Damm. That is contrary to everything I was taught about the design of Xing signalling, Obvious testing should reveal what is wrong. The signal maintainer is in a badspot. First suspicion would be a wiring error. Do the current electronic Xing modules still use a directional relay? I wonder when this protection was installed & by whom. But why the failure to activate?
Shouldn’t engineer be aware that the flashers are not active? Portholes on side of flasher heads are visable to the engineer. I always noted them when in the cab or in a dome. But it is easy to believe that they always start and ignore them. This will be one to follow.
For this accident in Queens. Any idea who is responsible for signal maintenance ? LIRR, the freight carrier , or someone else ?. If not LIRR when did LIRR transfer responsibility ?
If over a dozen accidents why did FRA and / or NTSB investigate ? Looks like a lot of blame to go around but maybe drivers who got hit will get any charges expunged and insurance rates lowered retroactively ?
LIRR Investigations should include but not limited to crossing manufacturer, who wired, number of reported incidents, designed activation time or location, internal reporting system, activations only in island circuit, etc.
As the article says, this does raise the question of how many people who have been struck by a train have been charged with violating the crossing signals that had actually failed to activate. I have been told by authorities that it is impossible for grade crossing protection to fail to activate because it is considered to be “fail safe.”
This same type of accident happened in Chicago a few years ago. Signal maintainers had been working on the crossing. Later that night, they came back to test their work. But they tested with a train that was not properly made part of the test. I mean it was lacking the part of the test that would have the train stop short of the crossing and flag through if the test found a fault with the day’s work by the maintainers.
Instead, the maintainers tested with a scheduled Amtrak train. The train would normally pass at 79 mph, and the maintainers did not impose any speed restriction for their test. Their test would simply tell them whether the signals were working okay. But if the test showed they were not okay, the train would zoom through the unprotected crossing at track speed nevertheless.
As it turned out, the signals were not okay, and a woman drove onto the crossing in front of the Amtrak train. The signals and gates failed to activate and the driver was killed as the signal maintainers watched to see if their work passed inspection.
Why? BaltACD is referring to the article about the Cuyahoga Falls crossing, where 21 car drivers have turned onto the tracks… That is indeed driver fault.
There’s a note saying “file under … train wreck”. This could lead a casual observer to conclude that some blame attaches to the train, but I don’t see how the train could cause the truck’s landing gear to snag the rail. Doesn’t look like the train wrecked. Looks like the truck wrecked. If the trucker was worried about being over the weight limit before this happened, I think he can relax now.
Hope the injured recover, and the guilty party learns a lesson.
Getting back to this. I hate crossings near intersections. Sometimes I wonder if it would be that much of a pain (expense) to erect two additional gate mechanisms that are normally lowered perpendicular across the tracks. That would hopefully steer people around the tracks and not onto them (use another color for them, perhaps? Yellow and black?). Then when the train comes, the road gates would lower and the gates across the tracks would raise. Has to be cheaper than redesgining a whole intersection. Yes, it would require a little maintenance.
Other news report say it was a motor grader w/o a tractor trailer involved. I’m sitting here with somebody discussing RRPP and its high associated costs (ie - Why insurance companies hate the risk factor around railroads, especially with the dreaded yellow machines)…