$50 million invested by state for new railroad safety plan, aims to improve railroad crossings

Watch the news conference live

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ) 

A new Missouri Railroad Safety Crossing Plan was detailed on Thursday in Jefferson City by Gov. Mike Parson and the Missouri Department of Transportation. 

The plan includes historic state funding for railroad crossing safety, including $50 million from Parson’s signing of House Bill 4.  

This comes one day after the National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the June 2022 Amtrak crash that killed four people in Chariton County. The report found the design of the passive railroad crossing contributed to the deadly crash.

“For years and years, we’ve not been able to address the issue like we should have,” Parson said. “I think it’s unfortunate things happen sometimes that are tragic events that are probably a wakeup call for all of us, but I think you can see now we’re serious about moving forward.” 

The plan aims to improve 47 passive public rail crossings on Missouri’s three passenger rail lines. Passive rail crossings are train crossings without any lights or arms to let drivers know of an oncoming train.  

MoDOT released results of a study detailing recommendations for each of those 47 crossings. Director Patrick McKenna said 27 crossings are recommended to get upgrades, such as lights and gates, 17 are recommended to be permanently closed and three are recommended for other improvements. 

McKenna said these crossings are on roads owned by local, county or city governments, so for any changes to actually take place, the communities and railways will need to be on board. 

“How many we can get improved is going to depend on the cooperation from communities and the railroad companies,” McKenna said. “Our goal is to make as many improvements that have been recommended as possible in the next 12 months.” 

All of the passive crossings in Chariton County along the Southwest Chief railway, including the site where the deadly crash took place last summer, are recommended to be permanently closed. 

Crossings in Linn and Macon counties are recommended to get upgrades. 

To the south along the Missouri River Runner railway, crossings in Moniteau and Cole counties are recommended for closure/consolidation. Crossings in Pettis and Osage counties are recommended to be switched from public to private crossings. 

“In those communities where there are closings that are recommended, that is controversial,” McKenna said. “Wherever there is a crossing, someone’s using it … We have a responsibility, though, to increase safety.” 

McKenna said upgrades cost an average of $400,000 per crossing. 

Other speakers at Thursday’s news conference included NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose and Rep. Tim Taylor, who represents Mendon, Missouri, where the deadly crash took place.  

“I’m happy to see that everyone from the federal level down to the local level is coming together,” Taylor said. 

There are currently more than 1,400 passive railroad crossings throughout the state. McKenna said MoDOT will soon look into making other crossings over freight rail safer, as well. 

He also said MoDOT will make $3 million available to local communities to apply for additional advanced signage as drivers approach railroad crossings. 

 “Anytime you have a crossing that doesn't have any type of warning signals or an arm that comes down those increase the odds of a collision. 

Dave Hinson, of Franklin County, is the Transportation Chairman for the Missouri Transportation of Counties and was heavily involved in the process of compiling the MoDOT report.  

“Railroads reached out to the state of Missouri and said hey if you guys put in this amount of money the federal government will double that and so we’ll be getting almost four times the money of what you’re putting in,” Hinson told ABC 17 News.  “So it was really a no-brainer.” 

For the most part the railroad operators and trains that run on them were on board with the changes. 

Amtrack did not seem too concerned about any potential railroad cancellations telling ABC 17 News  “The tracks are owned by BNSF and union pacific. we will follow whatever directions they provide.” 

BNSF -- who owns the railroad of where the fatal Chariton County crash occurred -- told ABC 17 News in a statement: “The safety improvements that the chairman raised are improvements to those non-rail-controlled areas of the crossing, including the approach.”

Union Pacific also said in a written statement that, “Safety is paramount and we look forward to working with the Missouri Department of Transportation.”

Railroads are not responsible for railroad warning signals at crossings. MoDOT will be responsible for the upgrades and will be issuing the contracts. it will be a several-year process to the upgrades going. 

Franklin County had one of the crossings where MoDOT recommended improvements. 

That one is beginning to get used more frequently,” Hinson said. “In general we don’t have too many accidents at nonsignal crossings. the issue is the past few accidents we’ve had in the county they were signaled and they had cross arms down and people tried to cross them.”