Roads designated by US and a number are not part of the Interstate Highway System. Interstate highways were built to very specific standards with mostly Federal money. They did not allow at grade crossings of even roads, much less railroads. There were specifications for curves, overhead clearances, and pavement construction. The image posted here does not appear to be an Interstate Highway.
As time has passed, some pre existing roads have been "upgraded" and given an after the fact interstate designation. Some of those do not meet Interstate standards. State Route 17 in New York is such a road. It is being upgraded to become I-86. One of the things being removed during the upgrade is a grade level RR crossing in the Middletown area. Some local roads that connect to Interstate Highways have Interstate signs directing drivers to the Interstate, but are not actually part of the system.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I can think of two such places in Michigan where there were/are at grade crossings. One was on US-23 south of Milan where the Ann Arbor crossed, which I believe was originally intended to be an interstate but was left designated a US highway. That one was long ago bridged.
One still remains; that being where the MMRR crosses US-127 west of Ashley. It's a divided highway and marked 'exempt' due to very little rail traffic. IIRC, the railroad must stop and flag the crossing there.
On another note, there are still places with drawbridges on interstate highways but an effort is being made to eliminate them. One is the Steel Bridge in Portland, OR and really snarls auto traffic when it's opened for ships.
Norm
Though extremely rare, there have been instances where an at-grade railroad crossing was placed on a limited-access highway instead of the usual overpass or underpass. The most well-known example was the crossing for the Columbia Terminal Railroad on US-63 just north of Columbia, MO. That railroad crossing was replaced in 2011 with a brand-new overpass. At one point there was even a railroad crossing on an Interstate. A segment of I-94 built in 1959 north of Albion, MI had an at-grade crossing that included railroad crossing signals that supposedly had to activated by a train crew manually. My guess is the track crossing I-94 was a branch line and not part of the railroad's mainline since the article said the tracks served the Springport Elevator. In any case this at-grade crossing isn't present on modern-day I-94 since the branch line was abandoned in 1968 and the crossing paved over some time afterwards.
I wonder what railroad was operating the tracks from lbion to Springport in the 1960s? The article said the tracks were originally built for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, though that railroad was defunct since 1914 and became part of the NYC.
http://www.albionmich.com/history/histor_notebook/080727.shtml
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