Since losing her brother in a level crossing tragedy in WA’s Wheatbelt region 25 years ago, Lara Jensen has tirelessly campaigned for mandatory train lighting and improved safety measures at regional level crossings.
Lara is a cattle producer based in the Murchison region of WA. She is also spokesperson for the Improve Train Lighting and Level Crossing Safety Group, formed by families who have lost loved ones in level crossing tragedies.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, dated May 17, 2025, she says that repeated calls for corrective safety lighting on trains and rolling stock and bolstered safety measures at notorious regional level crossings have been ignored by federal and state governments for decades.
“I did not choose to be a rail safety advocate, rather through unthinkable tragedy I have found myself part of a fraternity that nobody wants to belong to – a group of families who have all lost loved ones to completely preventable rail crashes and who are fighting for decades overdue rail safety reform in Australia,” she said.
“Today I am writing to you to appeal to you for leadership on this protracted safety issue that has disproportionately affected rural communities for decades too long.”
Lara’s youngest brother Christian Jensen tragically lost his life, alongside his friends Jess Broad and Hilary Smith, at an unlit level crossing near Jennacubbine in the WA Wheatbelt on July 8, 2000.
“In place of three vibrant young country people, our families were left with three white crosses adjacent to a notorious level crossing that had claimed four lives in as many years. Today marks what should have been my brother Christian Jensen’s 45th birthday,” Lara wrote.
“Prime Minister, in your second term victory speech on the night of the federal election you promised to leave ‘no one behind’. I represent a group of rural rail safety advocates who have not only been left behind but have been enthusiastically excluded by successive governments.”
Following the triple fatality at the Yarramony Road level crossing in the Wheatbelt, an inquest into the three deaths by WA State Coroner Alastair Hope concluded “the train involved in the crash was not adequately lit and there was no lighting on the train designed to provide an effective warning to motor vehicle drivers at railway crossings.”
“Coroner Hope recommended that all locomotives be fitted with external auxiliary lighting in addition to ditch lighting to effectively warn motorists of oncoming trains,” continued Lara.
“These recommendations were completely ignored by state and federal governments and the rail industry and remain unacted on to this day.
“My family, along with the Broad and Smith families who lost their loved ones in the Yarramony Road crash have advocated for years in a bid to ensure these completely preventable tragedies don’t continue to happen to other families.
“Over time we have become connected (through tragedy) with other families of rail crash victims around Australia – families who have lost their lives because the rail industry and our government didn’t act on evidence of the risks posed by poorly lit trains and unsafe level crossing to regional road users.”
In her letter she also shared the story of a friend and co-campaigner Barry Wooden. His only son Kyle Wooden and four of his friends were killed at the Bells Road Crossing near Gerogery in NSW, just seven months after the tragic Wheatbelt incident.
“On January 27th, 2001, Kyle, a keen sportsman, was travelling with four friends to see his best friend Nic Henderson play in his debut first-grade game with the Melbourne Storm rugby league club. Kyle and his four friends never made the game,” revealed Lara.
“Tragically, they were killed instantly when the XPT Sydney to Melbourne express passenger train hit the car they were travelling in at the Bells Road Level Crossing near the country town of Gerogery.
“The Bells Road Level Crossing had gained the reputation of being one of the most notorious crossings in NSW, recording a series of crashes but not a single fatality until 2001 when all five boys were killed in one hit. The XPT train was travelling at 160kph at the time of the crash – it was the fastest known section of rail in Australia at the time.”
Lara revealed that Deputy NSW State Coroner Carl Milovanovich categorically rejected any suggestion that the boys were racing the train and found that neither alcohol, drugs nor speed were a factor in the collision.
“Coroner Milovanovich went on to say: ‘The real tragedy in this matter is not whether the driver made an error of judgement, but that in this day and age when we all strive to reap the benefits of new technology, such as computers, advances in medicine, trains that travel at 160 km/h and even faster, we still have a 19th-century approach to level crossings on the basis that they are traversed by horse and cart’,” said Lara.
Kyle’s father Barry, his wife Alison and the other four families who loved ones in this incident lobbied for the crossing to be replaced with an overbridge. It was completed in December 2005 and named Five Mates Crossing.
“Our families do not want sympathy – we simply want legislation requiring the rail industry to make visibility lighting upgrades to their freight and passenger trains on both their locomotives and rolling stock in line with all other hazardous and high-risk industries,” wrote Lara.
“And we also want our government to upgrade unsafe level crossings with readily
available and affordable level crossing equipment technology for the safety of people who either travel in rural Australia or live in rural Australia. This should not be too much to ask of a high-risk, hazardous industry nor of decent corporate and public sector citizens in 2025.
“Currently in Australia, there are stronger laws for bicycle lighting than for trains. Despite trains being the largest and heaviest vehicles on land, in 2025 there is still no legal requirement for them to be lit to any particular standard. This anomaly is unsafe, unacceptable and needs immediate attention.
“And to make matters worse, 80 per cent of the 23,000 railway crossings in Australia do not have warning lights or boom gates, making it essential for trains to have adequate illumination – a cost-effective and practical way to minimise the risk of collisions at level crossings.”
Late last year, a train visibility code of practice was released by the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR). However the code fell short of mandating improved lighting, instead asking rail operators to “consider the use of beacon and side marker lights.”
In Lara’s open letter, she continued, “Prime Minister, I ask you to consider this. All other high-risk industries (including road transport, mining, construction and aviation) have had to comply with stringent mandatory visibility lighting standards that have been legislated and enforced for decades.
“The reason that the rail industry isn’t doing the same is because they are permitted to self-regulate and the board that sets the standards, the Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board (RISSB), is owned and operated by rail companies.
“No other industry in Australia is allowed to continuously ignore the risks they create as part of their business operations, keep recording the fatalities that eventuate, and continue to do nothing about them.”
Quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of people trying to blame trains for crashes involving cars and trucks, whose drivers simply ignore the basic facts about train crossings.
Fact number 1: All trains have right of way over cars and trucks. If you have a driver’s licence, you should be aware of that fact.
Fact number 2: Trains are very big. If you can’t see them, you need to get your eyes checked. They also sound their horn before reaching the crossing. If you can’t hear it, get your hearing checked.
Fact number 3: All train crossings have some sort of signage or signals to warn you that there is a train crossing ahead. Whether or not there is one, treat it as a Stop sign; stop and give way.
Fact number 4: Don’t ever try to beat a train to a crossing. You can swerve off the road; the train cannot swerve off the tracks.
I am a retired former, professional, heavy-vehicle driver, with a clean driving record. I always obey the road rules; including giving way to all trains. If you can’t see or hear the train, stop driving. If you can’t be bothered stopping for the train; and/or, try to beat the train to the crossing; the consequences are your fault entirely.