The railroads typically own the entire tracks and the areas around it. Permission for an at-grade crossing would be negotiated with the railroad.
How come train tracks are like 8ft above the road?
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The railroads typically own the entire tracks and the areas around it. Permission for an at-grade crossing would be negotiated with the railroad.
No more than you or I. A judge can compel an easement. Might be easier to negotiate with the railroad, but there not the king either.
Well, sure an easement can be compelled via eminent domain, but that's not usually the case. But what I'm noting is that it's typically the railroad as the primary owner of the land where there's a crossing. There's a reason why any kind of collision with a train is called a "trespass incident" regardless of the location.
That's called a switchback. You can experience one in person near Hood River, Oregon. See https://www.mthoodrr.com/ if that sort of thing interests you.
Someone mentioned switchbacks. But there are other ways to get around tunnels, or at least really long tunnels. There's the Tehachapi Loop. That has a small tunnel but a loop to change levels.
I found a photo of it that's free to distribute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehachapi_Loop#/media/File:Intermodal_train_on_Tehachapi_Loop.jpg
Whomever is granted an easement is responsible to build and maintain the easement. So yes the railroad owns it (or they may lease it, or it may be a right of way, may be an easement unto itself - depends), but whomever has been granted the easement to cross is typically responsible for maintaining the road up to the tracks. So if its too steep on each side that isn't on the railroad - its on whomever was granted the easement to begin with, unless the railroad has agreed to provide it?
There are other ways to overcome steep grades. There are reduction gears like a Shay. But those were primarily used for things like logging.
Thanks for posting that; I couldn't remember the name of it, despite it having "spiral tunnels" right in the name.
An elevation gain of 23 meters. The Raurimu Spiral gains 139 meters in some challenging terrain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raurimu_Spiral
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Because trains are heavy and low lying ground gets soft. Like it or not, that won't change.
The cars themselves often get sequestered by someone other than their owner. There supposed to be returned with a load going towards the proper owner but of course many float around in the "system" forever, and whomever has possession gets to use it. Or something like that. So of course no one maintains the ones they don't own.
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When I was young - thought it was to get “air time” in my Dodge PowerWagon - for just a few seconds those mud tires would go silent 
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I'm surprised the wheels don't fall off. My garden is in a field down next to the tracks so I see them in the summer. Some wheels are literally bouncing up and down and screaming for grease.
Owen Lucas
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Aren't there supposed to be sensors on the tracks that measure the temp of the bearings every so often? I understand this is then transmitted to HQ or the driver over the radio so they know if there is an issue.
An overheated / on fire wheel bearing was one of the reasons the East Palestine train derailment happened.
There are. Whether they work properly or are paid attention to is another story.
Way back when Norfolk Southern had a steam excursion program, I took several trips and my scanner would pick up the radio communication from the hot-box detector, freaking out that there were several axles that were showing as being hot when it was really picking up the heat from the firebox on the locomotive. So the technology has been out there for a while.
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