Mrs. Marshall Crowningshield This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Tower plan leaves emergency planners hopeful

   www.pressrepublican.com/Archiv - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/15/2006   Last Visited: 1/15/2006

   They don't know the problems on the other end that need to be solved," Whallonsburg Fire Chief Marshall Crowningshield said.
   
   His crew has experienced first hand the necessity for clear communications along the railroad line.
   
   On Jan. 1, 2005, an oncoming northbound train was stopped just 20 feet short of the stranded motorists as Crowningshield's wife ran frantically alongside the crossing a few miles ahead to warn the engineer.
   
   "Communications were hit and miss that day because of the ice. There were no radio signals. The trains are dispatched through Minneapolis and then signals are sent along repeaters. This new tower system should prevent this sort of thing from happening again," Crowningshield said.
   ...
   Crowningshield said aesthetic concerns about the towers should be second to public safety.

2. 2. Firefighters save farmhouse in Willsboro

   www.pressrepublican.com/Archiv - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/16/2005   Last Visited: 9/17/2005

   Whallonsburg Fire Chief Marshall Crowningshield said the rapid response can be partly credited to several of his men being at the firehouse working on equipment when the call came in.
   
   But the hot and hazy day made the work difficult in 80 pounds of gear.
   
   "We move a lot of people around today because of the heat," Marshall said.
   
   In all, about 30 first-responders from Willsboro, Whallonsburg, Essex and Keeseville responded.
   ...
   Willsboro Fire Chief Crowningshield stayed to help Carver figure out if there was a separate electrical switch for the barns, so power could be restored for afternoon chores.

3. 3. Ice a factor in close call along Essex rail tracks

   www.pressrepublican.com/Archiv - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/4/2005   Last Visited: 1/4/2005

   Two Albany women pushed futilely at the small, cream-colored Toyota, as, three and a half miles away, Whallonsburg Fire Chief Marshall Crowningshield got word of their plight.
   
   Living just 26 feet or so from the tracks, he envisioned far better than they what tragedy might ensue.
   
   "I know the train schedule real well," he said.
   
   The chief alerted Fire Control then jumped in his truck and sped toward the crossing on Route 22, just up the road from the Lake Champlain Transportation Co. ferry dock.
   
   The ice storm - which had skidded the women's car off the road, into a crossing arm and a pile of railroad ties, then onto the tracks - hadn't yet glazed the route from Whallonsburg to Essex.
   
   "I really moved right along," Crowningshield said.
   
   His wife, Karen, a firefighter/EMT, meanwhile, launched another rescue effort, running to the tracks and waving frantically at the approaching train.
   
   The engineer, she said, "blew the whistle at me and went right by."
   
   Mrs. Crowningshield rushed to report its passage to the Essex County Sheriff's Department.
   
   "Fire Control said to me, ‘The chief's a minute from the crossing," she remembered.
   ...
   "The (train) driver realized there was a problem," Mrs. Crowningshield reported.
   
   But he didn't yet know what it was.
   
   "I had to get the people away from the tracks," the chief said, recalling the thought that repeated itself in his head as he rushed into Essex.
   
   About a quarter mile away from his goal, in Boquet, his pickup met the encroaching ice, but it made the corner and continued on.
   
   "I had pretty good confidence they could get the train stopped," Chief Crowningshield said of the folks he knew were trying to contact the railroad.
   
   But crisis still reigned. He leaped from his truck, pulled the women from the tracks and, with other responders, worked to shift the car.
   ...
   Crowningshield didn't get their names in the midst of all the excitement but labeled them afterward.
   
   "They were a couple lucky individuals," he said.
   ...
   "I had no cell-phone coverage," said Crowningshield, "only radio (transmissions), and they were broke up."
   
   Something must be done, he said, starting with acceptance by the APA of CP Rail's newest communications improvements.
   
   "This tower's got to stay," he said.