The site blockedcrossings.com tracks the status of 10 railroad crossings between Goshen and the intersection of U.S. 6 and S.R. 15, just north of Milford . A green dot on the map means a crossing along the Marion Branch tracks is open and a red dot means a train is occupying it.
A timer at each red dot can give an idea of whether a train is moving through or camping out. The site adds a black circle to indicate that a crossing has been blocked for more than 10 minutes.
“The public and first responders are really tired of being held hostage with blocked crossings,” Elkhart County Commissioner Brad Rogers said. “We created this knowledge, and knowledge is power for first responders and the public. When you have this knowledge of where the crossings are open, you can make adjustments.”
Elkhart County contracted with Blocked Crossings LLC to install the system, which has been in operation for several weeks and is now available to the public. Company co-owner Glenn Gilbert believes it’s the first community in the country to use the technology, which relies on cameras to detect when the warning lights at a crossing are flashing.
The method was designed by Goshen software developer Douglas Miller. Over the past 10 years he tried a range of ways to remotely determine if a crossing was blocked, from ground vibrations and audio cues to changes in magnetic fields.
Miller said the problem with each of those detection methods was that a train became invisible once it stopped. He realized that the question they should be trying to answer was, “Is this crossing open or blocked?” and that a camera was the simplest, most reliable solution.
Blocked Crossings LLC came along at a time of mounting frustration with rail traffic in cities like Goshen and towns like New Paris . Local government representatives saw the usefulness of the technology to emergency services, who when confronted with a train may have only seconds to decide whether a left or right turn is the better bet to find an open crossing.
When Rogers was the Elkhart County Sheriff, he had his department issue tickets to train engineers who were stopped at crossings for more than 20 minutes. But a 2018 ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court ended the longtime state law that gave local law enforcement agencies that power.
The Jackson Township Fire Department’s New Paris station is a stone’s throw from a crossing that serves as the gateway to its western coverage area, which includes part of Union Township. Fire Chief Bill Dunlap and Rogers, whose district includes Jackson Township, issued a statement in the spring of 2022 pointing out the danger to public safety and calling on Norfolk Southern Railway to stop parking trains in the way.
City of Goshen representatives expressed similar frustration a year earlier, asking the railway to “stop using our community as a parking lot.”
The county appropriated an initial sum of $60,000 in August 2023 to install poles and cameras at the New Paris -area crossings and to pay for the first year of service with Blocked Crossings. Jackson Township Trustee Tom Lantz agreed to cover the annual maintenance cost of $9,600 starting in 2025.
©2024 The Elkhart Truth, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
