Crossings / Illinois / Des Plaines
Des Plaines
Illinois.
The federal crossing inventory lists 31 public at-grade railroad crossings in Des Plaines, IL, operated by 2 railroads. 24 of them carry more than one track.
Who runs the track
Union Pacific Railroad Company operates 16 of the crossings here, 52% of the total, ahead of WISCONSIN CENTRAL LTD. at 15.
Train services crossing these streets: freight (31), commuter (20), tourist/other (9) and intercity (5).
| Railroad | Crossings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Union Pacific Railroad Company | 16 | 52% |
| WISCONSIN CENTRAL LTD. | 15 | 48% |
How much traffic is reported
The busiest crossing at South Des Plaines River Road on Union Pacific Railroad Company is credited with 65 train movements a day; the middle of the range across all 31 is 15. 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 70 mph.
Warning devices
31 of the 31 crossings carry gates and 0 have flashing lights without gates. Every crossing here has an active warning device. The inventory describes equipment, not how a crossing performs.
Horns and quiet zones
29 of the crossings (94%) 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 9 reported incidents at these crossings since 2016, involving 5 deaths and 2 injuries. Incident counts follow traffic and exposure as much as anything about a crossing itself.
- Mt Prospect Road — 2 reported incidents
- Pearson Street — 1 reported incident
- Graceland Avenue — 1 reported incident
- South Wolf Road — 1 reported incident
- Des Plaines River — 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.