Railroad Bridges eng; USA 8-bit variable size UCS Transfer Format, based on ISO/IEC 10646 information applies to the dataset Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) GIS Office Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) GIS Program Manager 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE Washington DC 20590 United States FRAGIS@dot.gov party who can be contacted for acquiring knowledge about or acquisition of the resource 2025-07-16 ISO 19139 Geographic Information - Metadata ISO/TS 19139:2007 point 69510 Railroad Bridges 2022-10-14 date identifies when the resource was brought into existence Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) party who created the resource map represented in raster or vector form The Railroad Bridges dataset was compiled on October 14, 2022 from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). A railroad bridge is defined as “Railroad bridge means any structure with a deck, regardless of length, which supports one or more railroad tracks, or any other undergrade structure with an individual span length of 10 feet or more located at such a depth that it is affected by live loads.” based on the Code of Federal Regulations (49 CFR Part 237). The FRA does not have a mandate to inspect railroad bridges: these inspections are required by the owner of the track. The FRA will use this railroad bridge dataset to determine the number of bridges per railroad, state, etc. and will assist in determining priority field activities. A data dictionary, or other source of attribute information, is accessible at https://doi.org/10.21949/1529074 The purpose of this work is to identify and improve the spatial accuracy and attribution to the Railroad Bridge Inventory. The locations will include railroad over road, railroad over waterways and railroad over railroad. Acknowledgement of the Federal Railroad Adminsitration, FRA National American Rail Network (NARN), Census Topologically Integrated Geographic encoding and Referencing (TIGER), National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) Waterway , FHWA’s National Bridge Inventory (NBI), FRA’s Automated Track Inspection Program (ATIP) Bridges, USDOT Grade Crossing Inventory, HIFLD Bridge data, and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) [distributor]. data is continually being updated Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) GIS Office Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) GIS Program Manager 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE Washington DC 20590 United States FRAGIS@dot.gov party who can be contacted for acquiring knowledge about or acquisition of the resource data is updated as deemed necessary NTAD National Transportation Atlas Database Transportation Atlas Database vector point Rail FRA Railroad Bridges Bridges keyword identifies a particular subject or topic none USA National keyword identifies a location none This NTAD dataset is a work of the United States government as defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101 and as such are not protected by any U.S. copyrights. This work is available for unrestricted public use. limitation not listed Access Constraints: unrestricted National Transportation Atlas Database 2022-10-14 publication Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) party who published the resource reference to a master dataset of which this one is a part vector data is used to represent geographic data eng; USA transportation Native Dataset Environment: Version 6.2 (Build 9200) ; Esri ArcGIS 10.8.1.14362 -171.5 -67 18.5 71.5 2021-11-05 0 Railroad Bridges Entity and Attribute Overview: A railroad bridge is defined as “Railroad bridge means any structure with a deck, regardless of length, which supports one or more railroad tracks, or any other undergrade structure with an individual span length of 10 feet or more located at such a depth that it is affected by live loads.” based on the Code of Federal Regulations (49 CFR Part 237). The FRA does not have a mandate to inspect railroad bridges: these inspections are required by the owner of the track. The FRA will use this railroad bridge dataset to determine the number of bridges per railroad, state, etc. and will assist in determining priority field activities. Entity and Attribute Detail Citation: https://doi.org/10.21949/1529074 Open Data Catalog 1.0 ArcGIS REST Services Directory Feature Server (WFS) 11.5 Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) NTAD Program Manager 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE Washington DC 20590 United States ntad@dot.gov party who distributes the resource None. No fees are applicable for obtaining the dataset. https://doi.org/10.21949/1528165 http Open Data Catalog An ESRI Geodatabase, ESRI shapefile, or spreadsheet. online instructions for transferring data from one storage device or system to another https://doi.org/10.21949/1528183 http ArcGIS REST Services Directory Feature Server (WFS) complies with OGC WFS Map Service for visualizing geospatial information online instructions for transferring data from one storage device or system to another information applies to the dataset Data