A Jeep slows down Wednesday afternoon, May 4, to cross the railroad tracks on East Center Street in Warsaw. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW – Crossing the railroad tracks on several streets in Warsaw, like Center Street, vehicles almost come to a complete stop before treading over them because of the poor condition they’re in.

The city is aware of the deteriorating state of the crossings and is pressing the railroad companies to address them, but Mayor Joe Thallemer delivered some bad news to the Warsaw Traffic Commission about that on Wednesday after a little bit of good news. 

“From an east/west perspective, (Street Superintendent) Dustin (Dillon) and I went out on the road with CF&E –  their engineer and track supervisor – all those intersections are pretty much programmed for next year, but we stood at Bronson and watched the traffic go by, and I think they agreed to potentially do Bronson Street this year. That’s all tentative,” Thallemer said.

He said CF&E will do some patching on some of the other crossings that are rough.

“But when they come through and do a complete redo, they go down to the rails. They put new rails in the whole thing. So the only one they thought maybe they needed to do this year, that they were going to try to leapfrog, was Bronson,” Thallemer said.

Dillon said that was dependent on what happened with Winona Lake’s roundabout project. 

“And now the bad news,” Thallemer said before reading an email from Norfolk Southern on the north/south tracks. 

Reading the email, he said, “Mayor, I’ve talked to our track department again in regard to the crossings – these are all the crossings north/south. They’re aware of the issue but scheduling a time to do the work is complex. They need to get track time in order to make the repairs, which means trains can not run at that time. Because the nature of the crossing is difficult to repair, they’ll have to cut the whole service out, which takes additional time. Workforce is stretched very thin right now and they’re unable to provide me a date on which this work might begin. I’ve asked to see if there’s any short-term solutions that can be implemented, but I’ve not heard back. I’ll continue to press for a solution for this.”

Thallemer said when he first talked to Norfolk/Southern he was told that work was programmed until 2024.

“I basically told him that the traffic safety improvements that they put on Hickory Street are pretty much predicated on the quality of those crossings, especially the Center Street crossing. As bad a shape as it is, it slows people down and it’s now impacting the through traffic,” he said, adding that he mentioned Center Street as the worst example. “So I will continue to press Norfolk Southern and we may have to ratchet it up to the next level, maybe our state representatives.”

He said it was a constant frustration dealing with Norfolk Southern, but CF&E has a local representative who has been responsive. 

Traffic Administrator Lance Grubbs said he’s heard about the lights “prior to the three (railroad) crossings at Market, Center and Main (streets). Is there a chance that the cycle can start 3 to 4 seconds sooner than the one on Detroit Street so that traffic that is westbound will have an opportunity to cross the railroad tracks and more vehicles can travel through that intersection rather than have to wait at the second light?”

Thallemer said he wasn’t going to comment on that because the engineers were the ones that helped the city out initially, but he was certainly willing to have them come back up and look. 

“But with the crossings in the shape they’re in, that’s what’s slowing traffic flow down,” he said. 

Thallemer said he called the Indiana Department of Transportation and suggested to them, “If we can’t improve this, I just ask you to turn those signals off. But they did get a hold of CF & E and the idea was that they were going to try to push them to do the repairs. But you can see what (email) we got.” 

Grubbs said that might be a short-term solution to give drivers a little more time to cross that railroad crossing so they can make the next light at Detroit Street.

“We have had that conversation,” said Warsaw Community Economic and Development Director Jeremy Skinner. “That is not the way it was set up to be done. Obviously, the intent of the second signal is to keep people off the tracks, so by allowing it to go on then you’re putting people back on the tracks. So far, (INDOT) has said no, they’re not going to do that. The second outcome of what they designed is, they’ve got rid of the turn phase signal, in case you haven’t noticed, it just goes yellow. And the reason it works is because you’re stopping everybody back … So from the time it goes green to the time someone comes up, people can make that turn which clears the turn, sometimes, not all the time.”

When there’s heavy traffic on Center Street, the turn signal starts to back up because there’s not enough time for people to clear. 

Dillon said, “On the railroad crossings, there are the crossing number and the phone number on each crossing. As rough as they are, I think you have time to write it down.”

He said while CF&E has been great at getting the east/west tracks patched, Norfolk Southern has not been as willing to help out on the north/south tracks. “But the more people that call, the better it is. We call at least once every other day on those crossings,” Dillon said, adding that the more people that call, the better. 

In another matter, City Engineer Aaron Ott brought an issue up the Traffic Commission that they may have to consider at its June 1 meeting.

“Winona Lake has awarded the construction of their roundabout at Argonne, Kings Highway and Winona Avenue. Utilities are down there working now, but the contractor hopes to come in after July 4, the contractor being Phend & Brown. Phend & Brown and Winona Lake and INDOT are negotiating a possible change of traffic control plan for the construction of that, and it very well could affect Warsaw’s traffic flow,” Ott said.

One of the proposals deemed “unfavorable” by all parties involves keeping Argonne Road closed and closing McKinley Street, which would force all traffic over to Bronson. “I think that idea is going to get shot down, but one way or another there’s going to be a proposal for a traffic plan come forward and I think we’re going to need to discuss that here,” he said.

Thallemer said the idea with CF&E was to try to get Bronson Street railroad crossing done before the detour occurs, but they don’t know if it’s going to happen because it sounded like the roundabout schedule was getting pretty aggressive. 

Ott said Winona Lake wants to keep two-way traffic flowing all times, but that puts stress on the contractor’s ability to get much work done. “And they also have limitations on what time of day they could change the traffic patterns and closures and whatnot,” he said. 

Thallemer said a huge reason not to use Bronson Street for the detour is because of the condition of the tracks right now. Funneling everyone across there would make it worse. 

“We actually talked to CF&E about the rubber inserts instead of asphalt that they put on 15. They’re very expensive, but we wanted an option to know potentially we could partner with the railroad to help with truck traffic and a detour situation,” Thallemer said, though he wasn’t in favor of paying the railroad to do what they’re supposed to be doing anyway. “But this would be somewhat of an upgrade.” 

He said Bronson gets a lot of truck traffic and it’s not in good shape right now. 

Dillon said the roundabout work will impact area traffic for six months.