The mayor of Hammond, Indiana, says prepare firm Norfolk Southern is reneging on a promise to partially finance the development of a pedestrian overpass at a harmful rail crossing that was the topic of a ProPublica investigation. And with out the funding, he added, the undertaking is useless.
Officers started pursuing the overpass in 2023, after the information group and its reporting accomplice, InvestigateTV, documented dozens of youngsters crawling by means of, over and underneath trains that blocked them from attending to and from faculty within the metropolis.
Hammond is a close-by suburb of Chicago, the busiest prepare hub within the nation. On the time, the realm served as a type of car parking zone for Norfolk Southern’s trains as they idled between two busy intersections — a rising drawback in Hammond and railroad communities prefer it throughout the nation as trains get longer.
After publication, Norfolk Southern’s CEO on the time, Alan Shaw, referred to as Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott to debate options, together with a pedestrian overpass. The mayor stated Shaw dedicated to paying the complete value of the undertaking. A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern instructed ProPublica the corporate by no means made any such dedication.
The corporate would later make operational adjustments, reminiscent of stopping the trains in a distinct location to cut back the affect to Hammond and the schoolchildren. Nonetheless, one little one was captured on video leaping from a shifting prepare after Norfolk Southern stated it made these adjustments.
For some time, the overpass effort appeared to have some momentum. The corporate paid for engineering and design plans, and in June 2023 the town obtained a $7.7 million federal grant for the undertaking. Whereas it required a neighborhood match of $2.6 million, McDermott stated Shaw agreed to pay it.
The mayor stated the corporate made no written dedication, and Shaw was fired by the railroad in 2024. Now, McDermott is accusing Norfolk Southern, underneath its present CEO, Mark George, of backing out of the handshake deal. “The brand new man bought amnesia,” the mayor instructed ProPublica.
Shaw didn’t reply to messages looking for remark.
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern, which reported $2.9 billion in revenue in 2025 based on its Securities and Alternate Fee filings, disputed McDermott’s claims that the corporate agreed to supply the matching funds however stated it did present the town with $450,000 and “assisted officers in efficiently making use of for a federal grant to make the town’s plan for a pedestrian bridge potential.”
The spokesperson additionally stated that the adjustments the corporate made in 2023 to cut back the affect on faculties are working.
“Greater than two years later, these adjustments proceed to yield outcomes, together with a virtually 50% drop in blocked crossing calls into our communications heart at this location,” the spokesperson wrote in an e mail.
However native and state officers say Hammond continues to be seeing blocked crossings close to faculties. Carlotta Blake-King, the native faculty board president, instructed ProPublica that district workers noticed kids at a distinct location traversing a stopped prepare as they left faculty as lately as final week.
A Norfolk Southern spokesperson acknowledged the blockage however stated it was “not typical for that location.” The corporate stated its trains usually have clear passage by means of that space with out stopping. “We by no means need to inconvenience our communities with a stopped prepare, and we encourage everybody to all the time keep off railroad tracks and by no means try to cross between rail automobiles,” the spokesperson wrote.
McDermott stated he’s additionally seen Norfolk Southern’s trains starting to dam the roadways once more and worries that “it’ll slowly however certainly resume to the place it was.”
“I’ve already been lied to as soon as by Norfolk Southern,” the mayor stated, “so I’ve no motive to consider that they’re going to maintain on making an attempt to cut back the impacts upon our metropolis.”
McDermott stated the neighborhood will in the end see some reduction within the type of a automobile overpass within the space the place the youngsters routinely encounter the prepare. The undertaking, nonetheless, gained’t be accomplished till a minimum of 2029. And whereas it’ll embrace a path for pedestrians, it gained’t assist many college students, as they would want to stroll a minimum of a mile out of their approach to attain it.
Indiana state Rep. Carolyn Jackson, a Democrat who represents the Hammond space and has up to now launched laws to handle blocked crossings, stated she doesn’t need the neighborhood’s kids to develop “up considering that crawling underneath or over the prepare is a lifestyle.” Her concern is that with out the bridge, “a toddler will likely be severely injured or killed in Hammond.”
McDermott stated he has the identical concern: “I hope to God, and I pray it by no means occurs.”
