If you travel across the infamous railroad crossings in Southeast Portland where long delays are the norm, you’ve got to know about an app called TrainSnap. I heard about it recently and it works well.
You know the spot I’m talking about — where SE 11th and 12th cross four sets of rail tracks just south of Ladd’s Addition. The problem tracks are the two heavy freight rail lines that come out of nearby Brooklyn Yard. Because of outdated switching hardware, trains are known to sit and block busy cross-streets for up to an hour. The problem is so acute that the City of Portland applied for and received a grant from the Federal Railroad Administration to study the problem.
TrainSnap (available for iOS and Android) users a way to receive real-time alerts so you can reroute. The app is free and is easy to set up and use. You can even turn on notifications for the crossings you make most. The app will tell you if a specific crossing is open or blocked and how long it’s been closed.
And I hope the app developer doesn’t take this the wrong way, but I hope this app is useless in the near future! Hopes were high in 2023 when the City of Portland received the $500,000 FRA grant to study the problem and make recommendations. But here we are at the end of 2025 and it appears the grant is still not signed.
The last official news I heard about the grant was at the September 4th Portland Freight Advisory Committee meeting where the Portland Bureau of Transportation staffer in charge of the issue said they were still waiting to get the contract with FRA signed following a review from the city’s legal team. (A different PBOT staffer also said the city was in final stages of signing that as far back as February, so there’s clearly something amiss.)
Once the grant agreement is signed, PBOT will begin an 18-month planning effort. So it would likely be 2027 before we even have recommendations on how to tackle this problem — about a decade after the issue first made headlines. So for now, get the app!
Visit TrainSnap.us for more information and downloads.
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Where does the app get its blockage data?
The website that was run 6 years ago used a webcam overlooking the crossing.
What’s to study? The 19th Century rail alignment no longer works for the 21st Century city. The obvious infrastructure solutions would be very expensive to build. I bet the city study results in the government designing a less functional app than TrainSnap and letting people know to track train crossings. Maybe they put up some signs that light up when the train in crossing, like they have when Hawthorne Bridge is lifting. I’ll happily take $500,000 dollars from the city for these observations and recommendations.