The primary hazard is getting the wider wheels pressed into flangeways so tightly that they cannot be withdrawn. Then if the person riding in the device is unable to leave it due to a physical disability, they may be struck by a train unless help arrives in time.
The problem can be avoided if the user crosses perpendicular to the track, however, lapses in that requirement are inevitable since the devices have zero turn attributes and the user is accustomed to using this ability for navigating various obstructions. They will be far more accustomed to impulsive sharp turns than they are to the admonition to cross grade crossings at right angles; especially when the need to do so is completely unapparent without practical experience.
Also, the lead wheels are typically on casters, and even a slight range of zero-turn application will immediately turn the casters at right-angles to the direction of travel. If this happens as the casters are about to cross a flangeway, it aligns the casters to drop into the flangeway.
Also, the casters are easily unintentionally rotated by minor obstructions in the path of travel. Since the flangeway is a major obstruction to a caster, the flangeway alone poses the risk of accidentally rotating the caster ninety-degrees so its wheel is paralle
This is a cute treatise but it fails to address the #1 issue with flangeway fillers since the Lord proposed them to Noah: what about flanger operation?
About the best I have come up with in a great deal of time is very precise GPS beaconing that can raise and lower flanger cutters at these crossings, for example via a high-accuracy version of that grade-crossing location app that has now disappeared; or some kind of ramp analogous to those used for some kind of steam-locomotive water scoop that trip retract when encountered … I don’t agree with automatic re-extension but professionals may laugh at me for that.
I also toyed with the idea of a relatively large-diameter sectional wheel, in place of a straight flanger cutter, that would break up and expel ice from the gap, but just press down full-height elastomer fillers – didn’t some sleet cutters work a comparable way? In constant running these would dress the gauge face of the rail continuously and by extension even ‘pickable’ facing points without throwing them open…
Maybe I misunderstand your point, but to my knowledge, flangers have no ability to run through a grade crossing and clean out the flangeways. Flangers are intended to cut snow below the cut bottom of a snow plow pass which is maybe 3-6” above the top of the rail. Then a flanger is run to cut more snow out to a lower elevation to about 3-5” below the tops of the rails. The flanger blade is notched out at each rail location so it can cut below the top of the rail elevation along the outside of the rails and in between them.
While snow plows can pass right over a grade crossing just like on the rest of the track, flangers must be raised in order to pass over a grade crossing. Otherwise, it will snag the crossing planks and tear them out or it will derail the flanger and probably the locomotive pushing it.
This is why there is a flanger sign posted on both sides of every grade crossing. It is to tell the flanger operator to raise the blade to clear the height of the crossing. Flangers must also be raised for other features such as switches, railroad crossings (diamonds), guard rails and tie spacing timbers on bridges and trestles, and anything else that is built up higher than the tops of the ties.
But to the point of flangeway fillers or railseals interfering with ice removal, I have read the manufacturer’s claims that flangeway fillers and railseals actually eliminate the ice accumulation problem with grade crossing flangeways.
What I meant is that extraordinary care, discipline, and ‘situational awareness’ are necessary wherever flanging is necessary to clear packed snow and ice out of ‘flange clearance’ areas, likely complicated because of the need in unimproved crossing flangeways - almost a what-is-not-forbidden-is-mandatory thing. And this likely being the case for a particular line until ALL its crossings have been fully ‘top-fillered’…
Either very precise location or very careful vigilance is needed as even one ‘miss’ involves potentially huge consequences. Not so much in absolute safety, but in rapid-response costs to ‘remediate’ what gets torn up or torn out if there is one little slip…
We have enough problems with derailments caused by obstructed flangeways. Good luck convincing the railroads and regulators to deliberately put stuff in them.
There are numerous flangeway filler designs out there from different companies all over the world. The hazards are just an excuse to spend nothing and do nothing. Here are just a few.
There must be some reason why fillers are so resisted on here, even though many are around and in use on major US railroads even in norhtern Illinois which has plenty of snow and ice. No derailments at crossings with fillers here. Perhaps out-of-date thinking?
Perhaps the difference between Main Line trains at track speeds of up to 79 MPH, or in some cases more and secondary lines and industrial spurs being operated on at Restricted Speed.
Some form of the shallow flangeway type must be what the UP is using at five or more crossings in my town. The mainline is three tracks and many heavy freight trains plus Metra daily. It’s one of the busiest spots in the US for freight. No derailments.
This poster is confused. I have observed on street car and light rail lines what appears to be a metal U shaped flangeway bolted to the guage side of rails . On the inside of the 2 rails the pavement is completely filled with concrete or asphalt. Would that be more expensive but more permanent ?