Officials with Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway want to close this crossing at Road 12 South in Worden.
by Judy Killen – originally published in the Yellowstone County News
WORDEN – Landowners and fire officials are opposing a Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway proposal to close a crossing at South 12th Road west of Worden.
Railroad officials recently sent letters to people who live nearby and other agencies, including fire departments, that could be affected by closing the crossing.
Dick Tombrink, who lives near the crossing, received a letter from the railroad advising him of its plans to close the 12th Road crossing. He gathered signatures from 51 people opposed to the closing and sent it to Yellowstone County commissioners and railroad officials this week.
“It is imminent that the crossing closure is completed for reasons of safety,” reads the letter Tombrink received from Brendan Gilbert, a BNSF project engineer. “The closure of this crossing will benefit the area with moving train traffic throughout the area safely and promptly.”
Carl Midgley, chief of the Worden Volunteer Fire Department, wants the crossing to stay open because it is a critical access point for fire trucks and ambulances.
“That’s a main road to a lot of places,” Midgley said Wednesday. “We’re against it 100 percent.”
Midgley said he thinks railroad officials “want to stack trains there… but that’s just my opinion.”
But Matthew Jones, a BNSF spokesman, said in an e-mail to Yellowstone County News on Wednesday that “BNSF is seeking closure of this crossing because it is within the limits of a proposed rail siding.”
In his letter, Gilbert said the railroad “in the near future will be installing a new line which will run through the crossing.”
Gilbert also wrote that the railroad “has made tremendous strides to shorten the amount of time trains travel through various subdivisions,” adding that “safety is our number one priority and we strive to close redundant closings for that reason.”
Midgley asked members of the Yellowstone County Fire Council at their May meeting for direction in opposing the proposed closing. Yellowstone County Commissioner John Ostlund was at the meeting and said the railroad can’t close a crossing without approval from county commissioners, and they want the crossing to stay open.
But BNSF told the county commissioners on Wednesday that it would not fund its part of the Laurel Airport Road if it can’t take the crossing out on Road 12.
“We shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” Midgley said, but he’s ready to fight to keep it open.
“I hope they don’t keep trying to push it,” he said.
The letter Midgley got from railroad officials called the crossing “redundant” and possibly dangerous, Midgley said.
“I 100-percent disagree,” he said. “We use it quite a bit, especially for fires,” since it connects to a paved road and is in better shape than the crossing at Worden. Closing the crossing would increase ambulance response time because EMTs would have to double-back to reach certain addresses, Midgley said.
Jones said in his e-mail that the Federal Railroad Administration reported that in 2014, the annual average daily traffic for the 12th Road crossing was 261 vehicles.
