Broadway Railroad Crossing Gives Bad First Impression of Idaho Falls
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Imagine pulling off the freeway of any random town you have never visited. While waiting at the exit ramp’s stoplight, you see a beautiful white stone with the town’s name and a pleasant natural scene carved into it. You turn right because you see gas stations, restaurants, and a trusty Wal-Mart in that direction. Suddenly you approach the ugly railroad crossing photographed here.
We have all seen what happens at this crossing, the way cars swerve right or left to miss the chunk sticking up. It looks like a metal plate that will rip your tires if you hit it head on.
As you can see from my photos, when I got closer I discovered the “upchunks” are actually large rubber blocks. They probably won’t actually do any harm to our tires, but is this ugly scene really the first impression we want our visitors to have?
As I looked over the area, I realized one could probably lift those rubber blocks and re-tamp the sand underneath to make it flat again for years. I have heard this spot (and the Anderson crossing) is a struggle between our city and the railroad, because technically the railroad owns the land between the tracks and they legally allow the city road to cross. You would think the city would legally allow the railroad to cross our road and could force them to fix this problem, but alas the world works backwards sometimes.
I heard of an artist who dressed up as a city utility worker, setup caution cones and a work zone on a freeway, and actually repainted one of those highway signs. Apparently the sign was confusing in some manner and the officials did not seem to want to fix the error. He videotaped himself prepping to go out there, going out there, and the aftermath of how his change actually made the traffic flow better. Nobody knew he had made the change himself until he released his story a month after the fact.
I looked at those rubber “upchunks” and wondered who among us might have the chutzpah to attempt an “official” correction if the city and railroad cannot reach a solution?
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Comments
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0 
0 For some funny reason the RR likes to schedule their trains around noon and 5PM during the week and 6PM on Friday. I never really noticed this before, but now that I work close to the tracks on Yellowstone, I’ve definitely noticed it. In fact there’s one going by now at 11:30.
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0 0 I worked for the railroad here in the mid to late ’70’s on an “extra gang”. Our job was to install switches, sidings, and replace crossing planks like you’re talking about.
To answer Joe’s question of ownership, think about it… the railroads were all pushed through the country before cars were even thought of. The railroad barons were nearly given all the land they needed to get the job done. When cars came along and crossings were needed, the road makers had to ask the railroad for permission to cross their land. Obviously this has happened many times, but to this day I get the feeling that the railroads drag their feet and make it harder than it should be to get things done with regards to crossings & intersections, etc.
Revamping a crossing is more complicated than it looks. The entire road has to be peeled back to expose the ties, and the bad ones have to be replaced. Then the whole track must be raised and have new ballast tamped under the ties to hold it up. Then the crossing planks installed and lastly, some pavement to complete the job. I don’t think the materials are expensive, but it IS labor intensive.
Although it is the railroad crews that do the work, I’m not sure who pays the bill to do the job. Maybe that’s where the problem is. Even if there is money available, again I get the impression that the railroads drag their feet in fixing crossings, and that includes hundreds of crossings throughout s/e Idaho. There must be some heavy politics involved somewhere here.
A gang of 12-14 workers like I was on could easily do a small two lane crossing in a day. Larger ones in town would take longer, but still could be done quickly.
I have seen many crossings in the county that are so bad that one has to creep slowly across to avoid damage. A labor gang employed for a summer around here could fix all of them. But since the eighties the railroad has gradually done away with as much human labor as possible in favor of machines to do track maintenance. Machines, however, will never be able to replace a crossing.
I’m siding with Joe on the crossing issue. We only have 3 or 4 major crossings in town, and every one of them are crappy. It’s a disgrace to our city and detrimental to our cars. Like everyone else, I swerve to one side on them to avoid having my teeth jarred out. It’s time more was said about it.
One way that people may be able to get something done is this: (Take this with a grain of salt…I’m relying on years ago experience here.) Look up the local Union Pacific office in the phone book and put in a call to the Roadmaster’s office. He is in charge of all the tracks in a given area. When I was working for them there was one here in Idaho Falls, one in Pocatello, and then one in Montana & probably Twin Falls.
Anyway, call his office and put in a complaint about the crossing in question. Maybe if enough people b**ch about the bad ones they will be compelled to fix them a bit faster.
Good luck.
