Can you hear it now?

By Fred Hirsch
Special to Pioneer Times
    It’s the height of the snowmobile season and anyone who works on a Maine railroad easily recognizes the fact by sled tracks between the rails along virtually all of the state’s 1,100 miles of active rail lines.
    In Maine and elsewhere throughout much of the United States, snowmobiles have been demolished and sledders have been killed or seriously injured when hit by a train. While vain attempts to lift sleds over the railhead or a snowy whiteout have contributed to wrecks, the inability to hear an oncoming multi-million pound train also ranks right up there.
    A snowmobiler may make the conscientious decision to wear a helmet, but that helmet combined with the roar of the sled pretty much blocks out any other sound — like the blast of a locomotive horn on a train bearing down from behind. We can hear the wail of a train horn from a mile or more away on a warm summer evening, but on a cold winter day that same train whistle may not be heard even a mere 500 feet away by the unsuspecting sledder. Of course, the answer isn’t to shed the helmet, but rather stay off the tracks.
    Fortunately, there hasn’t been such an incident in Maine of late. Train crews, however, will agree that based on sightings of snowmobile tracks along rail property and the occasional sled seen on the tracks, it’s only a matter of time.
    Unfortunately, rogue snowmobilers aren’t the only culprits on the tracks.
    Come spring and summer, some ATV riders, likely the same ones who don’t respect a landowner’s posted property, will be out there. Their machines, besides tearing up the rock ballast which holds railroad track in place, are frequently spotted illegally riding the rail right of way.
    Then there are those who love their MP3 players and iPods — loving them so much in fact that they become engrossed in the moment as documented in Biddeford last month where a teenager was seriously injured when struck by an Amtrak train. In another instance a few years ago in Brewer, the driver of a slow-moving on-rail maintenance truck was making a routine track inspection and came up from behind a headset-wearing cross-country skier gliding along between the rails. He stopped the truck, ran up to the skier and said, “You know, if I was driving a train, you could have been killed!” Surprised, she answered that she knew the train schedule and at this time of day, it was all clear.
    Wrong. A train can approach at anytime on any day and from either direction. One should always expect a train.
    Can you hear it now? No, probably not if you’re on the railroad tracks while riding your recreational vehicle or listening to your headset device.
    Fred Hirsch is state coordinator of Maine Operation Lifesaver, a non-profit organization promoting railroad safety. The group offers free presentations and material statewide to snowmobile and ATV clubs among other groups. Contact can be made by calling 827-7367 or at maineol@roadrunner.com.