What a can of worms...bottom line, of course, is that you can't fix stupid.

I am not a signal maintainer, but I do have a very solid background in industrial controls and instrumentation, and have also done quite a bit of locomotive rewiring. I don't think adding a continuous red to EXISTING crossing flashers would require an "electronics geek". The new light could most likely be wired in parallel to an existing circuit, perhaps the circuit that goes to the flasher relay coil or equivalent solid state flasher. If lamp current is an issue, that circuit could pilot a relay, which could power the lights.

Also, there is a crossing in Delaware, near New Castle, that has both the standard crossing flashers on a cantilevered structure, and regular three light traffic signals, so it has been done. (Sorry, but I don't recall the highway number-). It is very common, also, for crossing flashers and highway signals to be integrated where crossings are near intersections.

It has been done, before, it isn't rocket science. I still think this is something the FRA, AAR, and perhaps Operation Lifesaver should look into.

EDM,

As I have explained above, they have looked into adding continuous red to grade crossings and rejected the idea for the reasons I gave.

Ron, That's why I said you can't fix stupid...

Calif drivers' handbook says: "Remember that flashing red lights mean STOP! Stop at least 15 feet, but not more than 50 feet, from the nearest track when the crossing devices are active or a person warns you a train is coming. Stop if you see a train coming or you hear the whistle, horn, or bell of an approaching train.

"Do not go under lowering gates or around lowered gates. Flashing red lights indicate you must stop and wait. Do not proceed over the crossing until the red lights stop flashing, even if the gate rises. If the gates are lowered and you do not see a train approaching, call the posted railroad emergency toll-free number or 9-1-1. Be ready to give a detailed description of your location."

Of course lots of people ignore the part about not proceeding until the lights stop flashing. As soon as the gate is high enough to clear their car, they are moving.

We do have some somewhat confusing traffic signals where the tracks closely parallel a road. When the gates go hot, if the traffic signal is already red, the traffic signal goes green to allow any idiots that are stopped on the tracks because of the red traffic light to move off (the cross traffic gets the red). Once the gates are fully down, the traffic signal goes red also. Some people take that green traffic signal to mean "beat the gate."

As I have said before....Its all about training.
Spending a bit more time in testing and drivers education learning about railroad crossing safety will help.....it won't cure stupid, but it will raise awareness....
And it may well be more "cost" effective....

I disagree with Ron's reasoning that equates what happens adding a stop sign with adding a solid red. People are used to stop and go at a stop sign. People are used to stopping and waiting for a solid red. Only if it is reasonably thought to be malfunctioning will they proceed. So I still think it would be useful at signaled crossings without gates.

Steve I

A part of the MUTCD semantics is that drivers expect 'yield' and 'stop' signs to apply to other motor-vehicular traffic. They come to a crossing with adjacent road, look for cars or trucks, and not trains.

I wonder whether an intermediate state of display on Holley Rudd's standard signal would resolve some of the ambiguity. When I was working in ITU group R10 many years ago, there was an issue with the 'blink' attribute of many character displays with respect to safety-critical applications: the text was not readable at all during the period it was 'blinked' off. I suggested that this be addressed by changing the 'blink' to a higher intensity flashing superimposed on the normal character. In tests this produced the desired 'stimulus' without compromising legibility in critical situations.

If we keep both red lights steadily illuminated at some baseline intensity (probably associated with MUTCD standards for red traffic signals) and then arrange brighter alternate flashing, we might have an approach that resolves the situation,

I do not believe that the grade crossing problem is based on inadequate signals and signs. It is based on 175 years of crossing/driver interaction and belief. Drivers understand the difference between a grade crossing and a highway intersection. The preponderance of the grade crossing problem is based on these two factors:

1) Many drivers believe that grade crossing signals are merely intended to inform them that a train is approaching, and that they are entitled to use their own discretion in deciding whether or not the train is too close to cross in front of it.


2) Many drivers have been imprinted with the experience of a long delay when a freight train stops on a crossing for some reason; and they are reminded of this possibility every time they encounter a grade crossing where the signals indicate the approach of a train. So they take a risk in trying to beat the train.

You can add a continuous red light to a grade crossing, but the driver behavior at that red light when it is at a highway intersection will not transfer over to the grade crossing because of the two factors I have listed above.

And that is precisely where people get killed, Sandy. These crossings, more than any other, need absolute protection.


Correct. Having two sets of rules makes no sense whatsoever. It's asking too much of drivers.


