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  • Quad Gates for HSR

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1512600  by Tadman
 
jwhite07 wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 1:43 pm
You couldn't get a train through there at greater than 25mph if you tried, even with 4 engines pulling a 4 car train. So why spend the money on quad gates?
Installing quad gates is one of the methods which can qualify a grade crossing as a "quiet zone", where the usual FRA requirements for sounding train horns are waived. Is that the case where you observed these installations?
Never thought of that. Could be.
 #1512609  by electricron
 
Quad gates is amongst the more expensive ways to get a railroad-highway crossing silent zone eligible. Often the town, city, county, or state could just install a curb for a median several hundred feet out (a half block to a full block or so), which would be far cheaper. But that solution requires construction outside the railroad right-of-way, which is the main reason why railroads can’t request for silent zones in Federal law. After all, it is not the railroads wanting the quiet zones, it is far cheaper for them to just blow the horns on the trains.
 #1512673  by ThirdRail7
 
I wouldn't be opposed to quad gates at every grade crossing, regardless of the speed.
 #1512687  by west point
 
electricron wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 10:15 am Quad gates is amongst the more expensive ways to get a railroad-highway crossing silent zone eligible.
We must challenge the statement. Around here every time CSX upgrades any crossing ( 5 observed ) it installs new conduit for future quad gates. A friend timed the boring machine and stated took less than an hour including the orange conduit.. That only required one crossing as one had to be bored anyway to get wiring to opposite side of road gate. Only had to bore under tracks. So for the example only new gates, flashers, and quad controller would be needed.
 #1513674  by Tadman
 
I've lived in New Orleans and Chicago. Both cities have traffic cameras. Red lights, speeding, etc... In NOLA, there is no breaks - 1mph over the speed in school areas and parks, you get a hefty ticket.

Why don't we do this on railroad crossings?

A RED LIGHT IS A RED LIGHT. You gotta stop. No driver judgment has ever been written into the laws. You can't run red lights on any street, ever, no way, no how. It is the hardest rule of the road. There is absolutely no interpretation in red lights. Having an automated enforcement at railroad tracks would change the culture and perspective. Drivers would reflexively think "I can't go around those gates and I can't stop there" just like they think "I can't blow a red light I might hit a car or person".

Quad gates are a solution that incrementally improves on the 2-gates method, but it doesn't solve the problem of Idiots. They'll find a way around those quad gates, just like motorists find their way onto the Northeast corridor through station parking lots and just like a lady found herself 100 yards down the UP main in her Toyota last year, so my Sunset had to sit for a few hours just outside the station. What kind of financial damage does this do to both Amtrak and Freights? To tie up a main for 4-8 hours while an accident is investigated? $100k/each? $500k/each? I bet it's enormous.
 #1513681  by WhartonAndNorthern
 
I've seen crossings that interlocked with traffic light signals so the traffic light goes red when the train comes. After a recent LIRR grade crossing incident, NY is proposing to allow railroad crossings to be treated as red lights for photo enforcement purposes. The problems come when there's a gate malfunction or other issue.
 #1513691  by rcthompson04
 
WhartonAndNorthern wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:33 am I've seen crossings that interlocked with traffic light signals so the traffic light goes red when the train comes. After a recent LIRR grade crossing incident, NY is proposing to allow railroad crossings to be treated as red lights for photo enforcement purposes. The problems come when there's a gate malfunction or other issue.
Roslyn on the Warminster Line has a great example of such chaos:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1211123 ... 384!8i8192

Willow Grove on the Warminster Line has another interesting one:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.143128, ... 384!8i8192
 #1513693  by Nasadowsk
 
Tadman wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:51 am No driver judgment has ever been written into the laws. You can't run red lights on any street, ever, no way, no how. It is the hardest rule of the road. There is absolutely no interpretation in red lights.
A few states have laws that allow you to legally run a red light after stopping. Typically for motorcycles that don't trip automatic sensors. It's an exception for the case where the red light is broken.
 #1513697  by Matt Johnson
 
Illinois has spent a lot of money and produced a lot of hype, but trains are still stuck at 79 mph. Michigan and Connecticut have quietly upgraded Amtrak routes to 110 mph. What's the problem in Illinois?
 #1513699  by CarterB
 
Quad gates is the norm in most of Europe on any relatively high speed or heavy traffic lines.
Not only quad gates, but have bars or chains hanging down from them. Seems to work quite well.
https://youtu.be/EV5ie4BMAdU
 #1513700  by mtuandrew
 
Matt Johnson wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 12:00 pm Illinois has spent a lot of money and produced a lot of hype, but trains are still stuck at 79 mph. Michigan and Connecticut have quietly upgraded Amtrak routes to 110 mph. What's the problem in Illinois?
Ownership
 #1513711  by ExCon90
 
CarterB wrote: Fri Jul 12, 2019 12:14 pm Quad gates is the norm in most of Europe on any relatively high speed or heavy traffic lines.
Not only quad gates, but have bars or chains hanging down from them. Seems to work quite well.
https://youtu.be/EV5ie4BMAdU
Note that 40 seconds go by and no train--that's because the gates are interlocked with the signal system, meaning that the home and distant signals on either side must display their most restrictive indication until the gates are completely down, resulting in a wait of several minutes before the train actually arrives. German motorists are patient because it's always been that way; I don't see American motorists adapting well.
 #1513723  by CarterB
 
Perhaps American motorists not so patient, also more road kill statistics. Maybe they should learn, be forced to stay behind blinking crossing lights/barriers for, if nothing else, peace of mind for the train crews.
 #1513804  by ExCon90
 
Speaking of peace of mind for train crews, a widespread practice in Europe is to provide, in approach to a crossing, a trackside indicator that the crossing gates are working as intended (in Germany, a normally dark lunar white over a solid yellow, or often a reflectorized yellow disc; if the lunar white doesn't start flashing by the time the train passes a marker, the gates aren't working, and presumably the train is to approach the crossing prepared to stop). CTA has had this like forever on the L, and the River LINE (Camden-Trenton) has something similar. Doing this on mainline railroads in the US would be a major expense, and thus probably won't happen.