Recently Mayor Judy Waters reached out to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) about blocked crossing concerns here in Rossville. In the correspondence Mayor Watters expressed concern about the lengthy backups. According to Norfolk Southern the stopped trains are often related to building a longer train at their intermodal site here in Rossville to maximize their profitability. The wait times for passenger traffic often exceeds 45 – 75 minutes as measured by the Rossville Police Chief. Obviously, this is a huge risk when first responders need to access a part of the county covered by our town.
JoAnn Scott, Outreach and Trepass Division of the FRA, responded with the following email and it includes a link where anyone can report a train crossing blockage. Ms. Scott said:
“The FRA has no regulations concerning the amount of time a train may block a crossing; however, we take the problem of blocked crossings very seriously, due to their effects on safety (e.g., impeding the movement of emergency response vehicles) and their influence on citizens’ quality of life. FRA also understands that many operational realities require trains to stop for significant periods of time at some locations. We encourage railroads to work with communities to minimize disruptions to road traffic.
To better understand how often blocked highway-rail grade crossings occur and under what circumstances, the Federal Railroad Administration recently launched a web portal https://www.fra.dot.gov/
Once again, the link to report a Rossville blockage to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is https://www.fra.dot.gov/
Last modified: January 20, 2022
