. I'll be crying and depressed and [Denny] will
say, "Do you want other people to go through this?" And
I'll say, "No".
The Moores are unlikely
crusaders.
Denny, who's 47,
owns a business that makes and repairs machine tools. He
looks a bit like professional golfer Craig Stadler. Vicky,
also 47, is a pretty brunette whose face is sad in repose.
She cries easily. They live in a comfortable house near Canal
Fulton in northern Stark County. Before their son's death,
the Lions Club and PTA were as close as either had come to
social activism.
The crash was the
start of a forced education for the Moores, who had a million
questions. Why was the Deerfield Avenue crossing, which plaintiff's
expert William Berg, a professor at the University of Wisconsin,
called one of the most dangerous crossings he'd seen in 30
years, guarded only by crossbucks? Why is it the government's
responsibility to install lights and gates and not the railroads?
Why are local governments virtually powerless to regulate
the trains that rumble through their towns?
The more they've
learned, the more frustrated they've become.
As they find out
that their millions and good intentions cannot stop trains
and cars from colliding, the foundation is being threatened
by the Internal Revenue Service. The Moores kept some of
the money to pay for Jason's medical bills, some went to
the attorneys, which left $5.4 million for Angels on Track.
It's still in the
bank, now grown to $6 million with interest and donations.
Because Conrail's check was made out to Denny, however, the
IRS wants to tax it as income. The Moores have hired an attorney
to protect the foundation's capital.
It would be easy
to give up, to take the money for themselves and make a comfortable
life a luxurious one, but the Moores cannot do it. Ryan's
death still hurts, and working for Angels on Track is how
they grieve.
The
foundation stabs Vicky in the heart every day, then heals
the wound, only to reopen it the next day. "It's a double-edged sword
for me," Vicky says. "I need this to keep me going,
but I hate it."
Dennis
has done the grocery shopping for the past four years;
Vicky is afraid of coming across the iced tea mix Ryan
drank on the shelves. "As
soon as I'd see it, I'd think I would never buy it for Ryan
[again] and I'd stand in the aisle and start crying,"
she says.
She
avoids driving by Northwest High School, which her sons
attended. "I
hate the summer when all the kids are home from school," she
adds, "because it's a constant reminder that our son
is not around. Everything is affected. The way you eat, songs,
something somebody says."
Pictures
of Ryan and the other victims fill her living room, turning
it into a shrine. She put them up in a panic two weeks
after the accident when, she recalls, "I closed my
eyes and couldn't picture what he looked like."
While Denny is at
work, Vicky retreats to an upstairs bedroom converted to
an office. Whatever space is not occupied by the computer,
printer, fax machine and file cabinets is taken by angels.
They float across a wallpaper border and crystal and glass
miniatures sit on a shelf. A large oil painting of an angel
playing the harp sits in a chair. In the corner is a color
photo of Ryan, the picture cradled in the arms of a teddy
bear.
She cruises the
Internet, sending e-mail to other railroad safety groups,
tracking state and national legislation, collecting newspaper
clips about train accidents, writing letter and encouraging
local officials to get involved. They accept, but do not
actively solicit, donations. For a $20 gift, donors receive
an angel pin designed by a family friend.
That sort of devotion
is typical of Vicky, says Debra Messner, a longtime friend
and the third trustee of the nonprofit foundation. The Moores
said they chose her because they know she will carry on the
work if something were to happen to them.
"[Vicky] is
a distinct personality. She doesn't stifle her words. She's
very intense. The only way to make those changes ever happen
is by clamping on like a pit bull and not letting go,"
Messner says. "And that's what Vicky can do most of the
time. As long as she's alive, I think she'll hang onto this
for as long as possible."
"It is not
unusual for a grieving couple to pour their energy into a
cause," says Ruth Myers of Compassionate Friends, a
support group for parents whose children have died. The Moores
have been regulars at the monthly meetings of a Massillon
chapter led by Myers.
Myers, for example,
became a volunteer for Lifebanc after her daughter drowned
eight years ago. She donated her daughter's heart and a kidney
to other children and now encourages other grieving parents
to do the same.
"You don't
ever get over it, but you learn to cope with it," she
says. "You come to a point where you control your grief;
it doesn't control you.
"They're headed
in the right direction," she says of the Moores. "They're
healing. There isn't a day goes by that you don't think of
your child, but it's not overwhelming."
The Moores still
feel overwhelmed at times, such as when they hear the rumble
of trains passing in the distance.
"I can feel
the vibration of the trains going through Clinton even though
it's miles away," Vicky says. "When we hear a train
whistle, we stop whatever we're doing and just cringe. It
just goes right through us."
"We lived here
for many years and never heard it before," Denny adds.
The Moores' grief-fueled
campaign has put them in a sometimes-awkward relationship
with the government agencies charged with railroad safety.
The feel the PUCO
and the Ohio Rail Development Commission are too slow, too
complacent and not hard enough on the railroads. They question,
for example, why Conrail was given a year to install lights
and gates at the crossing where their son was killed.
Lights and gates
must be customized for each crossing and coordinated with
any nearby traffic lights, explains PUCO spokesman Dick Kimmins
of the yearlong leeway. Additionally, wires or utility pipes
sometimes must be moved to accommodate the gates.
