I see it alot…people swerving around barriers once they’re down…even saw an SUV packed with kids doing it not long ago. Maybe a better design would work that would block any vehicles from getting through once the barrier comes down. It seems to me that “educating the public” is pointless…i.e if you need to be told not to do this then you’re beyond hope anyway.
One method is to have the gates completely block the road, or place a center divider in the road so vehicles cannot cross over the center to go around a lowered gate. I seem to recall having heard that these features are required in order for a grade crossing to be horn-free.
This type of impassible gating would probably stop most risk taking in trying to beat a train, since I doubt many drivers would include crashing through a gate with the gamble to beat the train. The breaking of gates seems to be associated with them coming down on stopped vehicles that sometimes jam up over a crossing. This seems more likely with longer vehicles such as buses or semis.
I have also seen proposals for barriers that would be impossible to break through. But not only would the cost be astronomical, but such a barrier would represent a potentially fatal crash hazard to vehicles.
You build it, they will get over it, around it or through it - even if it means going cross-country.
There are “fool proof” barrier gates on the market. The problem is that the local government agencies and PUC/Railroad Commissions won’t pay for them.
There was one intersection left in Flatonia that didn’t have lights and crossing barriers. UP wanted the city to put them up. The city wouldn’t. Said it was too expensive.UP dug up the road (on their property) so no one can cross. Is that so drastic? I don’t think so. There has been more than once when we were down at the pavilion that we heard and watched an engineer really get on the horn because he thought someone was going to cross in front of him at that crossing.
The only disadvantage is Sidetrack Tommy lives right there, so now to get to his house we have to go all the way around the block…oh well…
m
Not only won’t the locals stand the expense to protect their constituency…nothing can stop a determined fool.
How do these fool proof gates work?
Part of the problem of grade crossing conflict is bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic getting strung out over a crossing, despite the “No Stopping On Tracks” signs. This traffic blockage situation develops when the gates are up, and then can fail to clear in time when a train shows up.
Q - How do these fool proof gates work?
A - Same principle as an arresting cable on an aircraft carrier, albeit taller…
http://www.getransportation.com/na/en/crossguard.html (for Bucyrus)
http://www.energyabsorption.com/products/permanent/stopgate.htm
Traffic queues are usually the result of a traffic signal within 250 feet of the grade crossing; in some cases longer distances (as shown by required traffic studies). To resolve this, the traffic-signal is “pre-empted” by the grade-crossing signal system, allowing time for the traffic signal to turn red on the parallel road, then green for the road crossing the railroad, in order to allow traffic to leave the crossing. The entering gates come down before the traffic signal turns red again, in order to allow time for traffic to leave the crossing but no new traffic to enter.
Traffic queuing caused by other causes has to be resolved with traffic hold signals, and other traffic devices.
Older grade-crossings may not have traffic signal interties or may have insufficient pre-empt times, and require upgrading to resolve the problem.
The rail approach distances for pre-empted crossings can often get very long (8,000’ plus) which creates new problems. High traffic-count crossings with long pre-empt times are high priority candidates for a grade separation, or roadway reconfiguration.
RWM
Thanks for those links MC. I can see that there has been effort toward developing insurmoutable barrriers that would not pose a lethal crash hazard.
If the gates completel block the road what happens to a car that gets trapped, especialy on a multi track crossing?
The safest sulution is to run trains faster!!! Get it over with.
Look at how it’s done in other countries. Gates go down , blocks all lanes, sensors check for tarpped vehicles. If all is ok the block signal clears for the train. This requires the gates to go down two miles or more before the train comes so it has time to stop in time if the is a discrepensy, much like lift bridges for boats.
I saw a triple meat in a small town wich held the gates down 45 mins, good for fans like me but bad for many other people, so next time some people are gonna run for the gates. It’s not realy fair to hold up a whole town that has no other way around the tracks and the railroad refuses to serve any local industry any more. And sometimes the gates are down with no train coming.
Four-quadrant gate installations in the U.S. have clear-out loops to hold the exit gates up until vehicles on the crossing have exited.
RWM
There are a couple of the barrier gates in the MADison, WI area. One is reportedly in view of the Railroad Commisioner’s office…on a line with about one train a day at the current time. The other gates are on a line with 1-2 trains a day. The crossings that need these gates won’t get them…
I can remember some grade crossings on the CWI which had manually operated gates into the late 1960’s and had four gates. The watchman would lower one pair of gates to block entry and then lower the second pair when the tracks were clear of vehicular traffic. The gates would be raised in reverse order after the train passed.
