editorials

"Railroad says lives weren't worth $6 million each" read the front-page headline in the Dec. 11 Star Tribune. That accurately summed up the latest heartless legal maneuvering that's inflicted maximum pain on four suburban families whose children died in a car-train collision at Anoka's Ferry Street crossing in September 2003.

After a Minnesota jury placed 90 percent of the accident blame on Burlington Northern Santa Fe, after Washington County Judge Ellen Maas chastised the railroad for a "staggering" pattern of misconduct that included withholding evidence about the deadly crossing's signal problems, the company now says $6 million per victim is too much. It is appealing the court's $21.6 million award to the four families, as well as the $4 million in sanctions awarded by Maas in October.

Reporters working the story the day after the accident were told without hesitation by a railroad spokesman that the driver ignored the warning lights and went around the lowered arm. In the years following, the company did anything it could to uphold its version of events, according to court documents. The railroad controlled key evidence about the accident's cause and destroyed much of it.

The list is simply stunning. Records of work done on 8 feet of track at the Anoka crossing. A computer disk with critical information about the train's speed and other details from shortly before the collision. That data would have revealed if the victims were adequately warned. A laptop holding the information somehow got destroyed, too. The railroad also didn't disclose previous signal problems at the crossing. Two "witnesses" were paid thousands of dollars; neither saw the accident, were at the scene or had any expertise. And yet, Minnesota jurors waded through the muck. They concluded the crossing gate didn't work properly.

Now the railroad wants a new trial. Amazingly, more than six years after the accident, Burlington Northern Santa Fe now claims that several new witnesses have surfaced. It wants a new jury to hear their testimony. New witnesses, really?

Enough's enough. The jury and judge have spoken. It's time for the railroad to quit railroading these families.