For their part,
agency officials are carefully complimentary of Angels on
Track, but they resent the criticisms the Moores have voiced.
There is the impression that they regard the Moores as well-meaning
amateurs unwilling to accept the practical realities involved
in regulating the railroads-and unwilling to give the government
credit for the progress it has made.
In 1978, there were
879 train-car crashes in Ohio. Last year, the number was
136. The number of fatalities dropped from 63 in 1989 to
14 last year. Officials say there are many reasons for the
decline. For one thing, abandoned tracks and closed crossings
mean there are fewer potential accident sites. The state
is mandating the installation of lights and gates at a steady
rate and Operation Lifesaver-a foundation supported by the
federal government and the railroad industry-teaches the
public how to be safe around tracks.
"Our system
works," says Kimmins. "The numbers are, I think,
irrefutable."
It isn't working
fast enough to suit the Moores, who think the system should
be streamlined and the railroads should bear the cost of
improved safety measures. Their answer is to apply pressure-from
below.
They began a railroad
safety task force in Stark County, inviting county commissioners,engineers,
township trustees and others concerned to not wait for the
PUCO, but to do their own survey of crossings to determine
which are the most dangerous and petition the state to install
lights and gates. They have helped start task forces in Wayne,
Carroll, Delaware, Marion and Morrow counties as well.
Task force members
are finding what the Moores already know-it is not easy.
"We really
don't understand a lot of the jurisdictions," says Ralph
Linsalata, director of Wayne County's Emergency Management
Agency. He calls the snarl of state and national agencies
a "voodoo jungle" of bureaucracies.
"The railroads
are in control,"
he says. "It's their property and they have some far-reaching
powers on their property. You don't know quite who to talk
to. They're very slow to accept change."
Railroads
generally have the right of way. Protected by interstate
commerce laws and "we were here first"
legal clout, they are largely invulnerable to local attempts
to control the number, length and speed of trains. The communities
can't even decide on their own safety devices.
So the county task
forces must work through the state. Once they prioritize
the crossings they want protected, the task forces, with
the backing of county commissioners and other elected officials,
can press the PUCO to order the railrods to install lights
and gates. In those cases,the railrods usually put up 10%
of the cost, with the PUCO picking up about 75%. The balance
is paid by the community, and that can be a problem. Gates
and lights can cost up to $180,000 a crossing and few communities
have the money to put up their share. The railroads are financially
responsible for maintenance-inspections and replacement of
all parts to keep safety features in working condition. Their
burden is eased by the newest state budget that allows them
a $200 annual tax write-off for each crossing.
"Thirty to
forty thousand dollars to a village or township can be prohibitively
expensive," says Rob Marvin, chief of the PUCO's railroad
division.
That's where Angels
on Track comes in. By picking up the local share, the Moores
hope to clear that funding barrier and encourage communities
to do something about their own dangerous crossings.
The
foundation recently recorded its first accomplishments.
In May, the PUCO ordered upgrades to three crossings in
Wayne County. Angels on Track will contribute $61,000 to
cover the local governments' share. The Moores also persuaded
the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad
to accept a donated signal, one that uses new technology,
for an unprotected crossing in Stark County. The system now
in use relies on metal train wheels to close a circuit on
the rails and trigger the lights and gates. The new method
uses sensors buried in the railbed to detect changes in the
earth's magnetism caused by the trains.
"What my wife
and I are doing is trying to open people's eyes to what they
can do. I think a lot of people think there is nothing they
can do but complain," Denny says.
There is a long
way to go.
Of the 6,249 public
thoroughfare crossings in Ohio, 2,082 have lights and gates,
1,147 have warning lights only and nearly half - 3,020 are
marked only by crossbucks. Since most crossings are decades
old and their numbers are falling, why, the Moores wonder,
do fewer than half the corssings have lights and gates?
Money, says Thomas
O'Leary, executive director of the Ohio Rail Development
Commission. The government has limited funds to pay for lights
and gates.
O'Leary
resents the Moores' asertion that his agency is not doing
enough to make crossings safer. "There has been a very substantial
decrease in the number of crashes and accidents,"
he says. "I don't like to brag about this, but it's unfair
to my people who have been doing this for 15 years and really
care about it."
The Moores don't
want to hear it. They believe railroads should have to pay
for lights and gates at all crossings, should fence off the
tracks from pedestrians and should take other seemingly simple
steps, such as putting reflective tape on the sides of railcars,
to make crossings safer, they say.
"The law has
to change and I don't know if Denny and I can do that. But
until the laws change [collisions] will keep happening," Vicky
says.
At the bottom of
the hill on Deerfield Avenue, across the tracks, but before
the creek, are three 2-foot high white plywood crosses with
the names of the accident victims painted on them.
The Moores put them
up, of course, and they trim the weeds around them.
"We used to
go down there all the time, sometimes every day, just to
walk around and look at it all,"
Vicky says sadly. Now they visit only two or three times a
year, but they will return again and again.
"I never get
away from it,"
Vicky says. "There are days I absolutely hate it and I
want to get away. But I always go back to it because there
is nothing else we can do."
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