set is considered complete for the information presented, as described in the abstract. Users are advised to read the rest of the metadata record carefully for additional details. Data set is considered complete for the information presented, as described in the abstract. Users are advised to read the rest of the metadata record carefully for additional details. Business Rules for Primary Conflation 1. Grade Crossing related to abandoned railroad a. Conflate Grade Crossing point to the intersection of abandoned railroad and road, then flag it as “BridgeRelatedToAbandoned” 2. Grade crossing has same street name as Tiger and rail owner as FRA railroad a. Capture Tiger street name as primary and leave secondary street name blank. Capture FRA rail owner as primary and leave secondary rail owner blank. No flag needed. 3. Grade crossing has same rail owner but different street name than Tiger road a. Conflate grade crossing to the intersection point, capture the Tiger road name as primary and grade crossing street name as secondary. Flag this bridge as “StreetNameUnmacthed”. 4. Grade crossing has street name, but Tiger road source does not a. Conflate grade crossing to the intersection point. Leave primary street name blank and capture grade crossing street name as secondary. Flag the bridge as “StreetNameUnmatched”. 5. Grade crossing has same street name but different railroad owner than FRA railroad a. Conflate grade crossing to the intersection point, capture the FRA railroad owner as primary owner and grade crossing rail owner as secondary. Capture the Tiger road street name as primary, leave secondary street name blank. Flag this bridge as “RailOwnerUnmatched”. 6. Grade crossing has railroad owner, but FRA railroad segment does not a. Conflate grade crossing to the intersection. Leave primary rail owner blank and capture grade crossing rail owner as secondary. Flag the bridge as “RailroadNoOwner”. 7. Grade crossing has no street name a. In urban area, if only one intersection in buffer of 200 meters (500 meters for rural areas), rail owner is matched, and the bridge can be observed on the image, and then conflate grade crossing bridge to the intersection point, capture the Tiger street name as primary and leave secondary street name blank. Flag this bridge as “GXingNoStreet”. 8. No Grade Crossing found a. Consider this as a new bridge, capture railroad owner and street name from its corresponding FRA railroad and Tiger road. Flag it as “NoGXing” 9. Census Tiger road missing a road segment a. Visually identify the bridge location based on Bing or Google imagery, capture street name from Tiger or Google Map and flag the cases as “NoStreet”. 10. FRA network is missing railroad segment4 a. Visually identify target based on imagery. Flag the case as “NoRailroad” 11. An overpass railroad bridge over multiple Tiger roads a. If street names are the same, group intersection points and use the group center as the bridge location. Flag this case as “OverMulitpleRoads” b. If street names are different, multiple bridges will be generated, with each one corresponding to one street. Flag it as “OverMulitpleRoadsUnmatched” 12. Multiple overpass bridges over a Tiger road a. If same rail owner and not structurally separated, group intersection points and use the group center as the bridge location. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadOver”. b. If same railownerbut structurally separated, multiple bridges are generated. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadOver”. c. If different rail owners, multiple bridges are generated. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadUnmatchedOver” 13. An overpass road bridge over multiple railroads a. If same rail owners, group intersection points and use the group center as the bridge location. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadUnder” b. If different rail owners, multiple bridges are generated. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadUnmatchedUnder” 14. No Grade Crossing Bridge source, NBI or ATIP bridge exists a. Generate a new bridge and capture FRA rail owner as primary. If ATIP is available and has different rail owner, capture rail owner as secondary. Capture bridge type, design type, length from NBI if available. Otherwise visually identify the bridge type. 15. Water bridge has different railroad owner than railroad a. Conflate the water bridge to the intersection point. Capture FRA rail owner as primary and water bridge rail owner as secondary. Flag this bridge as “WaterBridgeUnmatched” 16. Missing water bridge source a. Consider this intersection as a new bridge. Capture FRA rail owner as primary and waterway name. If ATIP available and has different rail owner, capture its rail owner as secondary. Flag this intersection point as “NoWaterBridge” 17. Waterway Target related to abandoned railroad a. Conflate water bridge point to the intersection of abandoned railroad and waterway, then flag it as “WaterBridgeRelatedToAbandoned” 18. NBI as source for bridge type, design type, and bridge length a. If NBI data is found within the buffer of 20 meters, use its STRUCTURE_LEN_MT_049, STRUCTURE_TYPE_043B, STRUCTURE_KIND_043A as the bridge length, bridge type, and design type respectively. Flag this intersection point as “NBI” 19. No NBI a. Visually identify the bridge type, design type, and manually measure bridge length based on imagery and flag the cases as “NoNBI”. 