When Cindy Morris began her letter-writing and phoning campaign five years ago to have a gate installed at the Piney Chapel Road rail crossing, she wasn’t sure anyone was listening.

But the site where her son, Dewey Standridge, died Nov. 9, 2004, now has crossing arms.

Morris said CSX employees worked steadily throughout the Thanksgiving holiday to erect the gate.

“I couldn’t believe it when my friend called me on Thanksgiving Day and said, ‘They’re down there,’” she said. “I had to drive down there and see for myself.”

Morris said when she read in The News Courier early in November that the crossing gate was to be erected by the end of the year she was inclined not to believe it, thinking there would be another delay.

“I thought, ‘Here’s another date and they’ll miss it,’ but they actually did it this time,” she said.

According to investigators, 16-year-old Dewey Standridge, pulled too close to the railroad crossing on Piney Chapel Road and was struck by a northbound CSX freight train Nov. 9, 2004, dragging the vehicle nearly a half-mile up the tracks. Standridge and his 16-year-old passenger, Jace Hughes, were dead on impact, according to the coroner.

“The last time I saw my son was at 7 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2004,” Morris said. “And the coroner said he died at 7:28 a.m.”

Morris lives two miles away on Bain Road.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration, there have been six crashes at the crossing, the last two involving fatalities. Young Standridge’s and Hughes’ deaths came a year and a half after the Feb. 8, 2003, wreck in which 19-year-old Ismael Vega of Athens died when he pulled onto the tracks in front of northbound freight train.

In the five years since, Morris has kept a memorial to her son and his friend on the west side of the crossing. She has been heartbroken on more than one occasion to find that vandals or thieves made off with items from the memorial.

On the east side of the crossing stands a modest memorial to Vega were Loggins Road runs parallel to the tracks.

The Alabama Department of Transportation identified the crossing as one of the most dangerous in the state.

“Nothing can bring back my son, but now maybe I can let go,” Morris said. “No other family needs to go through what I’m going through, and that crossing needed some help.”