Crossing Gate Contact

[SirKrunch]

Kiss the windshield goodbye, and get clean skivvies for everyone in the car.

Jump to the 51-second mark for the meat of the video.

[SirKrunch]

Another direct hit to the windshield. This one got away much more lucky, I guess...

[NathanFromEngland]

A crossing gate lands on a car at 0:38 at this crossing in Romania.


On an unrelated note, the crossing is due to be closed at the end of this month, as an overpass is being built across the line from reading through some of the comments.
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.427152, ... 384!8i8192

[AndyWS]

Re-upping this video now 10 years ago OTD. At 7:44 I got the camcorder rolling and the lens cap off just in time to catch the gate smacking the roof of a window cleaners' van at this crossing.

This is now on my NEW railfanning YouTube channel so please give it a "like" and subscribe if you haven't already!

[SirKrunch]

Gee, another of those craptastic weird font crossbucks UP uses that was misprinted. I'd be asking whoever printed these for a damned refund by now.

[KCMO Railfan]

Gee, another of those craptastic weird font crossbucks UP uses that was misprinted. I'd be asking whoever printed these for a damned refund by now.

From what I've heard, those ugly font crossbucks are made by NEG. Yes the same company that makes those horrid knockoff Safetran type 2s that UP and CSX love to use on their crossings anymore.

[SirKrunch]

From what I've heard, those ugly font crossbucks are made by NEG. Yes the same company that makes those horrid knockoff Safetran type 2s that UP and CSX love to use on their crossings anymore.

Well, that certainly makes sense in that you never see them on new signal installations, and only used as replacements on existing installs.

[freebrickproductions]

Yes the same company that makes those horrid knockoff Safetran type 2s that UP and CSX love to use on their crossings anymore.

Ain't knock-offs, NEG bought the design from Siemens back in about the mid-2010s IIRC.

[NSsignal]

NEG E Bells are the safetran Type 2. The company safetran originally was RACO then I’m pretty sure they turned into safetran. Then safetran turned into Invensys rail which lasted for a very short time before Siemens bought them. Siemens basically gave the Safetran type two to NEG which they named it the NEG E Bell.

Now there is pretty concrete evidence that Raco is part of safetran. The raco gate mech and the safetran gate mechs and the Invensys rail S40s and the Siemens S60s all use that same box shame mech. The S80 mech is more of a box shape instead of a rectangle shape but the angles are the same.

NEG now owns the rights to making the safetran gate lights Hence why they now have Identical gate lights to the safetran/RACO ones. Finally the reason why the 1970s style safetran/raco cantilever is called that is because it was continued on by safetran.

The raco mechanical bell looks a lot like the safetran mechanical bell which leads me to believe that Griswold is part of RACO as the bell is called a RACO/Griswold M bell. Also explains the raco EM gate being identical to the Griswold gate. That was a bit much for a comment about NEG making Knock off bells.

[freebrickproductions]

NSsignal, while you got some of the info in your post correct, a fair amount of it was wrong.

Siemens basically rebranded the Safetran type two to the NEG E Bell.

No. NEG is not, and has never been, part of Safetran/Siemens. Siemens sold the design off to National Electric Gate in the 2010s, with NEG having been a distributor of the bells in question for a long time. NEG is primarily a supplier of railroad crossing equipment based out of Pooler, GA (with their headquarters just down the road from the GC Savannah Subdivision).

Now there is pretty concrete evidence that Raco is part of safetran. The raco gate mech and the safetran gate mechs and the Invensys rail S40s and the Siemens S60s all use that same box shame mech. Even the new Siemens S80.

RACO became Safetran in 1971. Also, the S80 uses a different case design, as it is noticeably shorter than the other S-series gate mechs. The very early Safetran S-series gate mechs, like the ones at Fleming Road in Montgomery, were just the old RACO S-series gate mechs with the branding changed.

I can’t remember if Wabco is part of Safetran but anyway NEG is part of Safetran. Hence why they now have Identical gate lights to the safetran/RACO ones.

WABCO was never part of Safetran.
The Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) was its own company, and had been from 1869 until 1968 when American Standard took them over. In 1917, WABCO took-over Union Switch & Signal (US&S), which was operated fairly independently, until 1968 when American Standard reorganized US&S as a division of WABCO, hence why the WABCO 8 inch lights all kept US&S branding on them around the edge. As a side note, both WABCO and US&S were started by George Westinghouse.

Again, NEG has never been part of Safetran.

Finally the reason why the 1970s style safetran/raco cantilever is called that is because it was continued on by safetran.

Correct. I believe the design would've been discontinued in the 1980s or 1990s by Safetran. Originally it was made by Griswold.

The raco mechanical bell looks a lot like the safetran mechanical bell which leads me to believe that Griswold merged with RACO as the bell is called a RACO/Griswold M bell. Also explains the raco EM gate being identical to the Griswold gate.

RACO was the resulting company of the merger between Griswold and Transport Products Corp in 1963. Some products, like the bells and EMs, were originally Griswold products. In fact, the RACO bells still retain faint marks where the Griswold branding can still be seen, as RACO didn't completely remove the Griswold branding from the molds. The S-series gate mechs were a continuation of the S-series gate mechs offered by Transport Products Corp.

Safetran would also continue these lines on, the very earliest Safetran bells were RACO ones that had the internal branding changed. Safetran would base both generations of their mechanical bell on the RACO (and Griswold) bell until the 2nd Gens were discontinued in the early to mid-2000s. The EMs would be made until at least the 1990s or early 2000s, and, of course, the S-series of gate mechanisms are still being made today as the S40, S60, and S80.

nock off

*knock-off