ANDERSON — You are not imagining things.
More trains are rumbling through the city these days, and they're stopping more frequently and for longer periods than at any point in recent memory.
Not only is this incredibly annoying for Anderson residents who have places to go and people to see, stoppages create a public hazard for police and firefighters responding to potentially life threatening emergencies, said Anderson Fire Chief Dave Cravens.
While he hasn't done a detailed study of response times, Cravens said he knows the response time for emergency equipment is affected by both the partial closure of the Eisenhower Bridge on Eighth Street and stopped trains.
"If it's affecting civilians, you know it has to be affecting us," he said.
Part of the increased train traffic through Anderson can be attributed to business growth here, said Greg Winkler, director of economic development for the city.
But CSX Corp., which owns most of the track in Anderson, also must shoulder some of the blame, he said.
New executives who took over leadership of the company early this year took measures to reduce costs and increase efficiency, but the net effect, according to multiple Wall Street Journal articles over past several months show that efficiency hasn't followed the cuts.
Instead, those cost-saving measures have resulted in multiple delays among a variety of clients who rely on railroads, and actually slowed traffic in CSX's rail system, the Wall Street Journal articles suggest.
"The city as a whole is more than a little aggravated by this," and there have been conversations with CSX executives about impact of stopped trains in the city, Winkler said. One of the reasons trains are stopped more often these days is because "we have a significant switching yard here."
“CSX strives to be a good neighbor to communities where we operate, and we work hard to minimize the impact of our operations. We understand there are challenges that exist in Anderson and we apologize for the inconvenience stopped trains may have caused the local community," said Gail Lobin, a spokeswoman for CSX.
"CSX is reviewing our operations in the area to determine potential improvements that can be made, while also keeping an open line of communication with community leaders and first responders,” she continued.
Under Indiana law, the operators of trains can be ticketed if their train blocks an intersection for more than 10 minutes, although Anderson police spokesman Maj. Joel Sandefur that's not a practice the police department has used in the past.
Other Indiana communities, however, have fined CSX, although it's unclear if that solved their problem.
Law enforcement officials in DeKalb County have been particularly aggressive. In 2015, for example, CSX Corp. agreed to pay $18,046 in fines and court costs, for 57 cases where the railroad was accused of blocking railroad crossings, according to a 2015 article in the Indiana Economic Digest.
Charges in 45 other cases were dismissed.
"This is a safety issue," Deputy Prosecutor Erik Weber told the Indiana Business Digest about why the prosecutor's office cited the railroad. “We have to deal with this because it’s public safety. If they are blocking a railroad intersection and a public safety official can’t get through, we have got a serious issue.”
“We will keep writing these tickets and demanding that they go to trial, because we think that’s the only way we can ensure that this is going to be kept on the radar of the railroads … we will enforce what we believe to be the appropriate law," he added.
Winkler conceded that getting a railroad to change its practices is a tall order, but he's hopeful the situation can be improved.
"Moving the railroad is a lot like prayer," he said. "It takes a lot of repetition."