WARSAW — About a dozen times each day in Warsaw, the twin red lights at Center and Hickory streets begin flashing, followed almost immediately by the wooden arm of a railroad crossing signal lowering to stop traffic.

Traffic moving on Center Street grinds to a halt. Depending on how fast the train is moving, vehicles begin to accumulate. On the west side of the tracks, traffic is affected both in east-west directions and on SR 15 where vehicles move north and south. East of the tracks on Center Street, the bottleneck of vehicles can stretch for blocks — even further on days when the train must stop to allow an east-west train to pass to the south.

Commuters in Warsaw who are traveling north or south have plenty of options when it comes to navigating around a slow or stopped train. This is not the case for east-west travelers.

The Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad lines that cut through the town in an east-west direction are penetrated by viaducts that allow street traffic to continue north or south. There are three north-south viaducts in Warsaw. Those underpasses are located on Argonne Road near the border where Warsaw and Winona Lake meet; at Columbia Street and at Hand Ave.

The north-south traveling train tracks, traveled by Norfolk Southern, do not have any viaducts. Traffic in Warsaw crosses the north-south tracks on eight east-west streets. Those crossings are located at Pope Street, Winona Avenue, Market Street, Center Street, Main Street (one way heading west), Fort Wayne Street (one way heading east), Arthur Street (one way heading east) and Lyon Street. The eight railroad crossings in the city limits of Warsaw span only 11 blocks.

To the casual observer, who might see the rise in terrain as Center Street approaches the Norfolk Southern’s north-south tracks, the solution to this issue could seem as simple as creating an underpass to allow vehicle traffic at this one location to continue on regardless of train traffic. This very issue has been on the tongues of public officials for some time, according to Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallmer.

“We’ve really been looking at this thing because it is an issue,” said Thallemer. “There are a couple of things that, unfortunately, are big obstacles that make it not as easy.”

The possibility of an underpass, known officially known as a grade separation crossing was addressed in Warsaw’s comprehensive plan. This project was determined to be too cost prohibitive with a rough estimate price tag of $25 to $30 million.

However, a glimmer of hope appeared earlier this month with an announcement by the Indiana Department of Transportation that funds could be available for such a project through a program called Local Trax, a matching grant program designed to help fund high-priority railroad safety projects.

“Since the rail line crosses a locally-maintained street, Center Street, a potential project at this location would qualify for the Local Trax program,” said Scott Manning, strategic communications director for INDOT.

“Should the City of Warsaw submit a project proposal as part of Local Trax, the scoring team will evaluate the project based on program criteria. Since scoring has not yet begun, it is too early to say where any given project would fall in terms of urgency or priority.”

According to Thallemer, the program would provide an 80-20 match, which could still mean about $6 million out of the Warsaw coffers should such a project be deemed feasible and with the project costing the highest estimate of $30 million.

“With this funding being made available, we’re certainly going to look into it,” said Thallemer. “We’ve been certainly wrestling with this. This is something that as long as you live in Warsaw, it’s a problem. It’s just been an ongoing situation.”

According to Norfolk Southern, the trains that travel through Warsaw, about 10 to 14 trains daily, are part of the Marion branch line, which runs between Anderson and Goshen.

“Norfolk Southern became owner of this line after our partial acquisition of Conrail in 1999,” said Jonathan Glass, manager of public relations for Norfolk Southern.

In Part Two of this series, community negative impacts of having no east-west grade separation crossing will be analyzed, including issues of public safety, environmental impacts and strains on quality of life. In the conclusion, an in-depth study of obstacles and pitfalls to such a project will be profiled.