New video of child jumping from moving train puts spotlight back on blocked crossings

(InvestigateTV) — It’s just after 3:30 p.m. on a sunny November afternoon in Hammond, Indiana. With safety barriers down and red warning lights blinking, cell phone video shows students climbing over train cars blocking their way home from school. It’s an act that’s become routine in this city, where crossings have been repeatedly blocked by stopped trains. But this time, it’s different.

The video shows small children climbing aboard the stopped train. As they begin the careful climb down the other side of the car, the train lurches forward with no warning, causing a little girl to jump for her life.

Akicia Henderson, a mother of three from Hammond, was rolling on her cell phone. Watching that moment again for the first time, she told InvestigateTV, “I thought she was gonna die.”

Henderson was sitting in her car, behind several other vehicles that were also blocked by the train. She was recording as she has done many times before, watching as children in this community make an unthinkable choice because a train has blocked their path.

“I never saw the train actually move while somebody was on it. That girl, she had to be no older than 7-8 years old. She was by herself. Anything could have happened to her,” Henderson said.

It’s the kind of moment Henderson said she’s feared since she first saw kids climbing over and under the trains almost two years ago, shooting videos on her phone in hopes of getting attention and solutions.

Months after InvestigateTV first saw those videos and traveled to Hammond to capture our own stunning images, those solutions still haven’t come.

“It’s just confirmation telling me, ‘We don’t care.’ I mean, here’s the proof. And nothing is still getting done. It’s just confirmation there. Instead of me just thinking they don’t care, I know they don’t care,” Henderson said.

Blocked crossings continue to plague communities across the country

The failure to address blocked crossings is not limited to Hammond. The problem impacts towns and cities nationwide, resulting in injuries and deaths.

InvestigateTV and our partner, ProPublica, spent months exposing the consequences of trains that stop for hours or even days at a time, cutting off whole communities. Our reporting from last April sparked outrage and calls for action at the local, state, and federal levels.

While there have been attempts at change, both big and small, in the aftermath of our coverage, permanent measures have not yet materialized.

In Hammond, the city’s mayor told InvestigateTV in June that Norfolk Southern, the rail company repeatedly blocking the tracks, had agreed to help fund a $5 million pedestrian bridge that would provide a safe crossing for kids who need to make the short walk from school to home. But months later, no formal deal has been announced.

Mayor Tom McDermott supplied ProPublica with a statement following the recent video, saying, “I understand the frustration that the City of Hammond and its residents have with stopped trains and blocked crossings. This most recent video re-emphasizes the need for a long-term solution to this problem. Norfolk Southern and the City of Hammond are continuing to work together on that long-term solution that will not impact City of Hammond taxpayers.”

Although Norfolk Southern did not answer direct questions about the project sent by InvestigateTV, McDermott told ProPublica the bridge project is in the design phase and will continue forward.

Temporary solutions, like curfews designed to keep trains off the crossings near schools, did work initially according to Akicia Henderson. But she said the stoppages have not been eliminated altogether, calling the initial move an effort to “shut us up,” that has not been consistent.

Congressional rail safety legislation sits at a standstill

The situation in Hammond and the video showing its school children climbing over and under trains, started a movement, prompting lawmakers to act in Washington.

In May, Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., added critical amendments related to blocked crossings to a senate railway safety bill drafted in the wake of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The bill also includes new layers of protection for people impacted by the rail industry nationwide, with provisions also related to the carriage of hazardous materials.

The Railway Safety Act was moving full steam ahead over the summer, but it’s been a full stop ever since on Capitol Hill, frustrating U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“I do not understand why it has taken almost a year for Congress to act. These are provisions that are common sense. I called for them about a year ago. Many communities and leaders have been calling for them for years,” he told InvestigateTV. “We’re doing everything we can as a department with the authorities that we have. But the fact that there’s a Railway Safety Act sitting there in Congress waiting its turn and that some of the same members of Congress who couldn’t wait to get on TV to politicize the Ohio disaster still haven’t gone on the record on whether they’re going to support this tells you that we have an unacceptable paralysis around railway safety in the United States Congress right now.”

That rail legislation includes Warnock’s amendments, which would give consumers an avenue to directly contact rail carriers that are blocking crossings and modify a federal crossing elimination program to provide special attention and funding to crossings near schools or along school bus routes. The bill would also direct the National Academies of Sciences to study frequently blocked crossings, examining safety as well as financial impacts.

Secretary Buttigieg says the Act should be a top priority for Congress, and said it’s key to keep up the pressure, with videos like the recent one showing the little girl jumping from a moving train helping to keep the spotlight on rail safety.

“No child anywhere in America should have to navigate a train, whether it’s moving or whether it’s still. They shouldn’t have to navigate it in the first place. This should not be their problem. We owe it to kids, and we owe it to communities to make sure that they are protected. And, by the way, so do the railroads,” Buttigieg said.

Norfolk Southern, the railroad that has repeatedly blocked Hammond’s crossings, wouldn’t comment on the new video but did say their collaboration with the city has been working.

In a statement provided to InvestigateTV, a representative for the company said, “We’re closely partnering with Hammond’s leaders. As a result, we have made operational changes and developed a way to notify local officials if a crossing will be blocked for an extended period of time. This collaboration has helped to ensure that there have been no reports of this crossing being blocked for an extended period during the past nine months.”

But the crossing near three schools in Hammond that has proved repeatedly problematic was blocked long enough in November for Akicia Henderson to capture that perilous jump. She said she’ll have her cell phone at the ready until the children there are protected, for good.

“Hopefully they get tired of me recording and they do something about it,” she said.

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