Does the United States have grade crossings where CCTV cameras are used to ensure that the railroad track is clear of obstructions before the signals are cleared to a proceed aspect?
Over here in the UK this is one of four general types of crossing, to accompany “no barriers at all, but lights”; “half barriers and lights” and commonest in number what are know as occupation crossings, with gates set against what is usually a farm path, but no lights. These are the least used crossings, in terms of road vehicle numbers, and are usually on private roads or footpaths.
If we do have any they are far and few between. Grade crossings with gates are really expensive, let alone ones with cameras that ensure no one or anything is on the track. Maybe another forum member can elaborate more on this topic.
I have seen a couple of such things in industrial railroad operations in the U.S. They were used to change indications on a signal governing the roadway, not the railway. I have not in my career seen such a thing on a common-carrier railway in the U.S.
There are of course all sorts of rules about which type to use in a given circumstance and I pretend no expert knowledge, but my impression is that the manual type is normally only used where (a) old fashioned manual signalling is still in use, and there is a signalbox nearby to control/monitor the crossing, or (b) where there are special circumstances which make it desirable that the maximum level of crossing protection is in place. For example: high speed lines, crossings within town centres, anywhere where there is a risk of traffic queuing back onto the crossing. The rail signals controlling these crossings are held at danger until the barriers/gates are closed and the signaller can see (either by looking out of the window or by way of CCTV) that the crossing is clear. I think that these crossings cause more delay for road traffic than other types - on lines with four-aspect signalling the cross
The UP uses CCTV in a couple of yards where the switching lead goes over a public crossing. These are yards where RCLs are used. The CCTV allows the RCO to see that the gates and lights are operating before going over the crossing.
Blue Island Junction, IL, is an excellent example of an 8 track grade crossing where they still have a guy sitting in a shack activating the crossing signals.
Grade crossings are so common in the United States that it is rare for grade crossing signals to be interlocked with the railroad signal system. Some grade crossing signals will display an aspect to the engineer of an oncoming train which shows that they have properly activated although this is uncommon and these situations will be mentioned in the employee timetable along with appropriate special instructions.
Manually operated grade crossing signals have all but vanished. The grade crossing at Blue Island Junction may be the last one in the Chicago area with manually operated gates and signals.
The comment has been made that CCTV confirmation of no crossing blockage or trapping would extend the time delay in crossing blockage for a train’s approach and passage. Such a video system introduces a human element and requires virtually full-time staff monitoring that offsets much of any savings avoiding grade separation.
A combination radar and infra-red detection system might approach the same goal. A warning signal would need to be activated well in advance of the the current crossing protection safety allowance; but this and CCTV can encourage mischief to block the crossing and forcing the train to stop.
An interlocked, railroad dispatcher-controlled gate system for private crossings has been considered. The private user would request permission to cross which would be granted if no trains were operating in the area, again introducing a liability issue, human error factor, and the ability to wrongfully block the orderly passage of trains.
I hadn’t forgotten the old fashioned manual barriers, but considered them to be a version of CCTV in that the signals are only cleared when the crossing is seen to be clear, though this time it’s the Mk1 human eyeball that’s doing the seeing. Of course the old fashioned system came first and CCTV is a way of controlling such crossings from a distance, but the principle remains. One further point is that train volume in the UK is much higher, so a CCTV operator is kept busy for much longer per hour than would be their American counterpart.
One thought comparing the US and the UK is that in the UK there were often roads before the railway was built. I may well be proved wrong, but I don’t know of any public roads that cross a railway line on the level when the railway was there before the road. Indeed by about 1860 railroads had started to go out of their way to avoid grade crossings, problem is that there’s quite a lot of pre 1860 right of way in Britain including many main lines. Many roads may well have been pretty minor back in 1840, but roads they were. In the US I assume the railroad was there first in many places, which gives a different priority order between road and railroad.
Yes, you are definitely correct about your US/UK road/rail timeline comparison. If you look at satellite maps of the US, you’ll see that many times the railroad goes right through the middle of a town, that’s because the town grew up around the railroad, and then new roads like our interstate highway systems actually go around the town.
Another interesting US/UK comparison would be that I bet the railroads are probably a lot straighter in the US than the UK - in the UK the railroads probably connected town that were already there, whereas in the US a lot of times railroads were built perfectly straight over very very long distances connecting distant locations, and then towns sprang up along the way after rail construction.
The biggest reason that level crossings are uncommon in the UK is that from almost the very beginning of railway construction the Board of Trade laid down strict regulations about level crossing design. Where the line crossed a public road, the crossing had to be gated, with gates which swung across the railway when open to the road to keep livestock off the line (so for a four track line you would often have 8 gates, 4 of them in the middle of the crossing) and a member of staff to open and close them whenever required. Even the most minor country lane on a minor branch line would require a member of staff manning the crossing whenever the line was in use. In most cases, the railway companies did their sums and worked out that a bridge would be much cheaper in the long run. British lines with lots of crossings were normally lines built on the cheap, and until the 1960s when automatic crossings began to appear there remained a strong financial incentive for the railway to eliminate level crossings. Where the road was built after the railway it would almost invariably have had a bridge.
With regard to Sawtooth500’s point, yes, almost always UK lines were built between towns rather than in a straight l