Someone once told me that he was driving north on 17 when a train was trying to get across the highway, but cars were going around the train.
I would sure hate to be the crew that had to work that branch.
Honestly, I'm kind of shocked that route 17 still has an active rail crossing. Given, there aren't many trains crossing, but even one a week seems to be too many.
Building a bridge would have been a good idea, but I would think that would have had to be completed during construction of the new Essex st overpass.
Speaking of branch lines, what about the one that goes both north and south of the mainline north of Wayne, near Bloomingdale, just before the main crosses I-287.
It looks as though the northern end goes only to about a mile or so, but the south end goes several miles.
The NS branch crosses the main on a diamond, with the connecting track on the west (closest I-287) side.
From the NASA/Google Earth maps, the rail looks to be in pretty decent shape, at least at the diamond.
FW