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Crossings / Iowa / Council Bluffs

Council Bluffs
Iowa.

Public crossings56at grade, on the FRA inventory
With gates43%23 with no active device
Under a whistle ban0as last filed by the railroad
Reported incidents5Form 57, since 2016

The federal crossing inventory lists 56 public at-grade railroad crossings in Council Bluffs, IA, operated by 5 railroads. 19 of them carry more than one track.

Who runs the track

Union Pacific Railroad Company operates 21 of the crossings here, 38% of the total, ahead of BNSF Railway Company at 18.

Train services crossing these streets: freight (55).

RailroadCrossingsShare
Union Pacific Railroad Company2138%
BNSF Railway Company1832%
Iowa Interstate Railroad916%
Chicago, Central & Pacific Railroad Company713%
Non-regulated Industry12%

How much traffic is reported

The busiest crossing at Lime Kiln Road on Union Pacific Railroad Company is credited with 22 train movements a day; the middle of the range across all 56 is 1. 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 60 mph.

Warning devices

24 of the 56 crossings carry gates and 9 have flashing lights without gates. 23 (41%) 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

No crossing here is recorded under a whistle ban, so trains sound the standard horn pattern on approach.

Incident history

Form 57 records 5 reported incidents at these crossings since 2016. Incident counts follow traffic and exposure as much as anything about a crossing itself.

  • 2nd Ave — 2 reported incidents
  • Avenue B — 1 reported incident
  • Gilliat Ave — 1 reported incident
  • South 35th Street — 1 reported incident

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.

Other Iowa cities on the inventory

All Iowa cities →