Four years after train kills professor at Beverly Depot, still no gate, no signal, no horn

Lesley Mottla, a startup executive in Boston, had just crossed the train tracks on a pedestrian walkway at Beverly Depot on Oct. 22, 2019, when she turned around to see a commuter rail train hit and kill Emerson College Professor Moses Shumow, a husband and father of three who was riding his bicycle.

Mottla said she did not hear or see the outbound train coming as she crossed the train tracks, which did not — and to this day do not — have barriers preventing people from walking to the other side as trains approach the station like other crossings only blocks away. “Like me, most are crossing that minimally marked/no alerts crosswalk rushing to catch the Boston train and looking to see if the inbound train is coming (to not miss it) which, unfortunately, also means we may avoid looking left,” she wrote in an Oct. 23, 2019, email to former Gov. Charlie Baker’s office the day after Shumow died.

After watching a man die, Mottla wanted to help.

“How can I help to create the case that this crosswalk at Beverly needs more than a sign? We can’t have another loss like this, and we owe some sort of action to his wife and children,” she wrote.

Internal emails from transportation officials obtained through a records request by Peter Brown — an attorney and friend of the Shumow family — show that officials acknowledged hazards at Beverly Depot and identified cheap solutions like barriers or lights. But most were never installed other than a handful of warning signs posted at the three pedestrian crossings.

A recent visit to the station at midday Wednesday found no barriers preventing people from crossing the tracks as trains approached or lights to signal an incoming train. And there were inconsistencies with approaching trains sounding bells or horns.

Shumow’s death touched off a debate about the safety of the Beverly Depot walkways and a lawsuit by Shumow’s wife, Rose Shumow, against the MBTA, Keolis Commuter Rail Services, the company that operates the commuter rail in Massachusetts, and the city alleging negligence.

At the center of the lawsuit is whether the city of Beverly maintained an unsafe pedestrian crossing at Beverly Depot, the city properly applied for “quiet zone” status, which allows municipalities to bar train horns as they approach public rail crossings, and if the train operator that allegedly hit Shumow did not sound a train horn in violation of state and federal law.

Goals, plans and little action

Following the death, commuter rail safety officials included Beverly Depot in a list of “top 20 problematic stations” identified by Keolis train engineers.

In an April 2020 email to officials at the Federal Railroad Administration and Kelois, MBTA Assistant Director of Rail Safety Cynthia Delaney said she visited and photographed pedestrian crossings and station safety signage at the 20 stations.

The list included Beverly Depot and a goal from Delaney to come up with a schematic that “shows a generic — low-cost pedestrian incursion that we may get engineering to buy into to get the train engineer’s [sic] some added protections as they make their station stops.”

Delaney was hoping to form a plan for potential gates, signs, lights or warning sounds for pedestrians at the stations looking to cross train tracks. In one email, Delaney said she looked “forward to getting these safety initiatives done by August 2020.”

“We will need all the top players buy in to achieve this goal,” Delaney wrote in a later email on the topic. “But - we know who really gets the safety items done on the RR - the little/Big people - US!”

As of Wednesday, there were several bright, yellow signs posted at the crossings warning people to “look before crossing.” White signs saying “walk bike over pedestrian crossing” are placed on a chain link fence that runs down the middle of train tracks but opens up for the pedestrian crossings.

A handful of commuter rail trains coming from Boston did ring a small bell located on the front locomotive as they entered the station but did not sound their louder horns, another point of contention between lawyers for the Shumow family and the city and state.

Some trains entering the station from the north, traveling towards Boston, neither sounded a horn nor rang a bell on approach. One train rang a bell a handful of times only after it had stopped at the station’s platform and was preparing to depart.

Less than a mile to the north in Beverly, where Elliott Street cuts across the train tracks, flashing lights, alarm bells, and swing barriers prevent both cars and people from crossing when a commuter rail train roars by.

In a statement on behalf of the MBTA and Keolis, Keolis spokesperson Alana Westwater said they are “committed to continually raising awareness about safe practices around grade crossings to prevent tragedies” through a partnership with “Operation Lifesaver.”

“When approaching an active railroad, Operation Lifesaver recommends that pedestrians and bicyclists should always look in both directions and assume a train is coming,” Westwater said. “Operation Lifesaver reminds everyone that crossing tracks on a bike requires caution and extra attention. Operation Lifesaver recommends that people dismount from their bikes and walk across the tracks when possible. Operation Lifesaver also urges people to turn off music and remove headphones at all rail crossings.”

Officials from Beverly Mayor Michael Cahill’s office acknowledged a request for comment sent Wednesday afternoon but did not provide one to MassLive.

A case in West Concord

MBTA and Kelois officials have instituted some safety measures after pedestrian deaths in the past, the internal emails show.

A Nov. 19, 2019, email from Chris Harrington, then an operational field safety manager for Keolis Commuter Services, to Rose Yates, who once served as the MBTA’s director of marketing communications, provides insight into actions taken after the 2017 death of 15-year-old Dylan Smyth, who died after a commuter rail train struck him while he was riding his bicycle across train tracks

In the email, which had the subject line “post assessment at Beverly Station,” Harrington mentions Smyth’s death at West Concord Station.

