New company uses cameras to inform public of blocked railroad crossings

ELKHART, Ind. — Newly installed cameras that automatically feed real-time information to a website are helping first responders and the general public know when trains are occupying grade crossings near the northern Indiana town of Goshen, Ind., near Elkhart. BlockedCrossings, a private company, recently installed eight cameras at intersections in and south of Goshen, Ind., along Norfolk Southern rail lines.

The cameras, mounted on utility poles, focus on crossings’ flashing lights. When those warning devices are activated, the cameras capture that information and with software, relay it to a cloud-based server that populates the information to a map on the company’s website. On that map, grade crossings display red when a train occupies the crossing and green when grade crossings are clear.

The camera images are not posted on the website, as it’s used only to feed information to the website and server using programming code.

One camera in Goshen watches over a grade crossing on Norfolk Southern’s former New York Central Chicago Line, where as many as 100 trains pass per day. The other seven cameras are installed near grade crossings between Goshen and Milford Jct., Ind., covering about an 8-mile area on NS’s Marion District, part of the original ‘Big Four’ of NYC predecessor Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway..

Douglas Miller, a Goshen-area resident curious about how many trains pass through the community each day, developed and programmed the system primarily as a hobby. A couple of years ago, he went into business with colleague Glenn Gilbert and formalized the project as a private LLC. Miller’s son, James, is also involved in website management.

The business is already garnering attention, and Miller says the city of Goshen has helped. The company is hoping to expand coverage in the downtown area soon.

“The City of Goshen is interested in our system, and has provided resources as we worked through getting a robust system developed that would survive out in the wild,” Miller says. “We couldn’t have done it nearly as well as we have without the city’s support. We’re hoping they join up soon, and we can cover Goshen.”

Each camera costs about $5,000 and about $1,200 in annual maintenance and operating costs. To date, the company has spent $40,000 in eight cameras and will spend about $9,600 per year in ongoing maintenance costs.

Miller says they are not in the business to make money, though.

“It will have to generate revenue, but we’re not primarily in it for that. If we could have done it as a ‘give back’, we would have. But we don’t have the personal resources to do that,” he says.

Their intention was to always make it available to the general public and, especially, first responders.

“We do want to stress the first responders, though,” he says. “It’s bad enough to have to wait ten minutes for a blocked crossing. It’s a lot worse when lives are on the line and seconds count. That’s been a huge motivator to us.”

Glenn Gilbert, who also spoke with Trains News Wire, says the company is not working with the railroads since the sole purpose of the project is only to report when crossings are blocked.

“In fact, as our name implies, we are monitoring the status of crossings, are they blocked or not.  We are not monitoring trains,’ says Gilbert.

“Our service to the community is to report the status of crossings. That is what life safety needs to know.  We don’t anticipate needing to interact with the railroads to report the status of the crossing,” he says. “So far we have not had any feedback or input from the railroad.”

In addition to Goshen, other communities are also expressing interest, says Miller.

“We’ll see where it goes from here. We’re certainly willing to host other communities, if they have the need.”