Indian Hill railroad crossing to close for good

JACKSON TWP. — A railroad crossing that has been identified as unsafe and dangerous by the Indiana Rail Road Company on Indian Hill Road is set to be closed permanently.

The crossing is near the end of Indian Hill Road that connects to State Road 45.

A date for when the closing will happen has not been set.

At the April 15 Brown County Commissioners meeting, Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner said that Indiana Rail Road had been discussing the crossing and what to do with it for about two years. They have now formally requested that the county close the crossing.

“You have to elevate from the floodplain over the tracks. It’s a blind hump for about 15 feet you cannot see across the tracks. To compound that, you’re right at the end of a railroad bridge that is a steel girder where the sides of the structure actually block your line of sight up the tracks to where you cannot see the trains coming,” Magner said.

Indiana Rail Road put together a proposal for the county to close the crossing with the commissioners’ approval. “They can actually bypass us if we do not agree to it. They can petition to the state and close it anyways just for a public safety issue,” Magner said.

Magner said he would soon bring the contract for the commissioners to approve and sign. After that, the railroad company will have 60 days to review and agree to it.

“At the same time we would also submit for grant money to do get additional money to do improvements to the road to allow people who actually live on Indian Hill to be able to go to south back down to Plum Creek,” Magner said.

Commissioners President Jerry Pittman asked Magner what kind of inconvenience this permanent closure would create for residents of Indian Hill Road. Magner said there’s a group of houses closer to Plum Creek — which connects to the other end of Indian Hill — and there’s one other house closer to the crossing. “Depending on which direction they were going, if they were going to go to Indianapolis, yes it will be a detour. If they were headed to Nashville or Bloomington, it’s just as close to go south anyways,” Magner said about that home.

He said his department would watch in the wintertime to make sure the large hill is treated. “Since it’s a gravel road, it will be a secondary maintenance route, but that’s something we’d keep a closer eye on,” he said.

The resolution to close the crossing due to safety was approved unanimously at the May 6 commissioners meeting. The railroad company will now begin its process to close the crossing and the county can apply for state grants to do improvements to the road since it’s becoming a dead end on the south end. The state will also give the county around $35,000 in mitigation money to do the road improvements, Magner said.

Commissioner Diana Biddle said that Sycamore Land Trust property also lies in the area of the crossing, and the south end of the road also allows access to the Tecumseh Trail. She said the highway department was working with the state on how to create access to the trail once the crossing is closed.

Eagle Scout plans to refurbish Liar’s Bench

A local Eagle Scout candidate is planning to refurbish the iconic Liar’s Bench outside the Brown County Courthouse as part of his required project.

Cameron Fox asked the Brown County Commissioners for their approval to refurbish the bench. The commissioners gave their support at the May 6 meeting.

Fox plans to replace the bench wood. He was going to talk with Brown County High School’s Eagle Manufacturing about using its CNC wood router machines to carve the text back into the new wood pieces.

The bench metal would be brushed and the screws also would be replaced. The project would be supervised by Fox’s father, Ric, who is the county’s maintenance and IT supervisor.

“I appreciate it,” said commissioner Diana Biddle. “That is something that was on my list to see if we couldn’t make that look a little bit nicer this year. I appreciate you stepping in, reading my mind and getting that done.”

Requests for proposals out for bridge inspections

Requests for proposals for the next cycle of countywide federally required bridge inspections have gone out to engineering firms and were due back this month.

The inspections will happen between 2021 and 2024, Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner said.

On May 20, Magner reported at the Brown County Commissioners meeting that seven firms had thrown their hats in the ring. Magner said he would review what they submitted before sending it up to the state for them to look over firms’ qualifications.

In 2018, USI Consultants presented a report to the commissioners that included a replacement list of 14 bridges, a rehab list of six bridges, and a deck replacement rehab list of three bridges.

That report estimated that replacing 14 bridges in the county over the next nine years would cost $7.5 million. The cost to rehab six bridges would be $1.8 million. The deck rehabilitation or replacement of three bridges was estimated at $625,000.

At the time, Magner said the total price tag was likely to go down because some projects will be done locally and not to federal standards.

At the meeting earlier this month, county resident Ron Fleetwood asked Magner where he was on his bridge replacement plan and which bridges he was looking at next for repairs. “What kind of cost is involved? How much funding is available? And what kind of studies have to be done ahead of time?” Fleetwood asked.

He asked about seeing an updated report on the bridges that were identified in 2018 by USI Consultants.

Fleetwood asked specifically about replacing a bridge on Elkinsville Road, which had initially been scheduled for replacement in 2019.

Magner said he does not have a definite date for when that bridge will be replaced and that the bridge replacement schedule is “continuously updated.”

“It needs some deck rehab a little bit on some of the wood points, but other than that, it’s still in that four- to five-year (replacement) window. It has not decreased by two years just by calendar,” he said.

At the May 6 meeting, Magner said he was working on updating his bridge replacement plan and providing updates on what has been repaired. “We replaced some structures and we have some that have gotten worse,” he said.

Commissioners President Jerry Pittman said the commissioners would wait for those bridge inspection bids to come back before making a decision on which firm to use for this next cycle of inspections.

“I love the paving and all, but we also have to take care of our bridges. I know of a few that look pretty bad. I haven’t seen the reports on the inspections,” he said.

“I know you replaced one down in Van Buren. You have to stay on top of that as well as the paving. Bridges are not as visible of a problem to the public, but they are absolutely essential.”

A bridge is any structure that spans 20 feet. Those are included in the report from USI. In 2018, Magner said the county probably has twice as many smaller structures than actual bridges. Repairs to those structures also come out of the cumulative bridge fund.

Structures less than 20 feet are not documented in the county currently. Commissioner Diana Biddle said that she expects those structures to soon be included in the county’s asset report that the Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program requires to receive grants.

Magner said a scoring process has to be used to select the firm and then that has to be submitted to the state before negotiations can begin for the inspections.

The next cycle of inspections would begin in October 2021. Magner said on May 20 that the results of last fall’s bridge inspections would soon be available and that he hopes to present those findings at a meeting in July that is hopefully in person. “That makes it easier than trying to do it over the computer here,” he said.