Management of federally funded highway-rail grade crossing improvement projects, from application support through construction and closeout. Across the Lower 48 States.
The Railway-Highway Crossings Program, universally called Section 130 after its authorizing section of title 23 of the United States Code, provides federal funding for safety improvements at public highway-rail grade crossings. Funds are apportioned to the states and administered through state departments of transportation, which set priorities and select projects in coordination with the railroads involved.
For a short line or an industrial owner, Section 130 is often the only realistic route to funding crossing work. It is also a process with its own documentation requirements, coordination demands, and pace. AmeriTrac manages these projects so they progress rather than stall.
Eligibility, scoring, and priority are set by the state DOT and vary between states, which is why early engagement with the state program is usually more productive than a fully formed proposal arriving unannounced.
A Section 130 project has more parties than a comparable private job. The state DOT administers the funding and sets requirements. The railroad owns the crossing surface and signal system and performs or approves work within its right of way. The road authority owns the approaches. Where a short line connects to a Class 1, that carrier may have an interest too.
Most delay on these projects is coordination rather than construction. Agreements have to be executed between parties whose approval cycles differ, diagnostic reviews scheduled with everyone present, and force account estimates prepared and accepted before work is authorized. A crossing project that takes three days to build routinely takes many months to reach that point.
Our role is to keep that moving: assembling documentation, tracking approvals, scheduling the reviews, and keeping each party informed of what is waiting on them.
Engagements cover crossing inventory and condition review, support in identifying and prioritizing candidate crossings, preparation of the condition and cost documentation applications depend on, coordination with the state DOT and road authority, diagnostic review attendance, force account estimate preparation and review, construction management during the work, and closeout documentation.
Owners frequently find the documentation burden, rather than the engineering, is what stalls a project. Applications that lack defensible condition evidence or credible cost information do not get prioritized, and there is rarely anyone to explain why.
States prioritize using their own criteria, generally weighing exposure such as traffic volumes and train counts, existing protection, sight distance, and accident history. Understanding how your state scores candidates is what determines whether a crossing is put forward with a realistic prospect or simply added to a list.
That analysis also identifies where closure is the stronger option. Consolidating two poor crossings into one improved crossing frequently scores better and delivers more safety benefit than upgrading both, and it is an argument worth making early rather than after an application has been declined.
The Railway-Highway Crossings Program, named for its section of title 23 of the United States Code. It provides federal funding for safety improvements at public highway-rail grade crossings, apportioned to the states and administered by state departments of transportation in coordination with the railroads.
Projects are selected by the state DOT under its own program, typically in coordination with the railroad and the road authority. Railroads and public agencies engage with the state program rather than applying to a federal body directly. Requirements and scoring differ by state.
Considerably longer than the construction implies, because the coordination and approval sequence involves several parties with different cycles. Timelines are usually measured in many months from identification to construction, which is why keeping documentation and approvals moving matters more than the build itself.
Often, yes. Closure removes the risk entirely rather than mitigating it, and consolidating two poor crossings into one improved crossing frequently scores better and delivers more benefit than upgrading both. It is worth evaluating before defaulting to an upgrade.
Yes. We support identification, documentation, and coordination through approval, then manage construction and closeout, so the same party carries the project end to end rather than handing it off partway.
AmeriTrac works throughout the Lower 48 States. To discuss a crossing project, contact Phillip Jureczki on 281.830.1188 or at PJureczki@AmeriTrac.cc.
