BEVERLY, Mass. — The City of Beverly created an unsafe situation by instituting a no-train-horn “quiet zone” within city limits, according to a lawsuit filed by the family a man killed by a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter train in October 2019.
MassLive.com reports that the lawsuit by the family of Moses Shumow, a professor at Boston’s Emerson College, also contends the MBTA and its contract operator, Keolis Commuter Services, were negligent for not sounding the train horn as they entered the station in Beverly. Shumow was killed as he crossed the tracks near the Beverly station. The suit, filed in federal court in Boston, also alleges the train was traveling over the speed limit, and that the City of Beverly “withheld important data” in its application for the quiet zone, which exempts municipalities from laws requiring trains to sound their horns.
The institution of quiet zones generally requires crossing gates, lights, and other warning devices to mitigate what the Federal Railroad Administration calls the “additional risk” of allowing trains to operate without sounding their horns. But the lawsuit says the crossing at the Beverly station was not equipped with any warning devices “in violation of the standard of care in the railroad industry,” and claims the city “purportly exempted” itself from the law requiring train horns “by claiming to apply for ‘Quiet Zone’ status.’” It says the city was “grossly negligent” in omitting information that would have disqualified it from quiet-zone status.
The suit also and that the train’s operator did not sound its horn 15 or 20 seconds before entering the station, as required by federal law, or within 1,320 feet of the crossing, as required by state law.
Representatives of the MBTA and Keolis declined comment to MassLive, citing pending litigation, while the City of Beverly did not respond to the news site’s request for comment.
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