BY JANET C. WETZEL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MIDDLETOWN -- A 32-year-old Butler County man was struck and killed by a Conrail train early Wednesday -- the 19th pedestrian-train fatality in Ohio this year.
Thomas Hester, 32, of Oxford State Road was sitting on the railroad tracks behind Oneida School, in the 2900 block of Yankee Road at 1:42 a.m. Wednesday when he was struck, Middletown police said. Alcohol may have been to blame, Lt. Don Owens said. "There were several beer cans laying at the scene," Lt. Owens said.
An autopsy was handled by the county coroner's office, but results were not released Wednesday.
Statistics show that nationally, a train collides with a vehicle or a pedestrian every 100 minutes.
The accident was the third of its kind in the Tristate area in 1998, and all have been in Butler and Warren counties. This is the second such accident in Middletown in three months. On July 19, Kenneth McFarland was killed as he sat on railroad tracks in the city. His blood-alcohol level was 0.30, triple the legal limit. Mr. Hester had been living at the home of his former wife, Tammy Johnson. There have been no indications he was suicidal, police said.
The 3,800-ton train was traveling from Columbus to Cincinnati at 35 mph in a 50 mph zone when the engineer spotted a figure on the track, said Robert Libkind, Conrail director of media relations.
"The engineer saw someone, sounded his horn and applied his emergency brakes, but couldn't stop," he said. "By the time an engineer sees someone it's much too late to stop. That train is a little smaller than an average locomotive, but 3,800 tons traveling at 35 mph still is significant. Some large trains can take 1.5 miles to stop."
Statistics from Operation Lifesaver, a national railroad safety group, show that 18 pedestrians were killed in accidents in Ohio in 1997 while trespassing on railroad tracks.
Wednesday's death brings the number this year to 19. Six of those were ruled suicides, said Don Slemmer, Operation Lifesaver state coordinator.
On Sept. 6, a 15-year-old Carlisle youth was killed on a track in Franklin. There also have been several accidents in Butler County, including a 17-year-old Hamilton boy who was injured in early Julywhile he and his fiancee were walking along the tracks. Also, a 28-year-old Hamilton man lost a leg when he was hit by a train while sitting on tracks in Hamilton.
Hamilton County has had four pedestrian trespassers injured on railroad tracks this year. Warren and Clermont counties have reported no injury incidents, Mr. Slemmer said.
"Last year was a benchmark year in that it was the first time in the history of this nation that we had more people killed as pedestrian trespassers on railroad tracks than motorists killed by trains at railroad grade crossings," Mr. Slemmer said. "We call them trespassers because it is illegal to be on railroad tracks anywhere other than a public highway grade crossing."
Nationally in 1997 there were 445 fatalities from 3,765 highway-rail crossing crashes, and 529 pedestrians killed along the railways. There has been no significant increase in pedestrian deaths in the past two years. But despite having more motorists crossing railroad tracks and more trains using the grade crossings, "there has been a marked and continuous decrease in motorist deaths and crashes at grade crossings," Mr. Slemmer said.
