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New York Lawmakers Call for Train Safety Infrastructure

Hundreds of high-hazard and dangerous rail crossings need significant improvements, and lawmakers and advocates are calling for improvements to safety at those crossings.

(TNS) -- Train derailments and grade crossings have been in the crosshairs of advocates and elected officials for years.

Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring, has in the past said there are hundreds of high-hazard and dangerous rail crossings that need significant improvements. He's called for improvements to safety at those crossings.

"I am getting sick and tired of issuing statements about dangerous train derailments – this time only blocks from my office in Newburgh," Maloney said in a statement Tuesday after a train derailed on the city of Newburgh waterfront. "I'm glad to hear reports that no one was killed, but even one injury is too many. It's got to stop."

Maloney said there is a need to improve the transportation of hazardous material and invest more in train safety infrastructure.

"While we don't yet know why the train derailed, we do know that outdated train cars barreling down the Hudson River carrying hazardous materials are literally a train wreck waiting to happen," Maloney said before investigators revealed that the train hit a forklift on the tracks.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer has also advocated in the past for improving rail crossings, calling it a critical federal responsibility. He's said engineering upgrades are needed in accident-prone areas and investments are needed in education and public awareness about the the dangers near tracks.

"Senator Schumer will work closely with FRA and other federal safety organizations to quickly get to the bottom of what caused this dangerous accident," said Jason Kaplan, Schumer's spokesman.

Riverkeeper, an environmental group, has spoken out for years about the dangers of trains traveling through communities. John Lipscomb, a Riverkeeper patrol boat captain, said it isn't rational to have cargoes that are as dangerous as those that were being hauled in the derailment go through the heart of communities and on the shores of the Hudson River.

"There are all kinds of restrictions on highway trucks – where they can go and where they can't go, carrying particularly hazardous cargoes. There seem to be no such limits on rail carriers, which operate almost autonomously, without public oversight," Lipscomb said.

©2017 The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.