EDITORIAL: Railroad crossing frustrations on rise due to stopped trains

Dec. 9—Blocked railroad crossings are on the uptick in Logansport, Cass County and across the state of Indiana.

Frustration for drivers is also on the rise as wait times for blocked crossings reach 10, 20 and sometimes 30 minutes.

On a recent weekday at about 5 p.m. — one of the busiest times of the day for traffic — some drivers waited 27 minutes at the 18th Street crossing in Logansport as the train remained motionless for the majority of that time. Drivers have reported similar delays at several other crossings in the county, including Cass County roads 600 East, 800 East and 1100 East.

In neighboring Peru, city officials applied for a grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration to pay for a feasibility study looking at how best to solve the problem.

The problem is largely due to the labor shortage. Trains can sometimes extend 3 miles long because the railroad doesn't have enough workers to break up the cars. All of these railroads are operated by Norfolk Southern Railway Co., which operates 19,420 route miles in 22 eastern states and the District of Columbia.

Up until 2018, Indiana state law allowed local governments to fine railroads when a stopped train blocks a street for more than 10 minutes. However, after Norfolk Southern challenged 23 citations it received in Allen County from 2014 to 2015, the Indiana Supreme Court struck down the 150-year-old law. The court unanimously agreed that the 1865 Blocked Crossing Statute was pre-empted by the 1995 Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act, which blocks states from enacting a law that governs rail transportation.

So what are our options when waiting longer than 10 minutes for a stopped train?

The Federal Railroad Administration, which is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation, accepts reports from the public at fra.dot.gov/blockedcrossings. According to the FRA, there have been 2,545 reports of blocked crossings in Indiana over the past 12 months. Only Texas (6,565), Ohio (3,668) and Illinois (3,084) had more complaints.

Other than reporting incidents longer than 10 minutes, the best advice we can give is to have patience.