In a little town called Richfield, Wisconsin, owner operators Lisa and Lee Schmitt had the closest call of their trucking careers when an absolute nightmare situation played out: Their stretched overdimensional trailer bottomed out crossing over some railroad tracks when that red and white arm began to lower and the lights started flashing.
"My stomach is still in knots," Lisa said just an hour or two after the incident.
The Schmitts were up to their usual, something they have years upon years of combined experience in -- hauling oversize loads in their native Wisconsin, in this case "a 70-foot rail car," she said, with the trailer stretched out to accommodate it. "Sometimes the center of our trailer will get hung up, but we can usually just yank it."
But look at the picture above. This rail crossing, a double, presents some unique obstacles.
"There's two sets of tracks and all kinds of potholes," she said. Typically, the Schmitts might take a crossing like this at an angle to avoid snags, but with dividers on both sides of the tracks "we couldn't make it over at an angle," she said.
So there they were, between two tracks with 70 feet of steel stretched out behind them and "going slow to avoid the potholes."
"Our truck is literally sitting in between the two tracks and then the barrier starts flashing red and the arm starts coming down," she said. "I'm like, 'Oh $#!+!'" This happened on Fond Du Lac Avenue. Lisa and Lee spoke a lot of French on that day.
"We don’t know if we can get over that second track," she said, but Lee leapt into action. "He just hammers it and starts grabbing gears."
The train's horns had sounded before the trailer cleared the last track. "The train went right behind us," Lisa said. "This was the closest call of my career, 100%."
Despite shaking hands and that jittery unease you get after a close call, the Schmitts pressed on to their location, a nearby Precision Pipeline yard where they unloaded. "We went down and got unloaded and talked to gate guys down there and told them the tracks are crazy," she said. The staff at the receiver told her they knew of at least two others who "almost got hit," and that "sometimes, the lights don't even work" on that particular set of crossings.
The Schmitts called the number posted on the signs at the rail crossing and told them "the lights don't trigger soon enough" and to fix it. They said they'd send someone out. They shared their story with Overdrive in hopes that somebody in the city of Richfield takes notice and makes changes before disaster strikes.
The number the Schmitts called to report the crossing.
For now, at least they can't say they haven't been warned.
"We’ve got a whole yard in Salem, Virginia, that has to be brought to this yard here," full of "90-foot rail cars" she said. "And that pothole is only going to get worse."
As we previously reported, the Federal Railroad Administration provides only general information on navigating rail crossings, but the duty of calculating the clearance falls solely on the driver. A Low Clearance Vehicle Railroad Crossing PSA similarly does not include specifics on how to assess if your vehicle can cross a hump. The agency has looked into using drone-based photography and measurement to get readings on rail crossings, but nothing has come of it as of yet.
That lackluster support from FRA might not come as a surprise to the Schmitts, who said that crossing in Richfield was "nowhere near flat" and that it's "crazy" the grades drivers have to contend with. A side underride guard on every dry van in the country might only make the problem worse -- a looming side underride guard mandate may well be the most costly in trucking history, if it goes through. Particularly costly, too, if more big accidents at crossings is the result.
[Related: Side underride guard mandate: Rail disaster waiting to happen?]
Speaking of feds and regs, the Schmitts remain engaged in a campaign for Lee to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration after some leadership shakeups earlier this year.
Not only that, but the Department of Transportation wants your input on "burdensome" regulations it might strike from the books.
The Schmitts have plenty to say on the regs front, with Lisa saying she's "halfway through page four" of her comments on the federal register on that front. Here's hoping DOT listens, and that you all find the guts and brains to keep any Oh $#!+! situation of your own a near-miss.