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0 0 There’s more to the railroad crossing on broadway than appearances. I know of an incident where an invidividual drove into the vacant lot just west of Dominos, thinking they could drive up straight through to the store and ended up high-centered on the railroad tracks. No signs, no blockade, nothing to prevent a person unfamiliar with the area from seeing in the dark that this is a major accident waiting to happen. She’s lucky a train didn’t come through before the tow truck got there. Whose responsibility is this? The owner of the lot or the railroad?
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0 0 That’s a tough one! Judging from the backwards nature of this area’s coexistence, I imagine the city would still be responsible for lighting the track area and would thus be responsible.
One solution I have for this dilemma is for the city to pay to level the area. Sure the railroad should be responsible, but it’s the city that suffers.
The amount of money that it would take to fix this in a day or two is not worth the years of angst it causes our residents and visitors.
Surely if the city offered to pay for the fix, the railroad would agree to allow it?
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0 0 Jack Lisle with Eastern Idaho Railroad says the railroad is working with the Idaho Transportation Department to completely overhaul the Broadway crossing next summer.
Two different railroads control the Broadway and Anderson street crossings. EIRR owns the aforementioned Broadway crossing, and the Anderson crossing that shoots through Anderson’s intersection with Holmes. The Anderson crossing closer to US Hwy 20 is owned by UPRR, as is the Broadway crossing near the Museum of Idaho.
As for the person who drove off into a vacant lot and got stuck on the tracks, don’t cars come equipped with headlights? I don’t know about you folks, but I don’t drive anything across a vacant lot I’m not familiar with. Especially when it’s dark and especially when I’m unfamiliar with the area.
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0 0 Well, how kind of you to tell our visitors how stupid they are! Having driven by there after the incident, it became quite clear to me how easily this happened. I prefer not to judge her.
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0 0 Paul Menser had a good piece in today’s PR about the crumbling overpass at Birch Street/Yellowstone.
Of course the railroad didn’t return his calls for a long time, then said they had just inspected it and it was fine.
Paul reported a city engineer disagreed, that they wanted it replaced for a long time, and that the city had even offered to help pay for the replacement.
So we have a crumbling overpass and jagged railroad crossings over our streets.
Could it be the railroads are bad neighbors in Idaho Falls?
Is there any way we can force them to make these repairs?
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0 0 I know what you mean….that underpass scares the bejesus out of me! You just know its on the verge of crumbling any day now!
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0 0 Can the city sue the railroad to fix these things that affect city residents?
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0 0 I was just mentioning the Birch Street underpass. I’m not entirely certain it’s still structurally sound. I most definately do not stop under it and avoid it when possible. I would happily sign a petition to get that fixed!
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0 0 Re: Birch St. Underpass
I don’t think a suit based on aesthetics alone would do anything. If there was some provable evidence on the structural integrity there may be a case.
I have a gut feeling that there is more to the story of not replacing that underpass than just money. If you think about it, at least a dozen trains cross that point every day. Those trains would have to be re-routed during construction, and I don’t know how that would be possible.
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0 0 If it crumbles, it would force them to fix it and then they would be re-routed anyway. So wouldn’t it make more sense to fix it sooner rather than later?
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0 0 It makes sense but my point is that I don’t know how they would re-route. Train tracks are not known for being very redundant. There used to be tracks that looped out through Iona and Ammon and then back to the main tracks. Now it ends just past Sunnyside.
I doubt that the structural integrity of that underpass is anywhere near unsafe. It looks like it was built to last a long time. The facade can be redone without having to rebuild it.
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0 0 Are we talking about the same underpass???? There’s definately more than asthetics that come into play here. The concrete is literally crumbling in a number of places. That’s not asthetics! Asthetics = a new paint job, this thing is structually unsound!
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0 0 Hey,
The Sundowner apartments are an eyesore too….lets bulldoze them….and lets get rid of the railroad….sue em out of existence! What? You say that this means hiring lawyers….forget it then. Enjoy the eyesore and the bumpy ride!
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0 0 Today’s Post Register reports the planks are being replaced at the railroad crossing on 19th street, the one right next to South Yellowstone Highway.
The two reasons stated for fixing the planks are:
1 - the planks are warped
2 - a high volume of complaints
It was not clear if the city, state, or railroads were paying to fix the crossing, but the article quoted a city official so it seems the city is paying to replace the crossing?
