I was wondering what happens when a crossing gate fails in the up position in a quiet zone. Would it be easy for the engineer to see that it is not down and blow the horn? I know gates don’t usualy fail in the down position but I have seen it happen.
Interlocked with signals?
Problem solved: Trains should honk their horns at all grade crossings. [:)]
I’d hope that the engineer would see it, and blow his horn. There’s unfortunately a quiet zone by where I live, where trains aren’t allowed to blow their horns.
What are the odds of a signal being in the right spot to be of any use?
For any engineers here…Do you guys pay close attention to the gates to see if they go down as you aproach or do you just take it for granted that they will?
Yes I have seen gates and lights fail but usally when they fail they are in the down posstion. It seems to be they fail when it is really cold out or they fail more. When it is relly hot outside.
I agree with you 110 percent!!! There shouldn’t be a such thing as quite zones, they create too much contraversy beleive it or not. The engineer should blow the horn throught all grade crossings, to warn people of oncomming trains, and to get the heck off the tracks!!! Now days you have people that want to sue the railroad for something as dumb as oh the engineer didn’t sound th horn when he went over the crossing. Well guess what he wasn’t suposed to because, it 's a quite zone, horse crap! Mabe there shouldn’t of been a quite zone there in the first place.
On another matter it is interesting that the gates don’t fail too much in the upright position. I guess it must be a safety feature for them to fail in the downward position. huh… interesting.
Actually, after some checking, crossing gates are designed so they cannot fail in the up positon, failing always brings them to the down position, the rare times they ever fail.
It is part of the regular fail-safe technology that is the safety culture of North American railroading. I hope some day it is a Word-Wide railroad culture.
More to the point. When an American engineer sees something dangerous that he has to navigate to get to his terminal, he will get action from the dispatcher right away or report the matter to his Union rep and the FRA (or equal in Canada).
Unfortunately, railway men in other parts of the world, particularly those who grew up under Communism, have a habit of not taking anti-authority risks that they feel might endanger their jobs and will follow orders, even if ordered to continue to operate over something that is obviously dangerous. Enough said.
I hope the safety culture of North American railroading can be worldwide. I pray for it to happen.
Dave, I know they are designed to fail in the down position but I did see one fail to come down one time. It was the Woodly street crossing on the SP coast line in Van Nuys. That is a 6 lane busy crossing. The lights and bell were working but one of the gates did not come down. Now I’m really wondering how that was possible.
I have no problem with the No Horn laws with one stipulation…
The govenmental authority that imposes the law thereby assumes all responsibilities and liabilities for ANY train vs. vehicle or train vs. pedestrian incident that occurs at the No Horn crossings. You get what you are willing to pay for.
Most if not all gates are designed to be powered up and gravity down. I know when we test our crossings we loosen the nut on the power feed to the motor and the lights on the arm activate and the gate freefalls into the down position. I have taken a lid from a soda bottle and jammed it into the gears to hold the gate up when I know there is no trains coming to keep traffic moving until I solve the problem.
Dave
When crossing protection fails…either operating when no train is in the area or fails to operate in the presence of a train…the local authorities notify the appropriate railroad and ‘Stop & Flag’ orders are issued to all trains on the subdivision until such time as the signal technicians make repairs to the crossing. This procedure gets interesting where there are multiple railroads using the same road crossing and not all railroads get the notification.
or if its a railroad like csx and tries to squeeze a bunch of trains through a short time span.
stay safe
joe
Well in fact just a couple of weeks ago out in pweaukee. I got stopped by malfunction gates and it just happened to be that they were down for a good 5 minutes before they dicided to go back up. And after a good 15 minutes later They went right back down and there was. No train in site.
BNSF’s Phoenix to Flagstaff mainline runs through Surprise, AZ which is where the all of the retirement communities are built on the westside of Phoenix. And all of the retirees out there are complaining about the sound of the horns and frequency of trains. Problem is they’re the same people who stop their car or golf carts right on the crossing while waiting for a red light with a train coming down the track . (There many intersections which parallel the tracks.) I can’t believe nobody hasn’t gotten hit or killed.