As a taxpayer and voter, I am in support of the elimination of road/rail grade crossings on major rail routes.
I realize economic realities must come into play. I would rather not see gated installations (which are very costly in their own right) installed though. And I would rather that privately-owned railroads not have to pay part of the cost of grade separations (bridges and the like). I think road users cause overwhelmingly more road/rail accidents than railroads do. (I realize I’m not being “rational” in thinking this, but I think sometimes about “a stitch in time saves nine”).
A little context for this post:
I rode Amtrak’s Hiawatha service to and from Chicago from the Milwaukee Airport station in October as part of an Amtrak roundtrip to Dallas for a business conference. I think the Hiawatha route is outstanding. Every station at each stop along the route is attractive and modern. The ride was smooth. The staff was cordial. The trains were well patronized. The two runs I rode were on time and nine minutes early (despite the Amtrak alert that there would be 10 minute delays because of CP river bridge construction near Wadsworth).
The trains themselves need to be replaced with better equipment. I was not in support of the Madison extension, but think the two Wisconsin Talgos built should’ve at least been tried (Has anyone thought about trying the Talgos Milwaukee-Chicago-St. Louis to serve as a trial?).
An SUV sliding into the path of a train (via the ditch) is hardly a cause for alarm r/t grade crossings. The driver was on an icy road, and had no clue as to how to control his car, and that he must drive differently on ice. Here in North Dakota, most of the passenger vehicles in the ditch are SUVs mostly it seems because the drivers assume that their cars are good to go when they are anything but.
Be that as it may, this actually was the law in many places and states in this country once upon a time. Railroads could not build across state roads at grade. The narrow little underpasses that they built for the state roads were probably adequate in 1910, but today many vehicles must leave the state road in search of a local road with a grade crossing. And years after the railroad was torn up, the old twisted state road and the underpass remained in many places.
Any law you pass today requiring this or that will become a millstone around your neck by the end of the century. Engineers will build to the law rather than to the needs and issues at hand.
OK, I agree to grade separation as a policy. Suppose some city wants a quiet zone. One way to get it is to build over passes across the railroad tracks. If you put the onus on the railroad, they will simply close half of the crossings claiming that they are under used and you can use the one down the road.
Grade crossing elimination happened big time in Brooklyn, and trains became subways. Today there are only a handful of grade crossings in New York City affecting mainline operations. It is nice today, but you could not afford it today either.
Building bridges above busy grade crossings is a great idea but isn’t the problem the budget-numbing high cost?
In the past (WWII era) , from my understanding, the red-tape process (engineering study, permits, cost analysis, etc) was much faster than it is today. Now environmental impact studies, liability issues, and the high maintenance costs of bridges can make railroad managers break into a sweat. Plus would not the bridge be viewed as an additional “taxable” asset?
Personally I wish that every every grade crossing on every major, busy road in my town were elevated. But I know that’s not likely happening soon inspite of the fact that it would be much safer for pedestrians and vehicular traffic. Trains could likely travel at higher speeds (although for most local freight runs, profitwise, speed isn’t a factor as is the amount of loads carried). Of course, speed is helpful to Amtrak and commuter agencies.
Does anyone here know the specific procedures involved in eliminating grade crossings and the typical costs of building a bridge over a roadway?
Indeed - They put their vehicle into four-wheel-go, meanwhile forgetting that they still only have the four-wheel-stop they started out with.
As for the cost of replacing a crossing with an overpass - I’d have to opine that it depends…
Doing so on a rural road generally only involves the cost of a bunch of fill, some concrete, and the associated appliances. Maybe some parts of some farmer’s fields. Not cheap, but it doesn’t include the factors involved in an urban crossing. When the “401” (McDonald-Cartier Freeway) was built through the flatlands of southern Ontario (roughly Windsor to London) overpasses were built for many local roads. As you drive along the flat and level 401, every now and then you pass under such a bit of construction.
Considerations for an urban (or any built-up area) include adjacent real estate/buildings and infrastructure (water mains, sewers, buried cables of all sorts). Buildings may have to be torn down, or may be rendered inaccessible as designed, underground utilities may have to be relocated. I don’t know what the mandatory clearances for passing over the railroad are, or
My recollection was 22 feet above the top of the rail for non-electrified lines and something on the order of 26 to 27 feet for freight lines electrified at 50kV (figure 22 feet to the top of the car, 2 feet clearance from the car top to contact wire, 1 foot for the contact wire plus messenger, 2 feet from the top of the messenger to the bottom of the bridge).