Now I’ve driven through that several times, and always thought the Broadway and Anderson railroad crossings were much worse than the 19th street crossing.
What is it going to take to get the real problems taken care of at Broadway and Anderson?
Apparently a high number of complaints!
Call 612-8250 to complain about these other two railroad crossings, and let’s see if we can get them improved.
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0 0 The majority of the railroad crossings in this town are in dire need of repairs. You can definately throw your front end out of alignment if you go over some of them too fast!
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0 0 I don’t know Joe. As a resident of the area, I drive over the 19th Street crossing daily, and I have seen it get increasingly worse in the last three months. I am one of those who complained. The squeeky wheel…
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0 0 I’m glad the process worked for you 8^) Let’s hope it starts a trend towards fixing our other railroad crossings.
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0 0 The PR reports this morning that starting Monday and going for a couple weeks through October 5, the Holmes and Anderson intersection will get fixed up. They say the railroad is fixing the tracks in that intersection also.
Was it that intersection or another spot that had the really bad tracks on Anderson? I haven’t been on that road in awhile.
Hopefully the Broadway tracks get replaced soon, also, since we get more tourists going over that set.
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0 0 I like the fact that their fixing up many areas in and around IF, however I think they need to stage their construction a little better. There are too many things going on at once, with three projects on the west side of IF alone. This makes for a very difficult time for those of us living on the west side of town. I say work on one project and knock it out, then start another. Or at least work on one on the west side of town and one on the east side. Having three projects going on simultaneously on the west side has made it quite frustrating for commuters to say the least.
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0 0 Is it just me, or does this railroad crossing seem to have gotten worse in the last month? The part that pokes up seems to poke up more, possibly the cold has shifted it up?
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0 0 Last month the railroad “fixed” their Broadway crossing and made the bad situation even worse!
First, they only replaced the southern half of the crossing. The northern half is still in bad shape and causing motorists to swerve and avoid the “poke-ups”. The Railroad foreman must have been blind to think the northern half looked good enough.
Second they pulled out the huge rubber blocks that had filled in the railroad gap, and replaced them with the worst asphalt job I’ve ever seen in my life. The asphalt sunk within days and now motorists hit the railroad hard unless they swerve to avoid. In fact it’s now harder to swerve and avoid since the entire southern half features the sunken asphalt center.
Way to take things from bad to worse, railroad neighbors. How long must we wait for you to try again?
Again, to put this into perspective, this railroad crossing is not just another out in the country. It is within site of the Broadway freeway exit, so thousands of city visitors experience this horrible crossing every day.
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0 0 The “Railroad” is their own little government. The City has little power or influence of getting any crossing work done. It took a few years, ya years, of proding to get the 19th Street crossing rebuilt!!
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0 0 If I go out there with a sledgehammer and hit their asphalt to force them to replace it, I’m sure I would get charged with vandalizing their property. How many cars have been damaged with their hazardous crossing, yet nobody can file a claim against the railroad?
Are the railroads running through Idaho Falls publicly or privately owned?
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0 0 Joe, What I’d like to know is how in the world you got down to that level and took that picture. There was obviously traffic and the picture looks like it was taken mid day at ground level! Did you park somewhere and run over there, squat down to take the shot and then jump out of the way of oncoming traffic? That picture has always amazed me! 
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0 0 Railroads thru Idaho Falls are a private corporation. “Eastern Idaho Raliroad”.
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0 0 I went over the crossing last night going east on Broadway and I’d agree that its gotten much worse. I’m seriously surprised I didn’t blow a tire as it felt like I’d just tried to drive my car over one of a parking blocks at 35 mph. Going west on my return trip it was the same as always.
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0 0 Something really needs to be done. It is a scary journey to get over those tracks. I think of this post every time I go over them. Who do we talk to to get the ball rolling? Any ideas?
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0 0 They really made it worse now. The left lane of eastbound traffic is the worst, there is like a two or three inch drop in the asphalt before you slam into the railroad bar.
If we suffer tire damage from that railroad crossing, since the railroad is the property owner, can car owners make a claim against or sue the railroad to pay for the damage?
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0 0 No, if your car suffers damage from crossing the railroad you cannott sue them. The railroad gives permission to the public to cross the rails, the railroad has protection against lawsuits such as the one mentioned.
