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If you live or work in Moorhead, you build train time into your schedule.


 
City engineer Bob Zimmerman lives it. His office is located between two train tracks. He spends a lot of time waiting.


 
"When I drive through downtown, invariably you're going to end up at a signal somewhere with a train more than half the time," he said. "It's very interesting to watch what happens."


 
Zimmerman sees drivers cut through traffic and zip across parking lots to beat traffic jams. The result is a disproportionate number of accidents at downtown intersections. "People are taking chances they shouldn't be or they're not obeying a signal that they should be," he said. "I'm not blaming anyone, it's just frustration."


 
The frustration is only worsening as train traffic jumps. The region's largest carrier, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, reports traffic out of North Dakota is up 144 percent in the past five years. Much of that traffic flows through Minnesota.

As oil trains roll, local firefighters prepare

 
Eighth Street, one of Moorhead's main streets, gets about 10,000 vehicles each day — and it crosses two sets of BNSF railroad tracks just over a block apart. Trains delay traffic on this street more than 100 times each day, which translates into drivers spending more than 90 hours a day waiting for trains on just this street.


 
It won't get better any time soon. The Minnesota Department of Transportation projects rail traffic will grow the most on the rail line from Moorhead to Minneapolis over the next 25 years. Train traffic through Moorhead could nearly double.


 
At a public meeting this week, Moorhead city leaders talked about solutions to the congestion, delays and disruptions. They have ideas but no strong sense yet of how to pay for any of them.


 
It's more than a simple nuisance. The delays can be life threatening. Data collected this year show Moorhead fire and rescue crews wait at rail crossings an average of nine times a month.


 
"If we have to get somewhere to save somebody's life, it's a matter of minutes," Clay County Emergency Manager Bryan Green said. "The sooner we get there, the better. And we're at the point right now where something has to be done."


 
There are ways around the trains. But existing rail underpasses require a lengthy detour. Green said trains sometimes trigger so much congestion emergency crews are stuck in traffic.


 
"A fire, every minute it goes without any suppression is going to double in size," said Moorhead Assistant Fire Marshal Chad Stangeland. "If we do a four or five minute delay trying to get around the traffic and trains, that can have a sizable impact of what we can fight."


 
Some communities have solved the rail problem. Two hours southeast of Moorhead, the same BNSF mainline splits the town of Staples, Minnesota. The town of 3,000 built a bridge over the tracks, two years ago, thanks to an $8 million federal grant.


 
It's made the town safer, said Staples Mayor Chris Etzler.


 
"There's story after story in this community of ambulances sitting and waiting at rail crossings, fire trucks," Etzler said. "Not long before the bridge was built a home was lost on the south side. It was on fire and the fire trucks were waiting for the train."


 
People are also more willing to buy homes in a part of town once cut off from schools hospitals and businesses by railroad tracks, the mayor added.


 
Moorhead just finished studying options for a downtown rail underpass. It would tunnel under both sets of tracks that split the city. It would cost more than $50 million. The big question is how to pay for it.


 
Moorhead has been trying to fund a rail underpass in another part of town for a dozen years. Four applications for federal funding have failed, Zimmerman said.


 
"We are competing against the big cities. Those folks can tap into other sources of funding. That makes their grant applications more competitive than ours," he said. "We're sort of a small fish in that big ocean of huge cities."

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Drivers spend more than 90 hours a day waiting for trains on just one Moorhead street. Officials have fixes in mind but don't yet know how to pay for them.

As train traffic hassles mount, Moorhead seeks solutions, money

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