Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Actually, scratch that, although it's all a vague memory now. A LONG time ago, a couple of crossings outside of town used to be gateless, but were long since upgraded to gated crossings. To my knowledge, there's no gateless crossings around here anymore. Kinda similiar to the elctronic bell situation: no corssings around here have e-bells - they're all mechanical.

There are still some crossings that have only crossbucks, but they're not used (because they're on heavily populated roads).

Both. Period

I prefer gates,I grew up around a lot of them here in Iowa especially when I lived in Des Moines,Iowa during my younger years.Always the Griswold Gates with wishbone gate arms on the pedestal mounts have been my favorite.A lot of them on the former Milwaukee Road Iowa Division that is gone now all most 30 years,and on the C&NW and some on the Rock Island.These were in the 70's to early and mid eighties.I just think it's safer with gated signals.

ER801 wrote:Safer "in a way"?? Consider that if the AC fails, and the batteries are depleated with a flashing light/bell only signal, there is nothing at all to let anyone know the things aren't working (and nobody seems to pay PO lights any attention)

At least with a gated setup, the gates will fall and stay down if the power and backup fails, letting folks know somethings wrong.

I never thought about that. Very good point!

Both for me.

ER801 wrote:Safer "in a way"?? Consider that if the AC fails, and the batteries are depleated with a flashing light/bell only signal, there is nothing at all to let anyone know the things aren't working (and nobody seems to pay PO lights any attention)

At least with a gated setup, the gates will fall and stay down if the power and backup fails, letting folks know somethings wrong.

That's the reason I like gates too. Also, at least people do pay attention to gates more than without. They will stop, and go really quickly with a gateless crossing...but they do think twice about going around gates...

I like both.

I like both. Don't mind gates or no gates, as long as it does the job. It's nice to have variety.

I prefer gated crossings. Most crossings in my area have had gates since 1986. (Expect Racecourse Road, which was gateless until 1999.)