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0 0 No, but you CAN take a large sledge hammer and knock the track back down into place! Ok..ok….JUST kidding!
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0 0 In the Wednesday 1/30/08 Post Register in the “You Asked For It” column it listed all of the names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers for the people with the railroad that is responsible for all of the crossings in town. I would copy and paste the information here but I’m not sure what the copyright rules are. Let’s see if we can get their attention.
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0 0 I don’t think the PR would get upset about that type of information. I think the core information (those names and phone numbers and email addresses) is acceptable to reprint while their article would not be acceptable to reprint.
Please do comment it here and I will call and email daily! I could also create a second contact form at IFz which would send emails to the RR.
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0 0 Here is the pertinent information from the Post Register 1/30/08 article:
“Eastern Idaho Railroad is responsible for all of the crossings here, from Iona Road to Broadway to East Anderson Street. You can call them at 529-5828. They don’t return my calls, but maybe you’ll have better luck.
If not, try calling the railroad’s honchos in Twin Falls. Judging from my experience, they’re quite fond of hearing from us eastern Idahoans.
Jack Lisle is the general manager. He can be reached at (208) 735-1464 or via e-mail at jlisle@watcocompanies.com.
Ryan Wixson is the marketing manager. His phone number is (208) 733-2353 and his e-mail is rwixson@watcocompanies.com.
The chief engineer is Scott Adams. He can be contacted at (208) 734-4644, ext. 106, and his e-mail is sadams@watcocompanies.com.
Good luck.”
It looks like the same people are responsible for all of the railroad crossings in town, not just Broadway. Some of the others are not in very good shape either. I promise to do my part to keep our lousy railroad crossing conditions at the top of their minds.
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0 0 I suggest EVERYBODY write an email (or 10)and leave a voicemail regarding this issue!! The more we hound them about this, the better chance we have of getting results.
These terrible RR crossing are tearing up our vehicles and it’s time they take responsibilty and do something about it!
I plan to send out emails to all 3 of these guys later on today. Lets all ban together and get this done.
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0 0 I wrote to all three, when I get a chance this weekend I’ll try to setup a second contact form which just sends the mail to them, then provide the link making it easy for us to flood them with complaints.
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0 0 I just checked Watco Company’s website, I am going to start cc:ing these emails to
Rick Webb, Chief Executive Officer
rwebb@watcocompanies.com
Terry Towner, President & Chief Operating Officer ttowner@watcocompanies.com
John Brown, Chief Operating Officer -West Region
jbrown@watcocompanies.com
Mark Blazer, Senior Vice President -
Strategic Development West Region
mblazer@watcocompanies.com
We know what rolls downhill and their company has ignored this problem for at least three years. It’s time to push on them.
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0 0 WATCO is a huge corporation that owns ga-zillions of railroads!
Here’s the link to their railroads division:
http://www.watcocompanies.com/railroads.htm
The Local Eastern Idaho Railroad is administered out of Twin falls:
Here’s the link to all of their upper echelon staff in Twin:
http://www.watcocompanies.com/Railroads/eirr/eirr_contact.htm
Frankly, I’d think that finding the Top Brass back in Kansas would be the Hot Ticket for solving this issue. However, as much as I’ve been roaming their website, I still haven’t found that information–they are a VERY large corporation!!!
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0 0 Well, I was wrong about the top brass–since it appears to be a private company–I guess there’s only so far up the food chain you can go. I was hoping that I could find names of Board Members and such. Looks like that won’t happen. But at least their founder’s son’s contact information is pretty transparent. I’d reckon he’d be the one people ought to pester.
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0 0 Well, sorry if I am violating a rule by posting three consecutive times here. I promise not to do that again! Anyway, I got to thinking about issue. What we need here is a good old-fashioned petition done up electronic-style! So, I roamed ’round El Net checking various petition platforms and decided on gopetition.com
I went through the various scripts and got one rolling. I’m not certain how to pass the completed petition along to WATCO, but I figured I might as well experiment with one of them and see what happens. Here’s the address of the petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/online/16687.html
When I finished completing the online configuration of the petition it said that the mgmt. would have to approve the petition but it said that people could sign it in the meantime, whatever that means. I picked this particular company because of their privacy policy–it looked pretty good to me. I’ve had a LOT of success in life with hard copy petitions. However, in this day and age, who’s going to stand on a street corner collecting sigs?
