CHICAGO -- As monster freight trains--many over a mile long--increasingly block railroad crossings and snarl traffic, frustrated police from Vernon Hills to Blue Island are fighting back, dispatching officers to slap the crews with tickets.

The Chicago Tribune reports that in Melrose Park, where a video camera is mounted outside the police station to nail Union Pacific trains stopped on nearby tracks, cops have written more than 100 tickets in the last year--44 since November--for at least $500 each.

The story is much the same throughout the area, as more officials turn to a 1999 state law that allows them to levy fines when freight trains stop on tracks for more than 10 minutes. The issue looms large in Illinois, which has about 14,000 crossings--more than 6,000 in the Chicago area.

Last month in Mundelein, police wrote $12,000 in tickets at a single crossing, one for $2,500 when a Wisconsin Central freight train closed a major intersection for 42 minutes during rush hour. Blue Island collected $100,000 in fines last year.

The municipalities keep the fines but local officials say that's not the point. They want unobstructed crossings because businesses are being hurt, motorists are risking their lives by going around lowered gates, and traffic is spilling dangerously onto other streets as people try to avoid delays.

"The railroads don't hesitate to pay," said Melrose Park Police Chief Vito Scavo, who keeps an eye on the video monitor near his desk. "But that's no consolation for the aggravation."

Linda Olson, 25, of Mundelein, is familiar with the aggravation. She recently found herself among about 60 motorists stalled by a freight train at Illinois Highway 60 and Butterfield Road.

"It's extremely frustrating," Olson said. "I don't appreciate spending my lunch hour behind the wheel of my car."

Bisected by railroads, Franklin Park has been forced to place a fire station on each side of the main set of tracks to ensure that trucks aren't held up during an emergency, Deputy Police Chief Jack Krecker said. Police have had to adopt new patrol tactics to avoid being stopped cold, or "railroaded," on emergency calls.

All aboard

California and Louisiana have climbed aboard with Illinois, passing laws in the last few years that permit authorities to fine railroads that block crossings. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is co-sponsoring legislation that would require the federal government to address safety concerns, in particular how obstructed crossings affect emergency response times. An identical measure has been introduced in the House.

In Illinois, a bill that would hold railroad executives personally accountable--making chronic delays a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and up to six months in jail--passed the Senate each of the last three years but failed in the House. Sponsors say they are considering whether to try again this session.

A landmark case on the issue is playing out in the state of Washington's Supreme Court, which is considering the constitutionality of a Seattle ordinance that bans trains from obstructing crossings during rush hour. A lower court agreed with the railroads that federal law prohibits the city from regulating rail operations.

Neither the state nor federal government is required to keep records on how often crossings are blocked by stalled trains. But officials with the railroads and Federal Railroad Administration admit it is happening more often and attribute the problem largely to the boom in freight business, which increased 30 percent in the last decade.

Economic ramifications

The railroads tracked the robust economy, providing the cheapest way to transport bulk freight and perishable goods coast-to-coast, officials say.

"Freight train traffic is at a level unprecedented in our history," said Warren Flatau, spokesman for the railroad administration, the federal agency responsible for monitoring safety.

To accommodate that spike in demand, railroads have added almost 1,000 feet to the average length of a freight train, so that trains with 100 cars or more--many over 1.5 miles long--are increasingly common, officials say.

Technological breakthroughs over the last few decades have allowed railroads to nearly double the capacity of a standard boxcar.

The longer, heavier trains have more difficulty clearing grade crossings, as they roll to a halt to unload freight or await clearance to cross a competitor's rails, said John Bromley, spokesman for Union Pacific. And the flurry of railroad mergers and consolidations in recent years has meant more traffic on fewer tracks, he said.

As a consequence, "We're like the bull in the china shop of modern America," Bromley said.

Illinois is the U.S. leader in the volume of freight carried on the nation's rails, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Eleven percent of the coal moved by rail in 2000 ended up going through Illinois--more than any other state. And those coal trains are typically the longest, often running 134 cars, Bromley said.

He attributed complaints about freight trains blocking roadways to a widening gap between the rail industry and those it serves. For many people, encounters at blocked crossings are the only contact they have with railroads, Bromley said.

The contributions railroads have made to the nation can be hard to appreciate when big trains virtually paralyze traffic, Blue Island Mayor Don Peloquin said.

The south suburban community grew up around the railroads, but the increase in freight traffic and longer trains have soured that relationship, said Peloquin, whose father worked for the Rock Island Railroad for 45 years.

"With the longer trains, the yards can't hold them and they back up into the city, blocking roadways. Sometimes, entire crews will abandon the trains, leaving them parked on the tracks," he said.

Fine collection

The $100,000 the city collected in railroad fines last year doesn't compensate for the headaches and potential dangers, Peloquin said.

In Illinois, it has been unlawful since 1999 for a train to obstruct a highway grade crossing for more than 10 minutes. Fines range between $200 and $500 if the obstruction is between 10 and 15 minutes. The amount increases for each additional five minutes. After 35 minutes, the fine hits $1,000 and increases by $500 for every five minutes.

Derek Hilldale, who owns a restaurant several hundred feet west of a crossing in Franklin Park, said the delays are rough on his lunch trade.

"Some days, I'll get a bunch of phone-in orders for lunch, then a bunch of phone calls 15 or 20 minutes later canceling the orders because a freight train is blocking the tracks and my customers, many who live and work east of the tracks, can't get here," Hilldale said.

"It's obnoxious," Jaclyn Javurek, 18, a college student from Buffalo Grove said of the delays she encounters at Illinois 60 and Butterfield Road in Mundelein. "A few weeks ago, the train sat on the tracks for about a half hour, and I was really late for work."

Accident factor

Krecker believes the frustrations associated with blocked crossings are contributing to fatal accidents. Frequent delays in Franklin Park spur some motorists to drive around stopped freight trains, he said, only to collide with trains heading the opposite direction. Plus, people trying to avoid crossings clog other roads, leading to more accidents, police say.

Nationally, the number of fatalities at highway rail crossings increased to 425 in 2000 from 402 in 1999, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. In Illinois during that same period, 68 people died in accidents at rail crossings, 62 percent of them involving freight trains. Illinois is second to Texas in the number of fatal train accidents.

"This is about more than making people late for work," Krecker said.

"We have at least one incident a year in which a motorist is killed as a result of going around a stopped freight."