Rail safety campaigners calling for better lighting on CBH Group trains have launched a new petition calling for urgent action ahead of the upcoming harvest, with plans to circulate the document at this week’s Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days.
The petition — designed to be signed by CBH’s grain grower members — was launched 22 years after three young friends were killed by a CBH grain train carrying 28 wagons of grain at Yarramony Crossing in Jennacubbine.
The accident rocked the State’s farming and pastoral community, killing driver Christian Jensen, 20, and his two friends Jess Broad, 18, and Hilary Smith, 19, as they drove across the tracks on their way to a 21st at the Jennacubbine Tavern.
It was 35 minutes after sunset when the front of a 28-wagon Westrail locomotive struck a white Toyota utility as Jensen, Broad and Smith drove across the tracks.
They were just kilometres away from their destination, where they were meeting a group of about 50 mates who had gathered with utes and swags to celebrate a close friend’s 21st.
The coroner’s report indicated the trio did not see the train.
They did not turn their heads.
The coroner deemed a litany of factors contributed to the triple fatality, including poor lighting on the CBH Group train, as well as lack of signage, rumble strips, and overgrown roadside vegetation — which have all since been improved at the crossing.
The road was dry, the weather was fine and visibility was good. There was no influence of alcohol or drugs, and speed was not a factor in the crash.
Mr Jensen’s sister, Murchison pastoralist Lara Jensen has spent 22 years campaigning for better lighting on trains and this week launched the petition with the support of three other WA families — including the Broads and Smiths.
They are also supported by the Dempsters, whose family member Amanda Dempster was struck and killed by a train on her family’s farm in 1993 — five months after her father received a letter to tell her the crossing warning lights they wanted were “on the backburner”.
The petition calls on CBH and its rail service provider Aurizon to “urgently make immediate upgrades to safety lighting on locomotives and rolling stock prior to the 2022 harvest”.
“Further lighting trials underway are only delaying the implementation of seriously overdue and lifesaving visibility and lighting improvements,” it reads.
“WA is on track to record another bumper harvest this year and 60 percent of this crop will be moved to port on rail.
“On the back of rapidly increasing grain production, and ever-increasing rail movements across the network we are requesting that improvements to train lighting be made an immediate priority by our co-operative.”
The petition claims recommendations by three State Coroners, in WA, NSW and Victoria, have been “ignored by the rail industry for decades”.
“This accident was one of the worst rail crashes in WA history and was one of the key catalysts for the formation of the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator to oversee compliance with the National Rail Safety Law,” the petition states.
“Unfortunately, however, the ONRSR has done nothing since it came into being to address this issue and more than 22 years on from this triple fatality there has been no significant improvements to train lighting.”
The petition comes as the families they await for the results of trials by two of Australia’s biggest rail companies, with CBH and Aurizon were still progressing with its preliminary lighting trials with plans to kick off “full-scale” versions “in the near future”.
As revealed in Countryman in March, Aurizon — which carts grain for CBH in WA — and Pacific National agreed to test lighting on trains in response to the families’ campaign.
Ms Jensen said she understood CBH’s trials wouldn’t be complete until next year — long after the upcoming 20Mt harvest was finished.
WAFarmers president John Hassell will have copies of the petition at the organisation’s exhibit at the Dowerin GWN7 Machinery Field Days, saying it was an important cause the group supported.
“It was a motion brought up at grains council and it was voted on and passed unanimously last year, it is a no-brainer and anyone who is in that position, you would have to wonder why you wouldn’t support better safety outcomes,” he said.
“Everything else we do is safety-driven and it seems like the ONSR can get away with blue murder.”
The petition is available through a range of WAFarmers members and is available at the Improve Train Lighting And Passive Level Crossing Safety Facebook group.
The petition can be signed until September 18.
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