A Brilliant Idea!

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I was thinking…

(can’t you smell the wood burning?)

Forgetting about Idiotic Drivers, People who can’t Listen to RR Crossing lights, and all the other Babbs out there, But This time i’m thinking of the the honest Joe’s who’s car stall on the Tracks, and get hit by a Train

Deux Montagnes just saw this happen. Guys car stalled on the Railway, Wasn’t enough time to contact the Train, and the Train Slammed into the Car, the people were safetly out though.

I went up there to look, and see if i could have found Anyhting that coulkd have been changed and Indeed I did…

Reports of the Derailment, And the Statemnet the engineer Said, Subtracting the Swearing Say somehting like “It was a clear signal” So i went up and had a llok myself, and Right After the Crossing, Indded there was a signal, like about 65% of crossings have, Signals either directly to the Left or the Right of the crossing.

So, I drew this conclusion out, Should the signal have been chnaged from Green to Red, The Train wouldn’t have hit the car., and had enough time to stop.

Now, you’ll have to understand, I know a fair bit about Signals and how they work, But once inside that Silver logic Box, I would be so lost.

My Question is this, Why can’t we install a button in each signal box, OR jsut the ones near a crossing, that a police officer could just press and That would change the signal to Red so the Train engineer could see?

Perhaps install it indie the Logic Box, and when the police come they can unlock it and press.

They’ll see the Red Light at the Crossing before they see the car.

Just wondering, perhaps theres a major Flaw i don’t see…

2

GOOD IDEA I LIKE IT

3

[#ditto][#ditto][#ditto][#wstupid][#wstupid][tup][tup] I Agree intirely!!!

Noah

4

flawed…

5

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmkay

Next Question… HOW?

6

Flaws: Time and Cost.

  1. If the police don’t get there time. Would they have a key? A key-code? How much time/distance would be needed for an engineer to react to a sudden red signal?

  2. The cost of developing and installing.

Maybe they’re not major flaws, but at least something to consider. I guess you’d have to think that if it worked in even only 1 circumstance would it be worth it? Also consider if the system could be tampered with. I remember a news article many years ago where theives would tamper with signals changing them to red so when the train stops they could rob them.

Perhaps we could get input from a dispatcher’s point of view. Would a dispatcher be willing to let a non-railroad person throw a signal to red on short notice? Where would these stop buttons be placed? Cities? In the country-side? On mountain grades with grade crossings? Would it be possible or wise to stop a train going uphill or downhill?

7

Kevin – not a bad idea at all. Mudchicken does have some valuable points, though – not the least of which is that it would do no good if the train had already passed the advance signal (if that were clear, there’s little or no hope anyway…). It’s worth kicking around and thinking about, though…

8

Great Idea, Valid Points. If it wasn’t for the fact that it is a great target for a prank, Id say find a way for anyone stalled to connect the rails and cause the red signal. Maybe an emergency jumpercable?

9

Iron Horseman gets (1) & (2)

(3) Your ABS and CTC blocks would have to be drastically shortened. This would cripple train movement… (ie- you going to put up helper signals at every x-ing in a long block? create manual interlockings everywhere?, gonna provide the $$$$$$$(mega)
for signalmen to maintain, inspect & test these new rascals??

-The alternative is that even if JoeSixpack already pushed the button, the train may be well past the block signal anyhow…say bye-bye! to the soon to be crumpled tinfoil…

(4) How many false alarms?

(5) Simpler to require cell phones and use the 1-800-PANIC numbers

(6) What about gate circuits in TWC dark territory? side tracks…(Lots of that out here)

(*) SPEND THE MONEY ON GRADE SEPARATIONS …they do a lousy job of funding those as it is (US or Canada).

(7) There are plenty of places out there already with keyed boxes in gate circuits along with garage door opener systems wired into the gate circuits to protect railroad maintenance employees from the rubber tired fools by dropping the gates. Where it’s track circuits instead of PMD motion detectors, there are things called shunts.

98.5+% percent of the time, it’s the motorist who is cited anyhow.

65% of crossings are gated?[(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D]

10

Throwing a red signal in front of a train is an absolute no-no. An engineer who sees a signal suddenly go to red must assume the worst, and stop short. If that requires an emergency brake application, the chance of a derailment or break-in-two is very large. As a train dispatcher, we were prohibited by rule from taking away a signal from a train without first verifying with the train’s engineer that he could still stop safely.

11

Amen!

Keep workin on it Kevin[^]

12

Guys,

I often hang about the passenger station in Goulburn, about 70 miles North of here (it used to be a big division point with a steam roundhouse, now a museum). It has a tower that controls a branch line junction just to the South of town.

