CN will repair 11 crossings in Fox Cities this year

The railroad responsible for maintaining the rails in and near the Fox Cities in Wisconsin will fix or replace 11 crossings in and near the Fox Cities, including the two deemed worst of the bunch by Post-Crescent readers in April, the Appleton Post-Crescent reports.

CN released the list of
crossing "renewal" projects it will complete by fall in a response to
a request by the newspaper.

The list will offer
relief to the readers who placed the Appleton crossings of S. Mason Street and Badger
Avenue atop the list of best-avoided crossings in the Fox Cities. Yet it will
disappoint more than half the readers who contacted the paper to report the
rough crossings they said are most in need of smoothing over.

It also falls short of
the mark for Joann Berryhill, of Appleton, who prompted The P-C’s recent rough-crossing
coverage after reporting her Dodge Intrepid sustained $700 in suspension system
damages when passing the Lawe Street crossing in Appleton on March 16.
Berryhill lobbied the railroad to fix the Lawe Street crossing, but without
success so far.

Appleton Public Works
Director Paula Vandehey said the Lawe and Superior street crossings generate
the most complaints of any in the city not scheduled for repairs this year.

CN spokesman Patrick
Waldron said the list amounts to a "full" but fairly typical annual
schedule of crossing "renewals" in the Fox Cities area. He said the
crossing repairs aren’t targeted for specific completion dates, but all will be
done before the paving season ends, typically in mid-November.

"It’s like any road
construction program," Waldron said. "There’s a list of jobs and a
schedule that’s determined by the availability of crews and access to materials.
It’s coordinated with the (communities) so you know when the roads can be
closed for the repairs."

Tom Klemstein called the
newspaper after the survey was done to report his discontent with the crossing of
Perkins Street about a block and a half from his home in the southwest corner
of Appleton. He had called the railroad beforehand and was pleased that CN
crews "were looking into" the condition of the crossing.

Klemstein said he drove
over the worst-rated S. Mason Street crossing for comparison, and found it, roughly
speaking, about as bad as the one on Perkins, the only other crossing to garner
more than three worst-crossing nominations in the survey.

"It was pretty
bad," Klemstein conceded of the Mason Street crossing marked with city
signs warning of a "DIP" from one approach and a "BUMP"
from the other. "I would say it’s rough in a couple of spots, but the one
on Perkins is bad all the way across."

Klemstein said the rails
crossing Perkins sink eight inches or more each time a train crosses due to a lack
of underlying support. He says the rails are a safety hazard for trains – and a
joyless ride for the cars that cross them.

The Perkins Street crossing
didn’t make the list for repairs this year, but Klemstein said he’s grateful
for the newspaper’s attention to rough crossing issues in the Fox Cities.

"Maybe some of the
people who don’t normally travel these routes are aware of the problem
now," Klemstein said. "I did see some CN trucks around here, so maybe
that’s a good sign."