Stuck BNSF train blocks the FM 922 crossing in Valley View for hours

A BNSF train sat across the FM 922 railroad crossing in Valley View for several hours Friday night, Nov. 13, blocking the road where it meets the northbound Interstate 35 service road, the Valley View Police Department said.

In a Facebook post a little before 9:40 p.m., the department said the train had been stuck there for several hours and that BNSF had given no estimate for when it would move.

The department also asked people to take their complaints to the railroad. "There is nothing the City of Valley View nor the Valley View Police Department can do about the train being stuck on the tracks," the post said. It gave BNSF's line, 888-428-2673, and said City Hall "is not the proper line to issue your complaints as we have nothing to do with the railroad." That number is the customer support line BNSF lists on its own website.

The post did not say why the train stopped or suggest a way around it.

Why the city cannot clear it

Texas law still has a rule on the books. Section 471.007 of the Transportation Code bars a train from blocking a street or highway crossing for more than 10 minutes. In 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, whose rulings bind the federal courts in Texas, held in Friberg v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co. that a 1995 federal railroad law preempts the Texas statute. The court reasoned that a limit on how long a train may sit at a crossing reaches into train length, speed and scheduling, which Congress left to federal control.

Washington has not filled that gap. The Federal Railroad Administration says no federal law or regulation limits how long a train may block a crossing.

Where a report goes

The FRA runs a public form for blocked crossings at fra.dot.gov/blockedcrossings. A resident picks the crossing on a map and gives the date, the time and how long it was blocked. The agency asks for one report per blocked crossing. It shares the reports with railroads and with state and local officials and uses them to find crossings that are blocked again and again.

The form is not for emergencies. For an emergency at a crossing, the FRA points people to the blue Emergency Notification System sign posted there, which carries a phone number for the railroad and the crossing's ID number.

As of the department's post, BNSF had not given a time for the crossing to reopen.