Boone IA Close Call

[SirKrunch]

It doesn't get much closer than this near Darwin Award winner. He's lucky all he lost was a Mtn Dew and some Cigarettes. People also need to learn, there are eyes out there everywhere to catch them when they do stupid stuff.

For clarification, this is the Story Street crossing in Boone. UP offices visible to the left. Camera then is looking WSW.

[Hopen111]

Crazy that this happened AGAIN just a few days later.

[SirKrunch]

I have to wonder if there has been any consideration to putting up some fencing, similar to what Ames uses to deter people from crossing the tracks, except at the grade crossings. And then combining that along with a controlled pedestrian crossing similar to what Marshalltown, IA uses at South 12th Avenue. Plus, an upgrade to quad gates either when the funding from the state is available, or that crossing is due for the equipment to be replaced.
It's obviously not feasible to upgrade all of the crossings in Boone to quad-gate, but given traffic counts one would think that Story Street is a sure-fire candidate for it. As well as pedestrian crossing improvements.
UPRR has been on quite a spree the past few years, replacing crossings across the former CNW main that CNW originally installed in the mid-80's up to UP's takeover in 1996. Although to be fair, unless upgraded recently, UPRR replaced the Griswold EM Gates at that crossing around that time as well, so I don't really know how much longer the current signals have yet before they come up for replacement.