By Karen Middleton
The collection of silk flowers, sun-catchers, and angels grows monthly near the Piney Chapel railroad crossing. It’s all a grieving mother can do now that she cannot give her dead son Christmas and birthday gifts.
It’s been two years since 16-year-old Dewey Standridge pulled too close to the railroad crossing on Piney Chapel Road.
A northbound CSX freight train caught the front of his pickup truck on Nov. 9, 2004, dragging the vehicle nearly a half-mile up the tracks. Standridge’s mother, Cindy Morris, says the coroner told her that her son and his 16-year-old passenger Jace Hughes were dead on impact.
Fate stole her son, now thieves are stealing the memorial she has placed near the tracks.
In recent weeks, a little boy angel trimmed in blue that Morris placed in the memorial on the 18-month anniversary of her son’s death disappeared from the makeshift memorial west of the crossing.
It sickens Morris that someone would steal from the dead, especially when she has tried to make the crossing safer—even for those who would steal from her son’s memorial.
“I have tried to get that track upgraded since my son’s death so no one will have to endure the pain I have had,” said Morris.
She said she wants to say to whomever took the ceramic angel, “Think. You crossed that deadly crossing to steal from my son’s memorial, so I am even working to protect you. I want it back.”
Morris said that if the angel was taken by someone who knew her son and wanted a memento with which to remember him, she would have gladly given them something.
On the ninth day of each month, Morris stops at the site to place a small remembrance. But every day is a reminder, because Morris crosses the tracks on Piney Chapel Road on her way to her job as a medical transcriptionist.
The pain of loss remains fresh, but the healing is made more difficult by the theft from the site.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, there have been six crashes at the crossing, the last two involving fatalities.
Before Standridge and Hughes were killed, on Feb. 8, 2003, 19-year-old Ismael Vega of Athens died when he pulled onto the tracks in front of northbound freight train. Before that, there were at least four other non-fatal vehicle-train collisions.
The Alabama Department of Transportation identified the crossing as one of the most dangerous in the state.
A year ago, the Limestone County Commission agreed to maintain signs and pavement markings. ALDOT received a federal grant for upgrading rail crossings. CSX is replacing ties at the crossing and on both sides, as well as doing other rail bed improvements, but still there is no signal and gates.
A CSX spokeswoman referred all inquiries to ALDOT.
Curtis Vinson of the ALDOT district office in Guntersville confirmed that the crossing project is in the schedule.
“We have worked with the railroad company and the plans are completed,” said Vinson. “However, we have no overall agreement with the railroad. Once it is reached, we will come back with this project. It all depends on the agreement with the railroad. Our plans are complete.”
So, in the meantime, Morris prays that no one will meet a similar fate to her son. On a recent day at the crossing, a driver sped around a curve leading up to the east side of the track. The young driver of the pickup, slowed up a little to pass over the tracks, but she didn’t appear to glance either way down the tracks, seeming more intent on consuming the last bite of her sandwich amid the blare of her radio.
A little while later, a middle-aged driver eased up to tracks, coming nearly to a complete stop as he checked both ways for an oncoming train.
It might take maturity to avoid more deaths at the Piney Chapel crossing, but Morris said youths who pass that way might not live to mature.
“When you go through there at night and you don’t stop, you’re going to plow right into the train,” she said. “Gates will save lives.”
