Catoosa County schools suspends bus route, citing railroad inaction

Staff Photo by Andrew Wilkins / At the Lovinggood Road crossing, a CSX train chugs down the tracks north of Ringgold on its way to Chattanooga on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Catoosa County officials say they are frustrated by a lack of action by CSX that’s forced Catoosa County Public Schools to suspend a school bus route.
Staff Photo by Andrew Wilkins / At the Lovinggood Road crossing, a CSX train chugs down the tracks north of Ringgold on its way to Chattanooga on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Catoosa County officials say they are frustrated by a lack of action by CSX that’s forced Catoosa County Public Schools to suspend a school bus route.

The Catoosa County sheriff and superintendent of public schools are asking the public to help pressure a train company to fix a train crossing safety issue that's forced the suspension of a school bus route.

CSX Corp. controls that railroad crossing, and both Sheriff Gary Sisk and Superintendent Chance Nix said county officials have been trying to contact the railroad company since Aug. 9 without success.

County officials want CSX to remove piles of railroad ties and trim foliage so school bus drivers can have a clearer view of Ooltewah Ringgold Road traffic when drivers cross the railroad tracks on Lovinggood Road.

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"Most cars can actually cross over the tracks and sit closer to Ooltewah Ringgold Road to be able to see a little bit better," Sisk said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. "But those busses can't stop there because they'll be over the railroad tracks."

At a news conference, Sisk and Nix asked the public to contact CSX at 800-232-0144 and report the crossing at Lovinggood Road (340579L) and Saunders Road (340581M) to help resolve this "dangerous" situation. Sisk asked people not to be "rude" to the operator.

Sheriee Bowman, a member of CSX's media team, responded to a request for comment in an email. She wrote that the company "strives to be a good neighbor" where it operates and is aware of the issue with the concrete crossties.

"Contractors are working today to remove some of the ties and will continue throughout the upcoming weeks until (the) area is fully cleared," Bowman said. "CSX is also working to address any vegetation concerns on our property."

After receiving the email from CSX, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reached out to Sisk for additional comment.

"We have heard they are working on it before," Sisk said in an email. "Actions speak louder than words."

Also at the news conference, Sisk said county officials first reached out to CSX on Aug. 9, and the school bus route was suspended on Aug. 25. He said he knows CSX is a large corporation, and that it might be outsourcing the job to a contractor, but if county officials don't hear anything in seven to 10 days, they will start taking other steps -- including reaching out to federal partners and federal-level elected officials.

Nix said at the news conference he wanted CSX to be a "good neighbor" and give county officials a timetable of when the company could fix the problem.

"We've worked on this since school started and to have no communication is very frustrating," Nix said.

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Suspending the bus route has forced parents to leave work early to pick up their students, pay for child care and miss after-school tutoring that was prepaid, Nix said. It's been a "huge inconvenience" for parents, he said.

Nix said he rode the route that crosses the railroad track in a school bus and it looks "entirely different" from the bus as opposed to a regular passenger vehicle. School bus drivers think of the students they carry "like their own," Nix said, and he said the drivers were "scared" having to navigate that train crossing.

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Tim Busby, the Sheriff Office's agency training coordinator, was also at the news conference. He said the tracks date to the Civil War era, noting that the Great Locomotive Chase took place on that same stretch of railroad tracks north of Ringgold -- and nearby there's a historical marker describing the event.

Back then, the road crossing the tracks was likely a "wagon road" that was paved and widened over time, he said.

Contact Andrew Wilkins at awilkins@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @tweetatwilkins.

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