According to MSNBC, vehicle/train collisions at crossings in Britain are at a 5 year high. They even showed a video. The UK must have the same problems with at-grade crossings as the US. IIRC, most of mainland Europe’s tracks are grade separated. That’s probably not the case in the UK since their tracks and railroad infrastructure were less impacted by WWII and didn’t need rebuilding.
England has way less level crossings then the USof A . The states are plagued with them and auto traffic is snarled by it. So it must be that British drivers have become worse. Perhaps due to prosperity they drive newer cars with sound systems or cell phone use and aren’t paying attension.
In Britain crossings are usualy conected to the block signal system, in the states they are indipendant. Conecting to the block signals means the gates have to close earlier to clear the signal in time to be able to stop the train if neccessary, wich means a longer wait for the train to arrive, but of course once the train arrives it’s gone again, because british trains are usualy short and fast. In the US the train might block the x-ing for a long time with a long slow train.
There is currently an advertising campaign to highlight the dangers of jumping a crossing. Crossings vary from those with lights (only on branch lines with restricted speeds), to half barriers (one side of the road only) to full barriers. The video currently being shown is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7878109.stm
Apparently the car video was used in evidence to prosecute the driver. s said above the wait at a crossing in the UK is generally not long as trains are short and usually fast. The problem can be on a busy line where the trains come so frequently that the barriers stay down while 2 or 3 trains pass!
There are plenty of grade crossings in Germany and France, but less publicity about problems. Either we don’t see it or drivers are more disciplined - I think the former is more likely.
Most light controlled and half barrier crossings are automatic - the barriers come down about 60 seconds before the train arrives and there is no way the train is going to stop if something is in the way. Drivers of slow vehicles are supposed to use the provided 'phone to get permission to cross.
Could you elaborate on that? What is a “slow vehicle”? From whom do they obtain permission?
To quote from the Highway Code:
294
Railway telephones. If you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle, a long, low vehicle with a risk of grounding, or herding animals, a train could arrive before you are clear of the crossing. You MUST obey any sign instructing you to use the railway telephone to obtain permission to cross. You MUST also telephone when clear of the crossing if requested to do so.
[Laws RTA 1988 sect 36 & TSRGD regs 10 & 16(1)]
I believe this follows the Hixon accident in the early days of automatic crossings when a low loader carrying a transformer got stuck on a crossing and was hit at speed by a passenger train. The telephone links to the appropriate signalbox who will be able to turn the approach signals to red.
The location of the near miss between the orange single-car DMU and the red motor car was at Llangadog, one of many stations on the Central Wales route which have adjacent road level crossings. The station platform is visible in the background. The crossing warning lights are activated by the train Guard using a control box at the leading platform end when travelling northwards (as was the case here), and by the train’s leading wheel flange striking a treadle button a suitable distance away when travelling southwards.
When the Guard presses the button, or the train strikes in, the road crossing warning light sequence kicks in, and when the road crossing warning lights have been flashing for the prescribed time, a flashing white light indicates to the train Driver that he can drive over the level crossing at no more than the prescribed speed limit, which I believe is 10 mph at that crossing. No white flashing lights, no go!!
The car driver actually had his wife and children in the car that day. Since the incident, she was so distraught that she demanded that they move house.
Hwyl,
Martin
My understanding is that the reason level crossings are much less common in Britain is that from the very earliest days of railways, the Board of Trade insisted that almost all public level crossings had to be protected by gates which completely closed across the line when open and across the road when closed. Where a crossing was remote from a signalbox, the railway usually had to employ a crossing keeper purely to open and close the gates. For busier crossings there would usually have been a crossing box, staffed on a shift basis, and at lightly used crossings it was common to build a cottage so that a single crossing keeper could man the crossing more or less permanently. Therefore the future wage bill (or the cost of building a cottage) meant that it frequently made more economic sense to build a bridge instead.
These days of course most public crossings are automatic, though a few old gated examples survive on semaphore signalled lines. Open (ungated) automatic crossings are now permitted but are only found on low speed branch lines, and even these have full flashing lights and sirens. (After the Lockington accident in 1986 the few open crossings which had been built on higher speed lines were phased out). As British trains are short and fast, unless the crossing is on a particularly busy section where several trains may pass motorists would not expect to delayed for any significant time so impatience
Nice video. There just aren’t enough Darwin Awards to go around!