SOUTH ROYALTON — The death of Vermont Law School student Thomas Fennell, who was killed last year at a South Royalton railroad crossing when a train struck his vehicle, was on the minds of many community members present at a Thursday hearing with the state’s Transportation Board.

Representatives from Genesee & Wyoming, which owns or leases 228 miles of rail line in Vermont and 34 miles in New Hampshire through its subsidiary New England Central Railroad, have agreed to close a crossing where Stearn Road merges steeply downhill into South Windsor Street within 30 days of the board’s approval. 

They also have agreed to make safety changes, including the installation of lights and a bar, at the crossing located at the other end of Stearn Road, where it meets Hewitt Hill Lane, Hillside Lane and South Windsor Street where Fennell died by Sept. 1, 2023.

The representatives spoke on Thursday in Royalton during a site visit and evidentiary hearing held by the Transportation Board for the two railroad crossings. The town had petitioned the Transportation Board to make those changes. But because the railroad company is already in the process of making some safety improvements across the state, the Vermont Agency of Transportation urged the board to delay its decision. 

“I think everybody’s in agreement, so we don’t need to hold anyone’s feet to the fire,” VTrans Assistant Director Trini Brassard said. “If we had the materials today, the contractor would be out there this afternoon.”

VTrans had requested in its petition response that the transportation board hold Royalton’s petition to install lights and bars at the crossing where Fennell died be “held in abeyance,” which means the board would hold off on deliberating on it while Amtrak and NECR worked on completing a project to improve their at-grade crossings in Vermont and New Hampshire by installing lights and gate arms. 

Shayne Bocash, a signal supervisor with NECR, said the project, which has already been contracted out, is scheduled to start in the spring to install safety equipment to 35 total crossings between the two states. He said the crossing where Fennell died will be one of the first completed, which is expected to happen around June. 

Brassard noted that holding the petition in abeyance and waiting for NECR and Amtrak to complete their project would also allow them to make safety changes in the future without needing permission from the board again.

After visiting the two crossings on Thursday, the board listened to comments from the public during a hearing on the law school’s campus, many of which recalled the pain and anguish the school community felt after Fennell’s death.

Vermont Law and Graduate School Associate Dean Shirley Jefferson spoke first and said that Fennell was a “great presence” on campus where he was both a respected leader and practical joker who wasn’t afraid of challenging people on issues or concerns of interest to him. She said his death devastated those at the law school — which includes around 660 students and around 100 employees — and in the community. She described how just hearing the sound of the train whistle reminds people of the tragedy.

“A professor said to me today: ‘Everytime I hear that whistle, I think about how Tommy had 20 seconds to live or die’,” Jefferson said. “We beg you (Transportation Board) to go out there to all the crossings in Vermont and put some kind of safety device there. … don’t let this happen again.”

Jefferson and VLGS President Rodney Smolla both supported the town’s petitions on behalf of the law school, but were not the only members of the law school to express support for making changes to the railroad crossings. Associate Professor Pamela Vesilind said she hoped the board would consider making statewide changes to increase safety at crossings because train-horn warnings are insufficient and prone to human error.

Federal regulations require trains to sound their horns for 15-20 seconds before entering a public crossing, but Vesilind said that on numerous occasions she’s heard the train come through town without sounding its horn. 

Other speakers pointed out that the train-car accident that killed Fennell was not a one-off in Royalton or Vermont in general. Amanda di Dio, a third-year law student and the school’s town liaison, discussed three recent instances of train accidents involving Amtrak’s “Vermonter,” the passenger train that struck Fennell’s SUV. She described an incident in 2014 when an Amtrak train hit a car stopped on the tracks in South Royalton (no one was injured); one in October 2015 when a train derailed in Northfield, resulting in injuries to seven passengers; and another in 2015 when 18-year-old Nicolas Siciliano was killed after being struck by a train while walking down the rail line in West Hartford.

She urged the board not only to approve the changes to the two petitioned crossings, but to consider making safety changes to all railroad crossings in Vermont. 

“Personally, Thomas’s death had an extremely profound effect on me,” di Dio said. “I know a lot of students had a similar experience as well.”

Angie Campbell, an associate director of marketing for the law school who said she lives on Stearn Road, was also supportive of both petitions, said she’s had many “close calls” at both crossings, including one before Fennell’s accident where her daughter almost got hit by a car going the wrong way as it narrowly missed getting hit by the train. 

Following the public-comment period, the Transportation Board held a formal questioning period where representatives from the Vermont Agency of Transportation, the Town of Royalton, and New England Central Railroad answered questions asked by the board.

Bocash told the board that it wouldn’t take long to take down the signage at the crossing petitioned to be closed, and committed to being able to close it within 90 days after receiving word of the Transportation Board’s decision. When Royalton officials filed the town’s petitions earlier this year, both NECR and VTrans responded in agreement. 

NECR and Amtrak are the only two railroad companies that operate through Royalton, according to Charlie Hunter, Genesee & Wyoming’s assistant vice president of government affairs. There are 82 public crossings in Vermont alone that the Vermonter passes through on its trip, Hunter said. In addition to Royalton, the train passes through Randolph, Bethel, Sharon, Hartford, Hartland and Windsor on the Vermont side of the Upper Valley.

Royalton’s highway department blocked off the Stearns Road/South Windsor Road crossing in winter of this year and it’s remained that way since, Town Manager Victoria Paquin said.

Royalton Selectboard Clerk John Dumville said the town was fine with waiting for the railroads to perform the upgrade as long as it happened within a year.

There is no timeframe for the Transportation Board’s decision on the two petitions, according to executive secretary John Zicconi. He said they’ll take the next few weeks to deliberate and a final decision will be announced at a later point in time.

Ray Couture can be reached at 1994rbc@gmail.com.

]]>