Gorin Residents Press County Commission Over Railroad Closures, Emergency Access
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By Echo Menges
Gorin, Mo. – Concerns over emergency access and blocked trains dominated discussion during the Oct. 16 Scotland County Commission meeting as Gorin resident Tara Shultz urged commissioners to help the community address safety issues tied to recent railroad-crossing closures.
Shultz said BNSF Railway closed the passive crossing at County Road 115 (Hicks), leaving residents south of the tracks with only one route through town — a crossing often blocked by stopped trains. She said local law enforcement and emergency services were not notified of the closure date, calling the situation unsafe for residents who could face long delays during emergencies.
“If you have a fire, a farm accident or a heart attack and that track is blocked at Gorin … nobody can get across,” Shultz told the commission. “It’s 40 minutes to my house (if they have to double back and go around).”
Commissioners Duane Ebeling, Brent Rockhold and David Wiggins acknowledged residents’ frustration but said the decision to close the Hicks crossing was made years earlier through an agreement with the railroad and the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Ebeling said BNSF first approached the county in 2016, arguing there were too many ground-level crossings between Gorin and Wyaconda and that safety upgrades would be too costly. The county agreed in 2019 to close two crossings in exchange for a new bridge to provide a grade-separated route.
“They came to us back in 2016 … They wanted to close two of them because it cost a half-million dollars to put lights and gates on them,” Ebeling said. “That’s the two they picked.”
Shultz said that while the bridge helps, it doesn’t solve the problem of blocked trains or the loss of a convenient emergency route. She also said state law limits trains from blocking a crossing for more than five minutes, but Gorin regularly experiences much longer delays.
“We exceed the five minutes — and the 15 minutes — over and over again,” she said. “One time’s too many.”
Mayor Teel Pflum, attending on behalf of the city, said Gorin has filed a complaint with the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, which has scheduled a hearing in February. Pflum said the complaint seeks to revisit the closure decision and address ongoing safety concerns.
Commissioners said they have spoken with MoDOT about trains stopped through town but have received little cooperation from BNSF.
“We’ve been working with MoDOT. The railroad … we don’t get much response from,” Wiggins said. “MoDOT is the only one we get to talk to.”
The meeting ended with commissioners saying the closure agreement is final, but they plan to continue pressing for better communication with the railroad and shorter blockages through Gorin.
“Our attorney said it’s a done deal … Everything is signed,” Ebeling said. “But we’ll keep trying to stop them from parking the train on the crossing.”
Since the meeting, Pflum has reported several instances where BNSF trains have blocked the Gorin crossing — including one that stopped for 40 minutes on Oct. 26.
Emergency Response Concerns
Gorin Fire Chief Kenneth Hoover warned that trains continuing to block the Gorin crossing for long periods could seriously affect local emergency response.
“It’s not an if it happens, it’s when it happens,” Hoover told The Memphis Democrat. “To go around to cross the bridge they just built is going to add a lot of time to our response. If we have to go around, we’d be better off to get Rutledge to respond for mutual aid because they would get there sooner.”
Most of the community’s firefighters live on the east side of the tracks, while the firehouse is on the west side.
“If we have a fire on the east side, we would have to go around to get to the firehouse and then go back around to get to the fire,” Hoover said.
The Gorin Volunteer Fire Department responds to both medical and fire calls, including traffic crashes.
“If you include medical, we are responding to one or two calls per week,” Hoover said. “On average we have two, maybe three a month for fire calls.”
Hoover said he has personally witnessed BNSF trains stopped across the Gorin crossing on multiple occasions.
“Just this past Sunday, it blocked the crossing for 20 to 30 minutes,” he said. “The Sunday before, it was already stopped when I got there, and it took them about ten minutes to get it moved. My assistant chief has talked to some of the maintenance workers, but as far as anyone higher than that, they have not contacted us.”
BNSF Response
BNSF spokesperson Kendall Sloan issued the following statement to the NEMOnews Media Group on Wednesday, Oct. 29:
BNSF is aware of the issue regarding railroad crossings in Gorin and understands the community’s concerns. We are actively working with MoDOT toward workable solutions.
With that said, BNSF trains operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We do our best to limit the amount of time any crossing is blocked. Our business and our customers depend on BNSF to keep our trains moving.
When our trains experience a situation that forces them to stop, BNSF works to correct or resolve the situation as quickly as possible to resume the safe movement of trains. If there is a mechanical issue, however, for safety, we will not move the train until it is safe to do so.
For railroad-crossing emergencies, the public should contact our 24/7 Emergency Operations Center at 1-800-832-5452.
State Law and Enforcement
Missouri law governing trains that block streets and highways is murky.
Under Missouri Revised Statute 300.360, railroad trains are prohibited from blocking a street for more than five minutes, except when stopped because of an emergency or for repairs needed to proceed safely. The law places responsibility on the train operator but does not clearly define who enforces the statute or what penalties apply for violations.
Counties and municipalities may adopt the state law into local ordinances, allowing local police to enforce it. However, there is no evidence any jurisdiction has successfully levied fines against BNSF Railway under the statute.
Another law, Missouri Revised Statute 71.013, specifies that individual train crew members cannot be held criminally responsible for blocking a crossing if acting under employer instructions. The railroad company, however, remains responsible for compliance.
In practice, enforcement of blocked-crossing time limits has been largely pre-empted by federal law. Courts across the country, including in the Eighth Circuit, have ruled that state and local regulations limiting how long trains can block crossings are overridden by federal authority under the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act and the Federal Railroad Safety Act. As a result, even where local ordinances exist, attempts to fine or prosecute railroads for blocking crossings rarely hold up in court.
Residents who wish to document or report blocked crossings can file complaints through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Blocked Crossing Incident Reporter at fra.dot. gov.
Residents who experience trains stopped across public crossings for extended periods can file a report through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Blocked Crossing Incident Reporter at fra.dot.gov/ blockedcrossings. Include the date, time, location, train or locomotive number, and how long the crossing was blocked. Reports are forwarded to railroads and used by federal and state agencies to track problem locations and evaluate safety impacts.
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