20. Overlapping intersection points due to overlapping Tiger roads a. Only one bridge will be generated. Capture the street name as the primary street name from one Tiger street segment 21. Overlapping Grade Crossings a. Keep the one with the matched rail owner and street name b. If no matched found, follow below rules: non-closed>closed, only rail owner matched >neither matched, public>private, above/below> at, latest revision date or last updated. c. 3. If key fields are the same, just pick up the either one 22. Abandoned bridge a. Visually identify the abandoned bridge based on Bing or Google imagery and flag the cases as “FRA Abandoned”. 23. Multiple railroads over a waterway a. If same rail owner and not structurally separated, group intersection points and use the group center as the bridge location. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadOver”. b. If same rail owner but structurally separated, multiple bridges are generated. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadOver”. c. If different rail owners, multiple bridges are generated. Flag it as “MultipleRailroadUnmatchedOver” 24. Bridge Attribute: City Name (No Data Source) a. Developed a batch process tool to get city name for all the bridges 25. Bridge Attribute: Num_Tracks and SUBDIV a. If a bridge is related to the multiple railroad line segments, the Num of Tracks for bridge will be “Multiple”. For example, if a bridge point is the intersection of the one road and the multiple railroad line segment with the same railroad owner, the Num of Tracks should be “Multiple”. b. If a bridge is related to the single railroad line segment, but the attribute value of TRACKS for the railroad line segment is more than 1, the Num of Tracks should be still populated as “Multiple”, Otherwise, it will be populated as “One” c. Get SUBDIV from main track (NET=“M”). If no main tracks found, the value of SUBDIV is set to be “Unknown” 26. Bridge Attribute: Attribute: Rail_MilePost a. ~ 50% of bridges do not have rail milepost; If no corresponding Milepost found, the value of Rail Milepost set to be “Unknown” 27. Follow the following rules to populate the column “NAME” and the column “SECONDARY_STREETNAMES” a. If one of the overlapping street names in TIGER matches the street name on Grade Crossing database, that street name will go to the column “NAME”. b. If no road name matches the street name in the Grade Crossing database, check the tiger MTFCC code, the road name with the highest function code will go to the column “NAME. c. If the function codes for the streets are the same, check the tiger RTTYP, the road name with the highest type code ("U“> "S“>"I“> “C“> “M“> "O") will go to the column “NAME. d. If the function codes and road type are the same, check if the street name includes a number such as “1STstreet”, “Rte80” or “HWY 9”. The road name which contains a number will go to the column “NAME”. e. If none of the street names contain a number, then either street name will go to the column “NAME”. f. The rest of the street names will go to the column “SECONDARY_STREETNAMES”. 28. Overlapping intersection points due to overlapping/crossing FRA Railroads a. If RROWNER are different, multiple bridges will be generated at the same location, with one bridge for one RROWNER Business Rules for Processing Rail over Rail Business Rules for Processing HIFLD/NGA Railroad Bridges 1. No Bridge found around NGA point a. Definitions: • No railroad observed or • Railroad present but no FRA bridge observed b. Solution: • NGA Bridge Point will not be conflated to FRA bridge 2. Stream bridge found around NGA point a. Definitions: • Railroad is observed, stream can be observed underneath railroad, and bridge or arch bridge can be observed • Its width is greater than10 feet b. Solution: • NGA Bridge Point will be conflated to FRA bridge; the bridge will be snapped to railroad. 3. FRA bridge identified near NGA point a. Definitions: • Railroad observed, but a FRA bridge already identified nearby b. Solution: • NGA Bridge Point will not be conflated to FRA bridge 4. Bridge present near NGA point a. Definitions: • Railroad observed, a bridge found at NGA point b. Solution: • NGA Point will be conflated to FRA bridge and its location will be moved to be on the FRA railroad 5. Business Rule 5: Cannot clearly see a bridge near NGA point a. Definitions: • Railroad present, cannot clearly see if there is a bridge or not due to poor image quality or blocked by tree b. Solution: • NGA Bridge Point will not be conflated to FRA bridge data is updated as deemed necessary Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) GIS Office Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) GIS Program Manager 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE Washington DC 20590 United States FRAGIS@dot.gov party that accepts accountability and responsability for the data and ensures appropriate care and maintenance of the resource