Erik
P.S. I’m not a Civil Engineer, but know enough to be dangerous…
Cost is of course the problem. But in my opinion that cost is sometimes due to universal application of high standards in places where it is wasted. A wooden 1.5 lane trestle that carries a rural road over the tracks is more than adequate for the volume and class of traffic the road sees. But that doesn’t match today’s standards so instead we are only offered the unaffordable two full lanes with paved shoulders option, ready to handle the heaviest conceivable transport truck.
For hundreds of years we have operated under the assumption that man’s intellect, common sense, and innate will to live would control his behavior so that he would not put himself into harms way. Then we got the Bill of Rights, radio and television, the Walkman, better headphones, multi tasking as a normal behavior, and an arrogance of being above and apart from anything or anybody else. In the mid 20th Century followers were branded by the “what me worry” buttons they wore. We have evolved into a natural stuper with ear buds all but implanted in our ears while our thumbs text on an cell phone. Railroad crossings are no longer a distraction when one is otherwise engaged in virtual life.
As someone who used to live there, and now still drives through there, I find that highly-ambitious-yet-outdated report rather amusing, as the town still has potholes it needs to fix…
Adding 4 feet for the structure of the bridge (rough guess), that means that for a maximum recommended grade of 6%, we’re looking at about 450 feet of approach on each side of the bridge. With the bridge, and other considerations, that means about 1000 feet of construction and the effects that occur along it.
Lesser grades lengthen the approaches.
Obviously there are myriad considerations and variations, but it still means that there will be significant impact to businesses or other entities along the approaches to an urban crossing.
Didn’t we have a clearance issue in Cedar Rapids recently where UP was requiring a 24-foot clearance?
I’d build for that anyway, to give the railroad some “wiggle room” when surfacing their track. It’s been my experience that roadbeds get higher over time.
A number of years ago, when I owned a motorhome and we were taking a weekend vacation to the Eastern Shore of Maryland we had to cross the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal in Northeastern Maryland. Crossing a canal frequented by ocean going ships, the bridge had to be significantly higher than anything that crosses railroads. This area of where the canal is, is a relatively flat flood plain. The approaches to the bridge, to conserve land use were built parallel to the canal, You drove up the approach to a height of 100-120 feet or maybe more, at the top you turned right to cross the bridge. On the far side of the bridge you turned right again (Memory is cloudy) and went down the approach on the far side.
That’s very likely for exactly the reason you mentioned. 22 feet would be the absolute minimum clearance, and would require a lot more attention during surfacing. It would probably suffice if the rails were fastened to a concrete slab track structure.
So 24’ would require just that much more approach, that much more fill, etc.
I’m not a highway construction guy, so I won’t even begin to guess how many cubic yards of fill such a project would take, unless the ramp was build as an elevated structure.
OK, so it appears that you’re being appropriately careful what you wish for. In most states, there’s a pubic utility or railroad commission of some kind that has the power to allocate the share of the costs of each crossing improvement or grade separation that must be borne by the railroad, based on the history and facts of each case, etc. Even if the railroad’s share is as small as 10%, a quick way to impoverish the railroad would be to burden it with a flood of such forced crossing improvements without any grants, loans, or other mitigation of deferral of its share of those costs.
Reminds me of one of the “CHANCE” cards in the Monopoly board game - some improvement is mandated, and each player is assessed $150 or similar. On a more personal or individual level, this can also happen when the local government decides to install sidewalks, curbs, sewers, etc., and assesses the abutting property owners for a share of the costs, on the theory that the property has been ‘improved’ and so has a greater fair market value, and even though that value has not yet been realized through the consummation of a sale, the owner must nevertheless come up with cash to pay the amount of the assessment - “land rich, but cash poor” is the phrase often heard around here to describe that kind of situation. I trust that astute readers here can see the parallel analogy . . . [:-^]
On the range of costs for such grade separations: From some work I did on a simple one a few years ago, figure about $5 million minimum for a 2-lane local road over a 2 Main Track line in the middle of farm country, mostly for the “design & build” pre-cast concrete b
The thing to remember is that the railroad was often there before the roads, therefore it is up to the owner of the road to be responsible for the care of the grade crossing by having to pay for the work. The work, most often is done by the railroad from the funds received from the road owner. If the road is already there when the railroad is built then the railroad becomes more responsible…but I bet each grade crossing has a different deed or rule or regulation which governs. There are no absolutes except the gauge of the track and that red means stop.
As long as we have road and railroads we will have grade crossings and arguing about who should pay for them. I find it pretty amazing that we don’t have a fairly standard way to resolve this common and continuing problem.
We do. I would say more than most of the crossings are structured this way: paid for by highway departments of towns, countrys, or states, but work done by the railroad. If there is an argument about it, then the one raising hell doesn’t know the agreement for that particular crossing.