Railroad Forums 

  • Last manual grade crossings

  • General discussion about railroad operations, related facilities, maps, and other resources.
General discussion about railroad operations, related facilities, maps, and other resources.

Moderator: Robert Paniagua

 #1586393  by Myrtone
 
I once read about manually controlled barriers on grade crossings between road and rail in North America and even saw a photo or two of them. Apparently, being operated by a person who could see the crossing, they didn't need warning signals.
What was the last one to go and does any footage of their operation exist?
 #1586423  by edbear
 
Well the Concord Street crossing in Framingham, Massachusetts had crank down gates until 1986. When I was a youngster the gates protected both the Boston and Albany (NY Central) and New Haven which were side by side and then just east of Concord Street, the New Haven crossed the B & A on a diamond. Well the manual gates lasted through the Penn Central era into Conrail. At some point the crossing cabin was equipped with a warning bell and the gate tender also had a switch that set traffic signals on Concord Street at stop when the gates were lowered.
 #1586773  by ExCon90
 
There was a manually operated crossing in Lansdale, Pa., (originally Reading, now SEPTA) which lasted until fairly recently, but I don't know the year. I posted a question in the SEPTA forum, but no reply so far.
 #1586859  by ExCon90
 
According to a reply posted today, the manual operation at Lansdale lasted until 2007 (see SEPTA under Passenger Rail). The links provided have the whole story (1856-2007 -- 151 years).
 #1586862  by The EGE
 
Three locations on the MBTA system still have active (to my knowledge) crossing shacks: Forest Street in Wakefield, High Street in West Medford, and Cabot Street in Beverly. The gates themselves may be automatic, however, with the human merely supervising traffic.