In the News

LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WWLP) – Train safety legislation is being re-introduced by Senator Ed Markey and Congressman Richard Neal, called ‘The Warren Cowels Grade Crossing Safety Act.’  

The bill is named in honor of Warren Cowles, a DPW worker who died after being struck by a train while plowing at a railroad crossing in Longmeadow back in 2017. 

The bill will increase funding in safety measures at train tracks to prevent unnecessary deaths. That will include the installation of grade separations, railroad crossing signals, gates, and barriers. 

“I think anywhere where there’s pedestrians and certainly traffic, it would be a really good idea to have the crossing gates, the bells, the whistles, whatever you can do to make noise that says, “there’s a train coming, get out of the way,” said Stephen Curry of Springfield. 

Just last week, a Pittsfield man was killed after being hit by a train at the railroad tracks near Greenway Street.