VOORHEESVILLE —  For the second time in less than two years, a car has been hit by a CSX freight train.

On Monday at about 4:30 p.m., Albany County Sheriff’s deputies responded after an SUV was hit by a CSX train at the Main Street railroad crossing in Voorheesville, according to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple. 

  The 16-year-old driver’s vehicle was struck by the train after she bypassed the crossing’s stop arms. Apple said the driver was in the car when it was struck, and that the train hit the back end of the car and spun it around. 

He said on Tuesday that the driver was OK, but “probably a little bit scared today” because had the train been a second earlier, “we’d be having a completely different conversation. Literally, one second.”

The sheriff said there wasn’t much to treat on-scene, but “they did transport her [to Albany Medical Center] just for further evaluation.”

 The driver was cited for failing to stop at a railroad crossing, for driving  around the cross gate, and for disobeying a traffic control device.

This is the second incident in 18 months to take place at the Main Street crossing, near Grove and Prospect streets. 

In February of last year, nine sheriff’s deputies responded to a car being rammed through by a train. The driver of the car was not hurt but was arrested after his blood-alcohol level was found to be three times the legal limit. 

The CSX train in the February 2024 crash had a recorded speed of 37 miles per hour, according to an incident report filed with the Federal Railroad Administration, and was hauling 4,735 tons of goods, or 9,470,000 pounds.

The incident caused about $18,850 in track, signal, way, and structure damage, according to the FRA report. 

The incidents cast a spotlight on the village’s decade-plus attempt to install safety gates at the Main Street and Voorheesville Avenue crossings. 

The proposed solution, four-quadrant gate systems at both crossings, is unlike the current two-gate system in that the four-quadrant gates block all lanes of traffic on both sides of the track, physically preventing vehicles from driving around lowered gates.

The four-quadrant system would allow conductors to silence their horns prior to and while crossing over Main Street and Voorheesville Avenue. 

But installation has been held up for years largely over funding. 

While the allocation of funds proved to be the easiest part of the process — Albany County, the project applicant, received a promise of $340,000 — it was the actual release that became a major hurdle, one that lasted roughly six years. 

The grant rules required Albany County to own the four-quadrant gate system, but this clashed with standard railroad practice, where CSX typically owns, installs, and maintains crossing infrastructure on its right-of-way, charging municipalities for the work.

Several attempts were made to resolve the ownership issue, but fell short.

After a long-term lease agreement proposal was shot down by the state, the village pivoted and made the argument that the project qualified as an “environmental project” under grant guidelines. 

A breakthrough finally occurred in August of last year as the Department of Environmental Conservation agreed Voorheesville’s proposed quiet zone qualified as an environmental project. 

But there were still issues over who would pay for maintenance of the two four-quadrant gate systems. In late 2022, CSX informed the village and county that maintenance would cost approximately $50,000 per year, and that Voorheesville and Albany County would be responsible for paying it.

But the village and county continued to push back on CSX, which, after two years of insisting on $50,000 in annual upkeep, returned to the table in May with a $20,000-per-year proposal, which was eventually agreed to. 

“The village and the county are still talking about a maintenance/fee agreement but haven’t signed anything yet,” county spokeswoman Mary Rozak told The Enterprise on Tuesday.