SHEBOYGAN COUNTY — We now know the name of a truck driver killed in a Sheboygan County train crash, Wednesday afternoon.
Jeffrey Blankenheim, of Kewaskum, was driving a truck on Abbott Road when he was crossing a railroad and was hit by an oncoming train.
Wednesday afternoon, neighbors told us they were concerned about the lack of signage near the crossing. However, on Thursday, our crews found several signs in the area.
This is a picture of what experts call an advanced warning sign. The yellow sign with two R's on it, is universal, experts said. It's usually several hundred feet before a railroad crossing.
“You see that advanced warning sign. If you’re in an area that you’re not familiar with, you know, slow down. You don’t know what the tracks are going to be like, you don’t know what kind of visual you can see down the tracks, so you want to stop or prepare to stop to see if you can see down those tracks," Gary Koerner said.
Koerner's the state coordinator of Wisconsin's Operation Lifesaver, a non-profit that educates people on how to be safe around railroad crossings.
In addition to the advanced warning sign, there are also white railroad crossing and yield signs as you approach the tracks.
Watch: Railroad safety expert weighs in on crossing signs, signals following crash
Koerner said that in the last year, there were 40 railroad-related crashes in Wisconsin. He said a third of them happened when signs, lights or even crossing gates were present at tracks. His team attributes those accidents to distracted driving.
Koerner said it's crucial to pay attention to signage near railroad crossings, even on roads you drive every single day because you never know when a train is coming.
"Expect a train at any time. You see tracks, think train. Trains can't stop fast. You might see a train coming and you're thinking 'oh I'll beat it and well if I don't it's going to stop,' it could take more than a mile for that train to stop," Koerner explained.
"By the time the engineer sees 'hey he's not going to stop,' he applies the emergency brake, it could take a mile before that train comes to a stop," he added.
We did speak with the family of Jeff Blankenheim, the man who was killed by the train Wednesday, they did not want to comment.