There is a busy grade crossing just to the North of the yard, protected by gates, lights and bells. But there is a rail signal either side of the crossing that only clears when the gates are closed. I’m not sure whether the crossing is actuated by track circuits, or manually from the tower, but I’ve never seen a train held at the crossing. I assume that it is probably worked from the tower, which cannot see the crossing. There are what we call distant signals that give an amber (yellow) aspect either side of the signals that protect the crossing. If a normal vehicle detector loop (as used with traffic signals) was placed on the crossing, it could actuate these signals to remain at red while a vehicle was on the crossing.

It could be remembered that while cars are mostly affected by this, some years ago, a very large electrical transformer on a special low load truck grounded on a crossing in England and was hit by an electrically hauled express passenger train at 90mph. About thirty people were killed, including the loco crew. The locomotive and serveral cars were destroyed. The truck driver had already called the railway to advise of the problem, but the message didn’t get to the right tower in time.

It would be expensive, and not very productive to do this on every crossing, but it could be useful on busy crossings and cheaper than a bridge.

Peter

13

mark I never put my train in emergency on a dropped signal. if my last one was a clear and i come around the bend and there is a stop all i am required to do is a full service application. and stop. if i get by the signal its not a bad thing. i wont get fired. this is the rules we go by. We have had trainmasters on rules checks shunt the tracks to see if you would stop on a dropped signal. this practice has stopped. If the stop signal is at a interlocking and the opposing train has run the stop board i am jumping off.and watching the crash from a safer distance. at road crossing at grade there will be to big a temtation for the public to just stop a train.

14

It seems to me, like said above, it is really just as easy to have a person call the emergency panic number at the RR crossing and have the dispatcher deal with any on-coming trains. If you have to wait for a police officer to come and unlock the button, then it’s probably just as fast, if not faster to have someone call the number with a cell phone.

Of course the cost of this venture would also be astronomical.

The real priority (also mentioned above) should be to eliminate grade crossings in the first place, so there is no opportunity whatsoever for this kind of thing to happen.
Of course, this would also cost a fortune.

15

In Taiwan they have a grade crossing signal (6 white lights in a cluster) 500 metres before a level crossing. This is activated by a panic button at the crossing. If someone has a problem they press the panic button and the signal lights up. If a driver sees one of these lit up he makes a full servie application, and while it may not be enough to bring the train to rest before it gets to the crossing the speed is drastically reduced by the time it gets there. I asked a driver, and later a traffic controller (dispatcher) about false alarms and I was tolt they are very few.
Obviously the Taiwanese are much more law abiding than in the western world.

If I could upload a picture of one I would.

16

They sure are, I just can’t see something like that flying over here… those things would be going off all the time. Fridays nights would probably be especially bad.

17

Rather than trying to use a signal, why not use a radio broadcast? A “silver box” when a special button is pressed broadcasts a radio message relaying first an alert tone, then location information. Trains that will pass that crossing then are to proceed at reduced speed, until the crossing is verified to be clear (by the train crew would probably be sufficient) If the crossing has been passed already, no reduction in speed would be needed.

Pressing the button falsely should then carry a large fine.

18

I am reminded of an ad I saw last year for a device you could put in/on your car that would clear traffic lights in front of you. It uses the sensors that have been installed at many (but not all) traffic lights to “open up” the intersection for emergency vehicles. All so THEY don’t have to wait at traffic lights. I’m waiting for the first report of some bozo in his SUV creaming someone at an intersection, then complaining that the light didn’t turn for his device like it was supposed to… These are probably the same folks who run the gates…

If there is a way that people could abuse a device such as we are discussing, it would happen. I can even see people in neighborhoods “plagued” by trains doing some civil disobedience and posting a “crossing guard” on the crossing to control the trains…

19

I want one of those devices that clerars the light for ME. GET OUT OF MY WHY. If we all had that none would never be in anyones way!
OK so D.M. is my home town, a beautiful place, always full of people including trespassers and vandals, including some passengers. How do you stall on the tracks? do you got a standard and you don’t know how to drive or what? are you dumb?? Dumbys have always lived around here, most drown in the river some die on the track, some survive, always thier own fault. Passing school busses is a plague around here. People get away with hitting kids at a school bus x-ing and some try to sue the RR for geting hit!?!?!?!?!?
I used to watch the CN electrics run around the train of 6 axles right up to the 80’s, that was life man… and it was good.

20

In some places in Eupore they do throw a stop in front of a train or in some cases just a warning but it results in very long crossing blocked because the gates go down and if no resistance is felt it clears the block…
…
…etc , now everyone has to wait extra long for the train like a lift bridge, the train is still 3 miles away (instead of a quarter mile) or if stopped at a station the conducter (or gaurd) throws a knife switch on departure.