Thursday, August 19, 2010

Railroad crossing from hell



Railroad Crossing from Hell
By Bob Robinson

Anybody been on Hunter Road lately?
Do you even know where Hunter Road is? Take Hwy 49 North a little over four miles from the old North School. Hunter Road is the intersection on the right, going east.
Or you can take Hwy 118 North and turn west… except I wouldn’t recommend it.
There is a railroad crossing that, if you don’t “crawl” over it, it will knock the fillings out of your teeth or mess up the shocks on your car. Or both. The day will probably come when someone not familiar with it takes the crossing too fast and ends up in the ditch or the field.
Going east is not quite as bad, but still not good. Residents and regular travelers going west on Hunter typically slow down to about 10-15 mph and move over to the left side of the road to cross the tracks.
I brought this crossing up at a commissioners meeting a couple months ago. After a few jokes about my driving skills/speeds, I was told that railroad crossings are the responsibility of R. J. Corman. Not the state. Not the county. Not even the township (Hunter Road is a Greenville Township road).
Township Trustee – and Republican candidate for Darke County Commissioner – Mike Stegall said he would call them.
He reported later that afternoon that he’d talked to them and they said they’d check into it.
Fast forward to last week. Nothing had been checked or done. Stegall called them again. They said they’d check into it.
This week I asked if he’d heard anything. Nope. He called again and advised them they’d been contacted about this over two months ago. They said they’d check into it.
Then Stegall called a few minutes later. It seems there is a new District Manager, Clark Reasoner. He called back and said that not only was the Hunter crossing scheduled to be fixed, but there were three in Greenville and seven more in the county that will be getting concrete work done on them.
Work is to be completed by the end of the year.
I’m not going to hold my breath… the crossing has been bad for at least four or five years, but if they complete the work as promised, I’ll thank them. I hope we don’t lose an unaware driver in the meantime.
In the meantime, I’m taking this opportunity to thank Greenville Township Trustee Mike Stegall for following up with them.
To me, this is what public officials should be doing for their constituents.


Bob Robinson is the retired editor of The Daily Advocate, Greenville, Ohio. If you wish to receive a daily notification of items posted, send your email address to: opinionsbybob@gmail.com. Feel free to express your views.

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