Why is it that most American crossbucks are the old standard “Railroad Crossing” ones, while here in Canada we have, with the exception of some old relics, the white ones with red outline and no writing. Any explanations?
Methinks Canada has adopted more International style signs. Also, the bi-lingual requirements mean that you might have to put the warning on in both English and French. It’d be a lot easier to just go with the X symbol and leave the words off.
That’s a good question for Kevin & company from north of the border.
The X symbol is higher-visibility, being made of two colours of Scotchlite reflective material.
Transport Canada decided that visibilty of the symbol was more important than having lettering on it, just as red and white Yield signs have mostly replaced the yellow ones with “yield” text.
Unfortunately, too many people in both countries fail to treat them like a yield sign. Then again, I experience people who do not know what a yield sign is either on the on-ramps to the freeway.
SWome drivers can’t even figure out what a sross walk at a school zone sign is.
Maybe the Canadian crossbucks are blank because “Hey, yeh hoser, like there’s a train comin or something” is just too long to fit on a crossbuck! [:D]
CC
I’ve never seen a Canadian sign. Can someone please post a picture or a link ?
Larry’s got it – the Canadian sign is the international sign for railroad crossings. Most US jurisdictions still use the old US DOT manual for traffic signs – which hasn’t been updated in years.
Chad Thomas- here is a diagram of the signs (scroll down aways), and some info about them. http://www.tc.gc.ca/railway/RTD10/signsroadmarkings.htm
Thanks THayman
AND: did you notice, American signs read RailrROAD Crossing and some of our old ones up here all read RailWAY Crossing (except in Quebec) I can’t remember what it was in French. THayman: great post on those signs, thanks
Maybe them Kanooks don’t know how to read???
gtr
Like others have said, I think it’s the bilingual thing. There was always a large French-speaking population in Canada, but Canada didn’t become officially bilingual until the 1970’s. As a result of being officially bilingual, all food and household products that you buy here are required by law to have everything on them written in both English and French. Note that on our crossing we have a picture of railroad tracks rather than the word “tracks” indicating how many there are.
In the book “Passing Trains: The Changing Face of Canadian Railroading” by Greg McDonnell, there is a picture of a train on the Alma & Jonquieres short line in Quebec in 1962. There is a biligual crossbuck in the picture. Going from the bottom left corner upwards, it reads, “Railway Crossing” and going from the top left downwards, it reads, “Traverse De Chemin Fer”.
Elsewhere in the world, they have crossbucks like this.
In the UK, they have crossings like this.
A note: the angle of the crossbuck is supposed to match the angle that the road meets the tracks.
Just a note on Canadian bilingualism
CN freight cars have Canadian National on one side of the car
and Canadien National on the other. Don’t know if newer
cars are still bilingual
You can put this in your book of useless information.
Here’s a twist for everyone. About 15 years ago there was significant interest in making US rail / highway crossings safer. In the case of “passive” markings, the good old black-on-white crossbucks was given a variety of facelifts. The most interesting of these (to me) was the combined yield and crossbucks a/k/a the Buckeye crossbuck or Conrail crossbuck. Another was the stop sign combined with the crossbuck. These signs looked fairly close to their Canadian cousins, above.
These variants never caught on in the US because–I am not making this up–HIGHWAY ENGINEERS WERE AFRAID THAT MOTORISTS WOULD START IGNORING YIELD AND STOP SIGNS, JUST LIKE THEY IGNORE CROSSBUCKS!
By the way, I drive my SUV & station wagon like old oil trucks and stop at every crossing for fun and for safety.
Some of this bilingualism has spilled over into the US. There are a lot of consumer products sold here in the States that have both English and French labels. I guess manufacturers save on production costs by having only one style of packaging for US and Canada. I know it’s not because we have a lot of Francophones. I wouldn’t be surprised someday if the US government forced manufacturers to stick Spanish labels on stuff too.
Based on other signs in Canada, I think the lack of words has more to do with an effort to increase safety and conform to international norms than anything to do with bilingualism. Canada as lot of other signs with language on the that are not bilingual. Here are a couple of examples,
- The “Stop” sign
- The “Slower Traffic Keep Right” sign
- The “Prepare to stop when Amber lights flashing” sign
- The “Maximum Speed” sign
etc.
Some western states have added an additional reflector to the standard issue crossbuck to increase visibility. The reflector has one surface facing oncoming highway traffic and two surfaces at 45 degree angles to the track so that the train’s headlight will also reflect into the path of the highway traffic. The reflector set is large - maybe 1 1/2 - 2 feet high.
dd