City of New Orleans

 I got to thinking the city should license the song "City of New Orleans" and play it at the multi-modal station, especially when that train picks up and unloads passengers. Would certainly help reinforce Carbondale's history as a railroad town.

Multi Modal Station Opens

 Though I do not think it complete yet, the new train station will start handling passengers on Tuesday. It will be nice to see what the inside of the building looks like as I like the look of the outside.

Underpass

 It is far too late to fix now but one of the biggest mistakes Carbondale made was to forego the opportunity of putting a convenient underpass in downtown, unlike the monstrosity at the intersection of University, Mill and Illinois. The plan was, as I understand it, to put underpasses on Walnut and Main, allowing traffic to continue moving even when a train passes through town. This would have avoided having the 2 fire stations the city has maintained for decades.

Planning and funding for the underpasses had been secured but opposition mounted from downtown businesses who objected to the distruption of downtown traffic, and hence business, necessary to put in the underpasses. They managed to delay the start of contruction long enough that the funding eventiually got pulled, leaving the city with only the Pleasent Hill overpass for decades. If the city had managed to build these, traffic flow would have been much smoother in downtown with far less traffic backup

Tracks

 Either the railroad or the state or the city has painted warning signs on either side of the rail crossings on East Main and East Walnut. Just before the sidewalk crosses the tracks, painted on the concrete in large letters is "See Tracks? Think Train." 

Given than the trains run right through the recently designated "entertainment district" wherein a good number of the town's are located, it is a wonder that more people do not get hit by trains after leaving the bars.

Appears that is what happened with the truck train crash over in Missouri. The crossing has no lights or guards but the driver seems to have ignored the oncome train or gambled that he could get across before it got closer and failed.