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Design & Construction Standards

Traffic and Safety Resources

Railroad-Highway Crossings

photo of Alaska railroad train

Approximately 219 public at-grade railroad-highway crossings exist on Alaska’s roads and highways.  Additional crossings exist on private lands.  Railroad companies and the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) share responsibility for maintaining and providing traffic control devices at public crossings. 

Alaska has two railroads:

  • The Alaska Railroad (ARR), which runs approximately 650 miles from Seward to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, and
  • The historic White Pass-Yukon Railroad, which runs from Skagway to the international border with British Columbia—about 20 miles--and on to Carcross, Yukon Territory, a total of 67 miles. 

The Alaska Traffic Manual (ATM) gives guidance for selection of traffic control devices for at-grade railroad-highway crossings and refers to the DOT&PF/ARR Policy on Railroad/Highway Crossings, which defines a process for further analysis. See Part VIII Traffic Control Systems for Railroad-Highway Grade Crossing guidance.

The Federal Railroad Administration maintains an inventory of public railroad-highway crossings, with the cooperation of states and railroads.

Train/vehicle collisions in Alaska have declined significantly since the early 1980s.


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