Locals near a San Antonio business park said trains often block their entrance road. Now, KENS 5 is asking questions.
SAN ANTONIO — Driving on Wetmore road in February, KENS 5 took a right on MacArther View and immediately stopped at the train crossing. The crossing guard arms were down, the lights were flashing, and a trained was parked just a few yards from the crossing.
No train ever moved through.
Eventually another driver drove around the crossing guard arms from the other side, and rolled down the window. He said this happened from time to time and the arms could be down for hours.
KENS 5 still turned around and found another way.
After finishing an interview nearby, we came back to the other side of that crossing to find the crossing arms were still down and the lights were still flashing. KENS 5 then walked into a nearby business to see if this was a common issue.
“I hate that damn train!” Winsupply President Weldon Jackson said.
Jackson told KENS local trains would often come to a complete stop in the crossing and block the road completely. He said trains would also sometimes stop just short of the crossing but close enough to still make the crossing arms stay down.
Both were bad for business.
“It’s a constant battle. The train will stop short of the sensor causing the arms to come down. Traffic will back up along Wetmore Road. A lot of people are going around the barricades, which is dangerous,” Jackson said. “Sometimes they will stop on the track for hours. I’ve called 150 times over the last 14 years.”
Jackson is president of a plumbing supply store on the other side of the tracks. He said that the weekly disruptions are adding up.
“It just kills our business. Sometimes plumbers are stuck on the other side of the tracks, so they will just go somewhere else,” Jackson said.
It was possible to still access the area if you drive far enough out of the way.
KENS 5 first found the crossing arms down in February. A few weeks later on March 11, KENS 5 caught a train blocking the tracks completely.
The railroad crossing belonged to Union Pacific, and several of the train cars had a Union Pacific logo, but the locomotive was branded as “BNSF” which is a different company.
KENS 5 then reached out to both Union Pacific and BNSF to find out what was going on.
KENS 5 sent Union Pacific images and video showing the train blocking the crossing on the date of March 11. A Union Pacific representative could not find any record of a blocked crossing on that date despite our evidence.
First Union Pacific told us they could not find any train there on that date. Later they said they could not find any “Union Pacific train” blocking the tracks.
“We checked and there were no reports of a Union Pacific train blocking that crossing on March 11,” the Union Pacific representative said.
KENS 5 was also in contact with BNSF during this time. BNSF sent a statement very clearly stating that Union Pacific should know about all trains operating on that railway.
“We have reviewed this matter and confirmed that the track in question is owned and operated by Union Pacific Railroad. Union Pacific dispatches all trains on this line—regardless of the operator—and is responsible for determining where trains stop,” BNSF Railway said in a statement.
Still, Jackson said his business hasn’t seen any train blocking the tracks since March 11, when KENS 5 started asking questions. He hopes that the railroad operators will be able to take action and stop it from happening for good.
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