I was out this summer watching the local leave the yard in shelbyville. He was sitting about 100-20 feet from the crossing waiting for the gates to come down. as they started to come down, a semi decided that he would try and beat them. The gate ended up coming down in between the tractor and trailer, snapping the gate clear off.
Christian
I watched as a semi-truck (cab only) come up to a crossing as an engine was pulling from the yard onto the mainline just west of the grade crossing. The truck came to a screeching halt (really skidded his tires and twisted slightly sideways on the street) when the loco sounded the horn. Unfortunately, he stopped under the gate and he hesitated just a bit too long before he backed up a bit. He was far enough forward to have been just fouling the main line. The gate came down on his hood and as he backed up it swept the fenders on both sides clean of all the little antenna (CB, Cell, and bumper locators). Just ripped them from the mountings. The driver just stared forward and sighed. I am sure he was both embarrased and upset at the loss of the equipment. But at least he was out of the way.
To make matters worse, the locomotive stopped about 50 ft from the crossing as the switch it had just come from was thrown so it could back to its waiting train. The gates, in this instance, didn’t really need to come down at all because the train was not going to cross the street for another 15 minutes.
The gates then went back up and the trucker left. The car following him thoroughly mangled what was left of the antenna laying in the street.
I felt really bad for the guy. The horn scared him into the stop and backing up caused more than just a few dollars of damage to his truck. I considered getting to the gate and lifting it, but 1) - I was too far away to get there in time and 2) - I did that once when it came down on a lady’s car and instead of her backing up to safety, she sped across the tracks in front of the approaching train.
On that second point, the lady was crossing behind several cars, one of which had suddenly slowed after it had entered the grade crossing, leaving her under the gate. It came down right between the windshield and radio antenna, so going forward the windshield would h
I’m not very familiar with this but aren’t many crossings in Europe protected by barriers that move laterally to completely block vehicular traffic. These would seem to be offer positive protection and wonder why the’ve never gained acceptance in the US.
Mark
Laterally moving barriers would jam every winter in those parts of the US where we enjoy a substantial snowfall.
Living in the Northeast we don’t have the long freight train delays caused by crossings. Commuter rail is the predominant train action and usually where you find freight you will find commuter or amtrak too. The trains usually don’t cause any considerable delay and for that we are very fortunate. A most recent truck/train event involved a commuter train which hit a truck which was caught in the gates. I am not an expert on that but my point is this. Enforcement of the rules. It seems to me that law enforcement, either state, local or railroad is obligated to police crossings and enforce the laws by writing citations on people who don’t obey the rules. I realize they can’t be at every crossing all the time. Law enforcement could hang out near a crossing at the times when they know a train will be coming, information which can be made readily available to them for the asking. Once the general public realized this is happening it may cause them to be more aware. Also, in areas where crossing accidents or near misses are frequent the railroad or government should increase efforts to educate the public about the hazards. These suggestions, however liberal they may sound are all we can do. It took years to convince motorists to wear safety belts. The same can be done for RR crossing. It seems too much of a no brainer to most of us to approach and cross railroad tracks with extreme caution, regardless of the signals. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I cross tracks and always will, what if the signals are not working??The prospect of getting a fine seems more ominous to most people than getting t-boned by the commuter rail train. Most motorists really are fools.
Does anyone have any data as to the frequency of rail crossing accidents in the US? I suppose I could find it but I am sure someone has some facts available.
This is an interesting topic
Respectf
It seems that there are two distinct problems with gates:
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Failure to prevent people from driving around them.
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Failure to prevent people from breaking through them.
It seems that there are two distinct reasons for train/vehicle collisions:
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Drivers trying to beat the train.
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Driver inattention.
I would say that breaking through the gates is almost always caused by driver inattention, and driving around the gates is almost always caused by a driver trying to beat the train.
So it seems that there are two potential tiers of improvement over the traditional gate system:
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Make the gates cover the full width of the road so they cannot be driven around.
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Make the gates stronger so they cannot be broken through.
Just a guess, but I suspect that at least 90% of total crashes are caused by drivers trying to beat the train, and the other 10% are caused by driver inattention. So it would follow that 90% of the crashes could be prevented by full-width gates, and only 10% would be prevented by crash-proof gates. Moreover, I suspect that a crash-proof gate installation would be far, far, far more costly than a full-width gate installation.