True. However it greatly raises the bar of responsibility. It fully informs a normal, responsible person that he must stop and pay attention. Of course there will be a minority who thinks he can "game the system", but it is immediately obvious to his passengers that he is not a responsible driver.

Now, you know some people will ignore the stop sign. Does that place any burden of duty upon you? No, it does not. It really does not. In a system based on freedom, people are personally responsible, there isn't a "puppetmaster" trying to manipulate them. Because such manipulations always have unintended consequences.


Whoa. Stop right there. That is one helluva stretch. First they say people treat RR stop signs lightly because out of common sense they know the difference (being a RR)… and the conclusion is that they'll treat ALL stop signs lightly because they lack the common sense to know the difference? That doesn't even make sense. It's doublespeak.

Typical high socialism, aggregation at its worst, Keynes' mistake (reducing macroeconomics to formulas and ignoring what actually drives humans to act) … remember when the president said "Why are you all sitting there in shock? Go out and BUY SOMETHING!" in a desperate effort to head off recession.

Their singular goal is reduce the number of fatalities in an aggregation bucket they care about. They have no interest in the particular circumstances of fatality X, nor the social impacts of their central plan.

They forced child seats to be rear-facing in the rear like luggage, breaking eons of human connection between parent and child… because of a technical issue with airbags which they caused and even so, only affected a tiny minority of cars. The result is fatality numbers (already low) went to zero in buckets they cared about, and now we have an epidemic of many more children dying in far more gruesome ways with far more reaching effects. But mission accomplished, because they don't care about the child's fate once the car is parked.

See, their social masterplanning is highly selective, based on priorities they don't admit. They wig out about increased fatalities at traffic lights, because that is a bucket they care about even more than railroad accidents.


I'm sorry, they're just wrong. Even ignoring the other reasons they are wrong, there aren't enough railroad grade crossings, people don't encounter them often enough for them to have that effect. And they really do work.

In the 90s I rode the Newark, NJ streetcar. It is on a right-of-way with many grade crossings. At the grade crossings, they dispensed entirely with "crossing flashers" probably because they got sick of repairing the front ends of streetcars. Instead, they used regulation traffic lights, same as every road/road intersection in Newark. And by golly, that light turned red and drivers STOPPED and SAT. We're talking New Jersey drivers, on home turf where they know the score. The "Don't run red lights" taboo is that strong!

SMRS also has two crossings controlled by traffic lights, with manual preemptors. And it's the same there too: traffic blindly obeys, even though they can plainly see that the light is in a "funny cycle" due to the train.

The conclusion is not that driver will treat all stop signs lightly because they lack the common sense to know the difference.

The conclusion is that drivers do know the difference between grade crossings and highway intersections, and they react differently to the two different applications of the same traffic control device used for grade crossings and highway intersections. Drivers rarely use their discretion to decide to run a red traffic light when no vehicles are approaching on the conflicting route. But lots of drivers use their discretion in deciding to pass activated grade crossing signals and lowered gates.

So, to the extent that adding a stop sign does not increase compliance, it will be violated along with the flashers and gate. Adding that stop sign violation will habituate drivers to lower their respect for stop signs in general, including at road intersections.

I agree that there would be far fewer stop signs at grade crossings than at road intersections, but it would still create a process of erosion of respect for all stop signs.

What I have found surprising is the amount of effort the MUTCD puts into understanding driver psychology. They find that drivers lose respect for signs that they perceive to be excessively restrictive. Drivers don’t just respond to the signs and the laws. They also assess the circumstances of the sign application, and respond to those. If drivers feel the sign is more restrictive that it needs to be, they violate the sign. The MUTCD looks for those driver attitudes and takes them into account because they know that sign violations weaken the authority of the sign in every application of it.

I seem to recall when I started driving in the late sixties, Wisconsin was in the process of adding standard road stop signs to railroad crossbucks... at least in southeastern Wisconsin, it may have been a Kenosha County initiative. Anyway by adding a stop sign to a non signaled crossing, of which there were a lot in those days, the expectation was that drivers would have to stop before they crossed the tracks, whether a train was present or not. I never saw anyone stop. The typical driver would slow down and look, not for a train, but to see if a cop was hiding in the weeds, then "roll" the sign and accelerate across the crossing. I don't think it had any effect on grade crossing collisions, and eventually Federal highway funds paid for automatic signals.

Why are we discussing this? This is supposed to be a place for discussions about preservation, not newfangled ideas that will change the landscape even more. I personally think railroad gates should return to BLACK and white stripes.