Maybe this will have merit, maybe not. I guess you’re the judge.
Here’s hoping it helps, Monte
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0 0 Here’s an online petition I put together to send to WATCO. Let’s see if anyone is interested in trying such a technique.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/repair-rail-crossings-within-the-city-of-idaho-falls.html
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0 0 The top brass of Watco company is here:
http://www.watcocompanies.com/corporate.htm
Notice email addresses and phone numbers. Don’t just notice, use them! If you’ve swerved around the local railroad crossings, then take a moment to email or call them and complain. The local employees do not seem to care about this issue, so I think we need to take it higher.
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0 0 I find those “online petitions” to be a complete waste of time. Nobody goes to them and the persons or companies being petitioned never see or hear about them anyways.
If you want to do something, go straight to the source. Such as writing letters to all the folks Joe has been gracious enough to post for us. He’s done all the leg work, now its up to us to take 5 minutes out of our day to write a couple letters.
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0 0 I agree, those online petitions are full of well-intentioned idealism but unfortunately do nothing in reality. I appreciate your spirit for trying it but I’ve never seen one be effective.
KIDK News 3 reported that a local motorist blew a tire out on this same Broadway railroad crossing that we’ve been discussing:
http://www.kidk.com/news/15467291.html
The gentleman called Eastern Idaho Railroad and asked about making a claim with them for his damage (as a reasonable person would expect to be able to do) and they essentially told him to take a hike. Only after the news reporter called EIRR did they say “oh yeah we’ll take care of him sure he’s our pal we’re nice guys ya know” but then when the motorist called them again they said they needed a police report, which local police said they will not waste their time doing a report on the incident. And that folks illustrates further our poor neighbor, the railroad company.
The railroad has had some folks out recently trying to fix that crossing, packing in more asphalt. Unfortunately because it is so cold the stuff they put in is not keeping in very well and it’s disintegrating within a day or two.
On the other hand, the railroad knew about and ignored this problem for the past few years, so they cannot blame the cold weather on why they did not fix this last summer. I hope they send a crew out every morning to repair the crossing until the weather is warm enough to do a full and proper replacement.
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0 0 Wow! Sounds like this guy got a bum deal! I know I’ve hit that spot a couple of times and thought for sure my tire would blow, but I was lucky I guess. Now I completely avoid it if I can. And if I can’t, I’ll drive about 2mph over it and swerve to try and miss the worst part of it.
How many more people have to blow out tires and throw their front ends out of alignment before they do something?? That’s another thing that I’m sure is not reported all that often. (& is a lot more difficult to prove) It would be interesting to know how many cars have had their fronts ends thrown out of wack due to this horrendous RR crossing?
I sent out emails to all four of these guys last Friday and plan to send some more out this week. I’ve got three different email accounts, so I’m going to send one from each acct to, which will make it look like its coming from a different person. (work email, personal email and junk email for filling out online applications, newsletters etc.) I think if we all sent out a couple emails each and we spread the word to all our friends and family to do the same, perhaps they’ll start to wake up and do something. (perhaps!)
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0 0 I know this idea wouldn’t work here in Idaho Falls. But it’s fun to imagine it–call it a fantasy. Anyway, try to imagine a citizen protest at the crossing–lots of regular Moms and Pops and working people, throw in a few kids and strollers, you know, the regular ol’ Idaho Falls demographic. Lots of signs, couple of organizers with megahones. “HONK IF YOU HATE THE CROSSING” that sort of stuff. The TV stations show up, the protest picture makes the front page of the P-R. HA! Well, I guess I better stop dreaming and get back to work now. Oh, well, it was a fun fantasy while it lasted.
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0 0 That IS a good idea Johnny! If you wanna organize it, I’d show up with some people and some signs. The more plublicity we get out about this, the quicker their likely to fix the problem. And you know we’d get everyone and their Grandma honkin their horns as they went over that crossing.
I think its a great idea. I’m always ready for a good ole fashion protest! 
