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DEAR EDITOR: I am writing in regards to our city streets and railway. I am not sure who this should actually be addressed to, so therefore I decided to publicly address it. On Wednesday, Jan. 24 I was leaving BB&T bank, rear exit. As most of the citizens of Swainsboro know, there is no stop-sign at the railroad tracks there on the South bound side. On the North bound side there is a stop-sign, but very few people even law enforcement fail to stop for it. Every time I come to that crossing I stop. Simply for two reasons: 1. There IS a stop-sign there. 2. It is a railroad crossing and I stop to look and make sure that a train is not coming. On this particular day I was at the bank doing a deposit and could hear the train's signal before it was even in sight. The engineer made sure to warn the intersections that a train was coming through. As I exited the bank, I still did not see a train in sight. I pulled up to the stop-sign, stopped, looked and seen the train coming from the direction of the oil company. Cars from the South bound side, where there is no stop-sign, were failing to looking in the direction of the train and instead just going ahead and crossing. I sat there at the stop-sign, the train sounding its signal LOUDLY and these cars still crossing. This one car, as the train was closer to the intersection, slowed down to cross the trains. The driver was a young girl with two small children in the vehicle. She failed to look before crossing those tracks. She looked at my car and I was sitting there pointing at the train, trying to forewarn her. I was sitting there, pointing and shouting. This girl paid no attention to this train whatsoever. She finally realized that I was screaming at her and pointing for her to LOOK; it was then that she decided to floor it and cross the tracks. If she had of been any slower crossing those tracks I know that that train would have hit her car. As the train passed through the intersection towards Harvey's, the signal continued to sound loudly to warn that it was coming up on the intersection there. The crossing arms failed to come down and as this train proceeded to get closer to the intersection vehicles were still crossing the tracks. Those intersection crossing arms never came down; the only reason cars were stopping was because they chose to look before crossing or because they heard the train coming. My concern here is why is the railway always working on these crossing arms if they are not going to work properly? Why is there no crossing arms at the intersection at the oil company behind BB&T bank? I thought that at any city railroad crossing that there were suppose to be crossing arms? Maybe I am wrong. Even so, hasn't anyone ever wondered themselves why there are none there? I for one think there should be. And not to mention the stop-sign; this is a railroad crossing and there is but one stop-sign at it. Hasn't the city seen that there should be a stop-sign on both sides of those tracks instead of just on one side? REBECCA BRANTLEY Swainsboro
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