I deal with, among other people, someone who works for the Federal Highway Administration and another who is a national expert on communications in transportation. I should forward them this thread for their reactions.

Yes, we have a culture where people will race trains yet will reflexively stop at a red light in the middle of the desert or prairie at four in the morning with no other driver visible for six miles in any direction. Foreigners from places like France and Italy look in shock and amazement at our insistence at stopping at the latter.

And you know WHY we stop at such a nonsensical light placement? Because our national culture has pounded it into our heads dang well "IT'S A TRAP!" and there HAS to be a state trooper, policeman or sheriff lurking behind the one bush visible, or even in a ditch.

Now, consider the last time you saw police officers citing someone for blowing past activated crossing lights, if indeed you've ever seen it aside from an officer pacing an Operation Lifesaver special. Instead, in the late 1980s I had to send Operation Lifesaver after the Pennsylvania State Police after they had a cruiser broadsided by a Conrail train--I had witnessed them roaring over the same crossing in front of a freight two weeks earlier just to get back to barracks in time for shift change, tried to call them on it, and got hung up on.

Drivers calculate risk-reward ratios constantly. When they are stuck in the mother of all traffic jams, they will illegally use the "Emergency and Authorized Vehicles Only" u-turn paths to escape it, because the alternative is being delayed for a half-hour more to several hours, and it doesn't matter how good the radio show or CD changer or iPod selection is, and they know no officer is going to cite them because they're all down there dealing with the accident/whatever. People routinely speed because 1) the value of the aggregate hours saved over several years of driving faster outweighs the price of the ticket they might get every couple of years, and 2) the highways have largely been designed with excess safety factors in mind that permit a driver to drive much faster than most speed limits with no real additional risk. (Want people to drive slower? Start building roads with narrower rights of way, lanes, and shoulders, and thus fewer "safety margins." Works every time.) I had an Indian engineer tell me that "the U.S. speed limit system is a national joke, THE national joke" and he was right, at least until some rural states started raising their limits to more realistically match highway conditions.

Realistically or unrealistically, when drivers confront a decision whether or not to "beat the train," all that will stand out in his head is the one or two times they were at a crossing for ten or twenty minutes while a train switched an industry, or got right to where the end was visible then stopped and backed up. If every train at a crossing nationwide was a light rail train that blew over the crossing in faster time than it takes the gates to go up and down, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You want people to start reflexively stopping for crossings? Start having officers nationwide enforcing what laws are already out there. Unfortunately, because of the perceived and real ambiguities in the law described throughout this thread, such a move will be seen not as enforcement/education but rather a naked "money grab" by police departments, much like the towns that lower the speed limit on the thousand feet of a major highway that passes through their town to rake in hundreds of thousands in fine revenue.

It's been more than ten years, but when I was at TVRM I did see local police officers following our Downtown Arrow service when they were not on calls. One time a car ran a crossing on one of the local four lane surface streets. Crossing was fully marked and signalled with preemption of the signals for the adjacent traffic intersection. The motorist not only ran the crossing, but ran a red light in the process! Fortunately, there was a marked patrol car on the other side of the crossing on the inside lane. That officer nailed the motorist with a couple of citations.

The engineering factor has been demonstrated in a number of validated studies. Another factor in our driving behavior has been the increased use of safety devices in automobiles. If you want to slow drivers down, take away the air bags and install daggers with five inch blades on the center of the steering column and passenger side dashboard. That'll give them food for thought.

Another low tech way of discouraging runners at crossings? Install curbs or barrier strips along the centerline for 100 feet on each side of the crossing (when gates are employed). That prevents motorists from swerving around the ends of the gates and requires them to drive in the opposing lane for a significant distance to get around the gates. That creates an increased perception of danger and discourages most folks from trying. It's a low cost, high return method of risk reduction. In one case in Tennessee, a small town did this on their own initiative and the state department of transportation was sufficiently impressed with the decrease in reported close calls that the state reimbursed the town for the cost of the barriers.

I would think that red light cameras would be the perfect solution to the grade crossing violation problem. No matter how inconvenient the possible train delay, nobody is going to want to pay $500-1,500 to avoid it.

But, apparently red light cameras have been damaged beyond repair by a public backlash after having been introduced as a municipal revenue generator under the pretext of law enforcement.

Red light cameras are being possibly outlawed in NJ as we speak, for just that reason, revenue collection. Its being debated in Trenton this week. I frequently go through an intersection where the camera's flash seems to go off at random, even in the middle of green lights. Makes me wonder if I went through a red light (I don't-) whenever I see it in my rear view mirror.