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0 0 Well, heck, thanks for the positive feedback. With a great response like yours, I might get to thinking it’s more than just a fantasy to pull off something like that. How do you think we ought to go about it? What day? What time? Let’s bat the idea around for awhile and so some brainstormin’ THANKS!!!! Monte
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0 0 I’m thinking a Saturday afternoon would be good as more people would be able to make it out there and the traffic is pretty steady on Saturdays. Week day evenings after work too…catch the crowds getting off work going home. But then we’d only have a couple hours of sunlight left and I don’t think we want a bunch of folks out there in the dark. We’d end up causing an accident.
Get some poster board with some flouresant (sp?) markers and think of some good things to write on them.
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0 0 Hey, that sounds GREAT! Sorry to take so long to reply–work and such, ya know? Well, I think Saturday afternoon could be a regular down=home hoot-ee-nanny, or however you spell that. Especially if we got some pizza place to donate free food. People definitely show up for free food, especially when it’s to diss the railroad. Heck, maybe we could get one of the radio station to do a live remote. I mean stranger things have happened. This is, after all, a “community thing.” We are all truly in this together and everyone of us knows what this means.
Me and my wife was out there the other day and it was like, “WHOA–slow down, crawl, come to a standstill, Dude, yer gonna wreck the truck!” I mean, it’s real and it’s relates to regular people. That’s what just could make this a real happenin’ deal! I’m sure glad you are brainstormin’ I sure like Saturday–I think we’d get a lot more guys, too, on Saturday, especially in some cool jacked up pickups–the kind that could easily suffer $2000 worth of damage from that crossing if they hit it wrong! That’s a truly wicked spot.
Looking forward to your next post! Cheers, Monte.
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0 0 Ok, I’m a whaaannny so I’d like to participate, but only after the thaw/melt is over. I’m not interested in being in the muddy slush with cars driving past at angry speeds…
But if they’ve not fixed this by the time the roads are clear (and by then they will have no excuse, either) then I will be out there with y’all with a small barbeque and hot dogs for the masses.
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0 0 Well, interest has waned in this idea for a popular protest.
We were out on the West Side the other day heading back east again on Broadway. My wife said, “LOOK OUT!” just in the nick of time and I swerved to avoid disaster. Our little Nissan’s front end would have been destroyed if I had continued on my path to destruction. We escaped OK.
Frankly, no matter what we all do, the Railroad will Railroad us. That’s what Railroads do. All of the Bubba Dudes who work for railroads have Railroad genes & DNA. I mean it’s in their genetics to railroad us. Think about it. I am not trying to make a pun. This morning I spent a couple of hours reading about the history of Union Pacific in Idado & Wyoming. Geeze, it would make your hair curl.
A bum Broadway crossing is child’s play to what a railroad can really do to screw around with a community. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that all they have going against them is a bum crossing or two.
Thankfully, they are not currently rounding up ethnic minorities and deporting them or influencing the Legislature to abrogate our collective civil rights.
Yep, they did all of those things and more back in the so-called “Good Ol’ Daze.” So, maybe we should switch our paradigm and consider ourselves lucky that we only have a measly crossing to gripe about.
Honest, I am not trying to “make fun.” Railroads have been and can be very vicious entities. They have maximum power and minimum liability. Plus they have LOTS of money.
That can be a very deadly combination. It’s something to think about. Call it “your thought for today.”
Cheers, Monte!
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0 0 The broadway railroad crossing is getting worse again. The rubber things are poking up more than ever, and the concrete patching they did last winter still creates a horrendous experience when you drive over it.
The railroad said last winter they planned to take care of this crossing this summer. It is mid-summer, are they going to lie to Idaho Falls yet again, or are they going to take care of their property?
The railroad also needs to clean up their area in front of the public library. They have neglected rails sitting out there, they ought to be ashamed of they way they take care of their business around here.
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Seems like the RR crossings around the area have always been a sore spot. I realize that they (the railroads) are private industry and are trying to make a bottom line but where they interact with public infastucture shouldn’t there be some kind of standard? For example, does anyone else know of a state where stop signs are posted at nearly every crossing where the rr does not have a crossing guard installed? Did anyone every stop and figure the cost in fuel to businesses and individuals who have to stop and start each time they approach these crossings? Furthermore,I have noticed that these crossings are usually very rough and I wonder if the rr isn’t just taking advantage of the stop sign to not have to maintain a higher speed crossing. All of this must add up to a large savings to either the rr or the public agency involved. That means you and I pay for it.