Every school day, children across Texas ride buses over railroad tracks where federal records show there are no crossing gates to stop vehicles if a train approaches.
A recent review found 704 railroad crossings used by Texas school buses that do not have gates. Nearly 300 of those crossings have a documented crash history, raising concerns about the risks faced by students traveling to and from school.
The crossings are spread across the state, and many have been in use for years despite previous collisions involving trains and vehicles.
A deadly crash in Athens
The dangers became especially clear in Athens after a Union Pacific train struck an Athens Independent School District bus in January 2019.
The crash killed 13-year-old Christopher Bonilla and injured another student. At the time, the Cream Level Road crossing did not have gates or flashing warning lights. Drivers were alerted by a yield sign and the familiar railroad crossbuck.
Following the crash, the school district stopped using the crossing for its bus routes.
Getting additional safety equipment at the crossing, however, took years. A proposal to close the crossing was rejected by Athens city leaders in 2023, partly because of concerns about emergency response times. Coordination with federal agencies and the railroad also added to the timeline.
Two additional crashes occurred at the crossing in 2023, although neither involved a school bus.
Flashing lights and gates were eventually installed this summer, more than seven years after the fatal school bus crash.
For communities dealing with dangerous railroad crossings, that timeline illustrates how difficult and expensive safety improvements can be.
Hundreds of crossings have crash histories
The latest review identified 295 ungated railroad crossings along Texas school bus routes that have experienced at least one reported crash.
Together, those locations account for:
- 550 reported crashes
- 36 deaths
- 249 injuries
The figures cover reported crashes at the crossings between 1975 and 2026. They are not limited to incidents involving school buses.
Some crossings have experienced repeated collisions.
In Hunt County, for example, a train struck and killed a UPS driver at an ungated crossing in 2025. Federal records show that it was the second fatal crash recorded at that location, which is also part of a school bus route.
Other crossings with multiple reported crashes include a location on Magnolia Avenue in Beaumont, a crossing on Zaragosa Street in Laredo and another near Johnson Lane in the Argyle area.
The numbers do not mean every ungated crossing is equally dangerous. Railroad traffic, road traffic, visibility, warning equipment, crossing design and crash history can all vary significantly from one location to another.
Still, the number of crossings with previous crashes highlights the challenge facing communities across a rapidly growing state.
Texas is putting more money into rail safety
Texas is also moving forward with major investments intended to reduce conflicts between trains and road traffic.
The state Legislature created a $250 million Off-System Rail Grade Separation State Fund Program to help eligible communities eliminate certain at-grade railroad crossings. The program can support projects that replace crossings with structures that allow roads and rail lines to pass over or under one another.
In March, the Texas Transportation Commission also approved more than $160 million in state funding for five grade-separation projects.
Then in August, TxDOT announced more than $756 million in federal funding for 12 additional rail grade-separation projects across Texas. The combined state, local and federal investment for those projects is expected to exceed $953 million.
The projects include locations in counties such as Kaufman, Dallas, Tarrant, El Paso, Fort Bend, Guadalupe, Bexar and Harris.
Grade separation can eliminate the point where trains and vehicles meet, but these projects generally require substantial planning, engineering, funding and construction. That means the new investments will not immediately address the hundreds of school bus crossings that remain at street level.
School bus drivers remain a critical safety measure
Until a crossing is upgraded, much of the responsibility falls on drivers.
School bus driver training in Texas places significant emphasis on railroad crossings. Drivers are taught to stop at the proper location, look and listen for trains, and make sure the entire bus can safely clear the tracks before proceeding.
That final step is especially important because a long school bus can extend across a crossing even after the front of the vehicle has cleared the tracks.
Training specialists say drivers must remain alert rather than becoming accustomed to crossing the same tracks every day.
The risk becomes more difficult to manage at crossings without gates because drivers cannot rely on a physical barrier to stop them if a train approaches.
Gates can help, but they are not a complete solution
Railroad crossing gates and flashing lights can provide an additional warning and physical barrier, but they do not eliminate every crash.
Transportation officials have noted that collisions can still happen at crossings equipped with warning systems.
Even so, the available crash history shows why additional protection can matter. Of the 10 Texas school bus-and-train crashes identified in the recent review, only two occurred at crossings equipped with gates.
Texas is also expected to see continued growth in freight movement. A recent TxDOT report projects that freight shipped by rail could increase from about 410 million tons today to more than 700 million tons by 2050.
As rail traffic and communities expand, school buses will continue to share the roads with trains.
For families, the issue is not simply whether a crossing has a gate. It is whether students can travel across those tracks safely every school day—and how quickly improvements can reach the crossings where the risks are greatest.
