A State Supreme Court decision has eliminated one possible deterrent to blocked crossings—fines against the railroads—in the ongoing problems between area cities and railroad companies over blockings by freight trains for extended periods of time.

Roger Huebner, general counsel for the Illinois Municipal League, compared the situation to allowing someone to park a 747 jumbo jet on the Dan Ryan Expressway. Current work rules require that a train stop wherever it is when crews need to be changed.

He was surprised that the League had not gotten many calls since numerous communities have suffered for a long time with blocked railroad crossing problems.

But one municipal leader said fines had not proven very effective and that his city is moving ahead on its own to try to get around the problem.

“We are not going to sit, beg and plead with the federal government,” said Mike Kwasman, mayor of West Chicago.

He noted that the city has a lot of blocked crossings but it did not have an ordinance with fines because it was not effective against the railroad companies which just treated the fines as a cost of doing business.

Kwasman said the federal government has protected the railroads since the horse and buggy days. There are a lot more vehicles on the road today with people who are constituents, according to the mayor. So, the federal government should represent the constituents, not the railroads.

At a meeting of candidates seeking former Rep. Dennis Hastert’s seat in Congress, Kwasman said, “Wake up people. Start representing the constituents.”

Most local governments, he noted, don’t have the money to solve the problem by digging underpasses or building bridges at railroad crossings. West Chicago did not have the $25 million for a Washington Street bridge over railroad tracks.

Because the railroad crossing issue involves ambulances dealing with people’s lives, Kwasman said West Chicagoans had approved a referendum to build two new fire stations, one on the north side and one on the south side, of various railroad tracks running through the community. Final costs are expected to be between $5 million and $10 million for the still-to-be-constructed stations.

An administrator in Des Plaines, another city with many railroad crossings, said people there thought federal legislation might be the way to deal with freight train problems. City Attorney Dave Wiltse said many times there is little or no response to the city from railroad companies about hundreds of problems with blocked crossings.

Other cities like Elmhurst have had a better experience.

“Overall the situation with freight trains blocking crossings is tolerable,” said Elmhurst Police Chief Steven Neubauer. “It is pretty good.”

He said the situation has improved from past years because more freight trains are staged (put together) further west at the far end of the metropolitan area, rather than east of Elmhurst in one of the Chicago rail yards.

The city had an ordinance in effect until a year ago when the State Appellate Court ruled that cities could not fine railroads, which were under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Now Elmhurst police officers call one of the railroad control people and let them know when there is a problem.

Neubauer and his officers can keep an eye on the freight train situation because they look out their windows and see the tracks nearby.

The police station is also near the Robert Palmer Drive underpass which is east of York Road, the major north-south street through the heart of Elmhurst. Vehicle underpasses are rare in suburban cities along various rail lines.

Impetus for the Palmer underpass came nearly 40 years ago when ambulances transporting people to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, just east of downtown and north of the tracks, from the city’s growing south side either had to wait for trains or take the long way around on the Eisenhower (I-290) extension.