A grant from the Illinois Commerce Commission is helping Hinsdale Police strictly enforce railroad safety for the village in September. Hinsdale has five grade crossings for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway line, and Deputy Police Chief Mark Wodka said its busiest crossing at Garfield Avenue has an average daily traffic count of about 15,000 vehicles.“The grant allows us to hire back officers dedicated solely to enforce rail crossing violations without having to respond to service calls,” Wodka said. “Hinsdale sees anywhere between 140 and 160 trains a day — these officers will be enforcing both vehicular and pedestrian violations.”Wodka said fines for disobeying the train signal start at $250, but increases to $500 for repeat offenders. “Trains run on tracks, tracks that don’t move,” Wodka said. “When you obey rail signals, the train won’t hit you.”Although the tracks have flashing lights, bells and mechanical arms that lower as a train approaches, Hinsdale has seen accidents in the past. The last fatal collision with a vehicle was in June 2005 at the Stough Street crossing. Before that, a fatal pedestrian collision took place in November 2003 at the same crossing.The $7,489 ICC grant was awarded in March and must be spent by Dec. 31 of this year. The goals of the ICC’s Public Education and Enforcement Research Study program are to promote railroad safety through education and enforcement and reduce the number of train-vehicle collisions.Without the grant money to pay for extra on-duty officers, Wodka said Hinsdale Police cannot spend as much time as they’d like monitoring the busy tracks.Hinsdale Police issued 67 rail signal violation tickets in 2009, 22 in 2008 and 52 in …More