To the editor:

Again, yes, AGAIN, the Journal-World shows its incredible ignorance of safety and legal issues around railroad tracks. A photo of a young person in red shoes sitting on railroad tracks appears on page 1C in Tuesday’s edition. Not only is such an action dirty (those tracks are covered with grease and oil) but dangerous and illegal.

Fast-moving trains today do not make much noise; there is no chug-chug and clickety-clack, as a lot of people like to imagine anymore. And railroad tracks are private property, and your being there is considered trespassing. You could be arrested.

This paper has published such photos before, and I have taken them to task for it, but it seems to continue. Operation Lifesaver is a national program to alert people to the dangers of being around railroad tracks and trying to beat a train to a grade crossing by passing around the guard gates. It has spent much time and money to try to prevent this reckless behavior, but this newspaper seems to have very limited capability of recognizing this danger by continuing to publish these photos that may encourage this dangerous and deadly behavior.

Fred Whitehead Jr.,
Lawrence