investigators

Revoke their charter - plain and simple. Sell off their assets. Profits are not above people. This is the only way sociopathic corporations will learn.

Yep, throw tens of thousands of employees out of work because of an intermittent electrical problem and a bad employee. Makes perfect sense in evil corporation liberal land.

For a voter, like myself, this case is instructional in the legal process. The Appeals Court process is pretty much unknown to most of us. In this case, the Appeals Court ruled for BNSF, based on the lower court's failure, in the jury instruction to require a Federal standard of care. Minge, the dissenting Appeals Judge, felt that there was enough evidence in the record to show that BNSF had also violated the Federal standard. Also, that the BNSF lawyers did not object to the instruction to the jury by the lower court. This is pretty technical stuff that apparently even the lawyers and judges get wrong. From the Appeals Case, the judges were Kalitowski, Minge, and Collins (retired judge serving by appointment). By inference, I assume that Kalitowski and Collins supported the BSNF position. Minge dissented. As an average voter, I would like to know the process for picking members for an Appeals Court for a particular case. Also, what about Collins? Did Collins come in just for this case or does Collins do this regularly, apparently without being elected to the Appeals Court.

There have been several cases over the last decade in which the railroad has been found to tamper or dispose of evidence in important cases, presumably to protect itself from consequences. Several judges in several different states, as well as juries, have found that BNSF willfully engaged in misconduct to influence the outcome of the trial. It purposely destroys or "loses" pertinent evidence and frequently withholds critical information. Let's face it, if an individual criminal participated in these activities, he would go to jail over it. So why is a big corporation allowed to get away with it over and over? The company should be forced to shut down since it clearly cannot adhere to the laws of the land. BNSF should be ashamed of itself for doing a great injustice to the poor families who have lost loved ones and trying to blame its carelessness on those innocent people. Shame on them.

My heart goes out to those families and those lives can not be replaced. My question is this, whether or not the crossings were working, did they not look both ways? I cannot say I do especially if it crosses a road that is 30 mph or more, but I definitely will now after reading this.

Appeals Court appointments are made by the governor. Pattern of a "troubled" crossing for several years is troublesome to me. Why would state patrol investigator not talk to local police about that, and instead "create" a scenario to fit the physical evidence ? Basic law enforcement procedure is canvass, talk to people, get info. Everyone in town knew that was an inconsistently operating set of equipment except the trooper ?? Because these were young people, perhaps with scrapes with the law and one a father at 16, was there a formal shrug of the shoulders to expedite a conclusion ? I teach defensive and remedial driving, and always preach to NEVER trust warnings at any railroad crossing, slow and look carefully both ways because trains give NO margin for error. This will not go to trial again; railroad will settle. Another reason NOT to allow corporations to run our legislative system.

The time has come for Americans to do some house cleaning. Time to start screaming when something is not right, these children can never get married and give their parents grandchildren, never gradutate from college..never never never, when these railroad people continue to cross the line with fraud the People will always lose, Corporations should not OVER rule the People...it should be common sense..It is time to change the ruling the Roberts court made about personhood of Corporations...come one people lets stand together and quit allowing them to Divide us. It is our only Hope for a New America...

"Roaring out of nowhere?" The train was on the tracks and she didn't look.

I feel sorry for the families, however a large part of the blame lies with whoever was driving the car also, not just the railroad. You are taught in drivers training to approach all RR crossing with caution and look both ways for both controlled and un-controlled crossings. This obviously did not happen in this situation and four individuals paid with their lives. You should never assume a crossing is safe with looking.

Gosh, after all this time, we do learn there apparently was an eyewitness, an engineer, and he apparently was blowing his whistle. I guess I am left to wonder, in a 4 part article, doesnt one interview the actual witness? Did I miss it here? Is the engineer still alive? Is he refusing interviews? This tragedy has been the oddest I have ever encountered locally. The 35W bridge was weird, but at least facts were aggressively sought by the media. Yet, we cross these tracks daily on "faith" that somebody is protecting us..........and we get only second hand eyewitness testimony info. It is unbelievable.