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Crossings / Washington / Tacoma

Tacoma
Washington.

Public crossings84at grade, on the FRA inventory
With gates20%48 with no active device
Under a whistle ban0as last filed by the railroad
Reported incidents38Form 57, since 2016

The federal crossing inventory lists 84 public at-grade railroad crossings in Tacoma, WA, operated by 6 railroads. 20 of them carry more than one track.

Who runs the track

Tacoma Municipal Belt Line Railway operates 37 of the crossings here, 44% of the total, ahead of BNSF Railway Company at 15.

Train services crossing these streets: freight (83), intercity (15) and commuter (12).

RailroadCrossingsShare
Tacoma Municipal Belt Line Railway3744%
BNSF Railway Company1518%
Sounder Commuter Rail1214%
Union Pacific Railroad Company810%
TACOMA RAIL MOUNTAIN DIVISION78%
RAINIER RAIL LLC56%

How much traffic is reported

The busiest crossing at Chandler St on Sounder Commuter Rail is credited with 32 train movements a day; the middle of the range across all 84 is 0. 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

17 of the 84 crossings carry gates and 19 have flashing lights without gates. 48 (57%) 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 38 reported incidents at these crossings since 2016, involving 5 deaths and 4 injuries. Incident counts follow traffic and exposure as much as anything about a crossing itself.

  • McCarver Street — 4 reported incidents
  • Milwaukee Way Sim — 4 reported incidents
  • Portoftacoma — 4 reported incidents
  • 6th Avenue — 3 reported incidents
  • Taylor Way — 3 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.

Other Washington cities on the inventory

All Washington cities →