“After the incident at West Concord Station, with the child that was struck while riding their bike across the ped crossing, we installed a sign reminding passengers to walk their bikes across. We don’t want to ‘over sign’ the area, but felt that it was appropriate after the incident and to remind passengers to walk across to allow them to ‘put their head on a swivel’ while crossing,” Harrington wrote.

Harrington wrote that the Federal Railroad Administration was seeking at the time of the email to make a final decision on “No Train Horn” signs at pedestrian crossings.

“This is a quiet zone and was recently inspected by the FRA and found that everything was compliant,” Harrington said of Beverly Depot. “If a decision comes down that signs need to be installed at these types of crossings, the onus is on the cities and towns to reach compliance. Obviously, with the railroad assisting where necessary.”

West Concord Station was also included on the list of “top 20 problematic stations.”

‘No idea what to do’ with concerns

As for Mottla’s email, it was forwarded to Patrick Nestor, who at the time worked as a community engagement manager at MassDOT, with the request that it be sent to someone at the MBTA “to reach out to [Mottla] to hear her concerns.” Nestor would later briefly work as a press assistant for former Gov. Charlie Baker.

“Due to the sensitive nature of this, I wanted to forward it along,” Kelly Govoni, the then-constituent services director in Baker’s office, wrote to Nestor. “If you feel I should direct this to a different agency. Please let me know, and I’d be happy to go another route.”

Nestor wrote in an email to Michael Verseckes, who at the time handled external affairs for the MBTA, that he did not know what to do.

“Any advice on where the [sic] send this?” Nestor wrote. “I have no idea what to do with it.”

Verseckes then scheduled a time to talk with then-MBTA Special Projects Director Angel Donahue-Rodriguez, saying the email from Mottla was not the only inquiry state officials had received regarding safety at Beverly Depot.

Another email had come in.

Nick White, a Boston-area project manager, wrote in an Oct. 24, 2019, email to state officials that he had held Shumow’s hand as he died.

“I witnessed the entire incident, and while I do not believe anybody was at fault for [sic] in this traffic accident, as I sat there with Dr. Shumow, wedged between the train and the fence, telling him he was not alone, I couldn’t help but think how needless this accident was,” White wrote to Beverly Mayor Michael Cahill, Sen. Joan Lovely, and Rep. Jared Parisella.

White knew the station and its patterns — he had lived in the area since 2009 and in the city starting in 2015. The train that morning wasn’t his typical ride into Boston, he said in an interview with MassLive. He was preparing for a marathon and had run before work, putting him on a later train.

When he was done, he rode his bike to the station. As he locked his bike, he said, he remembered hearing a “horn at a time that didn’t really make sense.” He said he remembers looking up and watching a train strike Shumow’s bike, trapping him against a fence.

“I was basically with him and kind of just noticed the ring on his hand,” he said. “I tried to ask if there was a doctor around but there wasn’t at the time. So I kind of just held his hand and talked to him while we waited for first responders to arrive.”

In the 2019 email, White offered several ideas to “ensure something like this never happens again.”

Train stations in Massachusetts should not have pedestrian crossings like the ones at Beverly Depot because “the sheer volume of people coming and going from these stations simply increase the chances something like this will happen,” White wrote.

If there are pedestrian crossings, White wrote, officials should require and install barriers to prevent people from crossing tracks when a train is approaching.

“At Beverly Depot, there is no gate, signal, or horn to indicate a train is coming,” White wrote. “Meanwhile, one mile further along the tracks at the intersection of Cabot Street and Rantoul Street, there is a level crossing with a gate that covers the pavement when a train is approaching. Why do such things not exist at all pedestrian crossings on the train lines?”

White also wanted an additional bike rack at the station on the outbound side to complement the one on the inbound side. He argued this would “encourage cyclists to store their bikes before attempting to cross.”

State officials eventually settled on a response to White six days later on Oct. 30, 2019, and a communications aide to Lovely reached back out.

“We have contacted MassDOT regarding your suggestions. Since there is an open investigation on the accident, MassDOT cannot provide any statements or additional information at this time. We will certainly remain in contact with MassDOT on this important issue, and we will provide any updates once information becomes available,” the email from the aide said.

White said he never heard from Lovely’s office again.

Low-cost solutions

To this day, White said in the interview, with oftentimes hundreds of passengers waiting at the station during peak hours, it is “just bizarre” that “there’s nothing to stop them from entering the tracks.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” he said. “It’s so bizarre to me that like even from a liability perspective, that the city would be OK with such an open and unprotected train crossing from existing there. Like, down to the fact that this is going to happen again.”

Source:

cvanbuskirk@masslive.com, Chris Van Buskirk |. “Four Years after Train Kills Professor at Beverly Depot, Still No Gate, No Signal, No Horn.” Masslive, 27 Feb. 2023, https://www.masslive.com/boston/2023/02/four-years-after-train-kills-professor-at-beverly-depot-still-no-gate-no-signal-no-horn.html.