Crossings / Illinois / Chicago
Chicago
Illinois.
The federal crossing inventory lists 265 public at-grade railroad crossings in Chicago, IL, operated by 15 railroads. 182 of them carry more than one track.
Who runs the track
NORTHEAST ILLINOIS REGIONAL COMMUTER RAIL CORP. -- METRA operates 108 of the crossings here, 41% of the total, ahead of Norfolk Southern Railway Company at 33.
Train services crossing these streets: freight (141), tourist/other (69), commuter (50) and intercity (23).
| Railroad | Crossings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| NORTHEAST ILLINOIS REGIONAL COMMUTER RAIL CORP. -- METRA | 108 | 41% |
| Norfolk Southern Railway Company | 33 | 12% |
| Union Pacific Railroad Company | 27 | 10% |
| Belt Railway Company Of Chicago | 25 | 9% |
| CSX Transportation | 20 | 8% |
| Chicago Rail Link | 17 | 6% |
How much traffic is reported
The busiest crossing at N Canal Street on Amtrak (National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is credited with 215 train movements a day; the middle of the range across all 265 is 30. These are counts the operating railroad reported to the FRA, not measurements, and a crossing's figure can be several years old.
The highest timetable speed recorded at any crossing here is 79 mph.
Warning devices
202 of the 265 crossings carry gates and 13 have flashing lights without gates. 50 (19%) have neither, which means crossbucks, a stop sign, or no marking the inventory records at all. The inventory describes equipment, not how a crossing performs.
Horns and quiet zones
130 of the crossings (49%) are recorded under a whistle ban. A quiet zone is not silence: horns still sound for emergencies, track workers and at the engineer's discretion, and the status in the inventory is only as current as the last railroad filing.
Incident history
Form 57 records 159 reported incidents at these crossings since 2016, involving 25 deaths and 64 injuries. Incident counts follow traffic and exposure as much as anything about a crossing itself.
- North Nagle Avenue — 10 reported incidents
- Caldwell Ave — 9 reported incidents
- 87th Street — 7 reported incidents
- W 119th Street — 6 reported incidents
- S Racine Avenue — 4 reported incidents
What this page is not
This is a summary of a federal inventory, not a measurement and not a rating. RailContext does not score crossings, streets or towns, and nothing here says a crossing is safe or unsafe, or that a neighbourhood is quiet or loud. Train counts are estimates the operating railroad filed, sometimes years ago, and a quiet zone does not guarantee silence.
To see the individual crossings nearest one address rather than a whole city, use the address check.