Very rare event

[Smjh1979]

This street View is very strange...

The crossing is in action...

There are 2 gates total at this crossing, and BOTH are BROKEN!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 2,,0,-6.16

[illinoistrains]

that is strange. And it doesnt look like there is a train around.

is this crossing on the site?

[cabman701]

I'm sure the signals are on because that one gate is stuck halfway up. Must have been broken just a few hours or so before the Google car showed up.

[Robert_Gift]

Good catch!

Malicious damage.

The gate mechanism must be intentionally broken
Otherwise that broken gate would no longer balance the counterweights
and should be straight up.

[owensri]

Good catch!

Malicious damage.

The gate mechanism must be intentionally broken
Otherwise that broken gate would no longer balance the counterweights
and should be straight up.

Not necessarily...

The signals appear to be activated from a malfunction. If they weren't malfunctioning...they would be off, with the half gate being up as usual...and the mech with the gate broken off completely would be up as well all the way. Maybe a truck tried to weave through the malfunctioning crossing....but got hung up on both sides...which seems like the likely scenario here.

[Robert_Gift]

Good catch!
Malicious damage.
The gate mechanism must be intentionally broken
Otherwise that broken gate would no longer balance the counterweights
and should be straight up.

Not necessarily...

The signals appear to be activated from a malfunction. If they weren't malfunctioning...they would be off, with the half gate being up as usual...and the mech with the gate broken off completely would be up as well all the way. Maybe a truck tried to weave through the malfunctioning crossing....but got hung up on both sides...which seems like the likely scenario here.

You're right. Thank you. I went down the street and looked back.
The signals are not activated but operating.
The signals will not stop blinking until the gates are parked.

If activated, the gates should be all the way down. The gate motor gearing should overcome the imbalance of the counterweights without gates.
So why did the gates not park? Maybe I am wrong about the motors being strong enough.

[cabman701]

I was always under the impression if the gate could not get fully to it's "park" position that the lights will flash (unless turned off in the control box).

I saw a crossing here about a year ago where someone weaved around the gate and bent it. It got caught on the cantilever as it was going up... the signals continued to flash because the gate was only partially up.

This was on the NS line... I did call their 800 number and report it.

[SirKrunch]

With all the talk about people being angry about cameras everywhere anymore... something like this certainly I think makes a case for some kind of camera system to be posted at crossings like this. It'd sure be nice to catch the individual who did this destruction and make them pay for the repairs. (On top of fines for vandalism, reckless driving, disobeying a traffic control device, etc...)

[gedunk]

With all the talk about people being angry about cameras everywhere anymore... something like this certainly I think makes a case for some kind of camera system to be posted at crossings like this. It'd sure be nice to catch the individual who did this destruction and make them pay for the repairs. (On top of fines for vandalism, reckless driving, disobeying a traffic control device, etc...)

You see busted stuff like this all the time around here, especially in the rural agriculture regions. Two gates at once is pretty rare, but there's a ton of packing houses around Goshen/Visalia.

That's in an area of the San Joaquin Valley that has a much higher than usual percantage of illegal aliens. A shockingly large percentage of truck drivers in this state have limited or no command of English, and California refuses to enforce to the Federal law that requires a good grasp of English to obtain a Commercial Driver License. Citizenship not required for ag hauling.

[owensri]

Good catch!
Malicious damage.
The gate mechanism must be intentionally broken
Otherwise that broken gate would no longer balance the counterweights
and should be straight up.

Not necessarily...

The signals appear to be activated from a malfunction. If they weren't malfunctioning...they would be off, with the half gate being up as usual...and the mech with the gate broken off completely would be up as well all the way. Maybe a truck tried to weave through the malfunctioning crossing....but got hung up on both sides...which seems like the likely scenario here.

You're right. Thank you. I went down the street and looked back.
The signals are not activated but operating.
The signals will not stop blinking until the gates are parked.

If activated, the gates should be all the way down. The gate motor gearing should overcome the imbalance of the counterweights without gates.
So why did the gates not park? Maybe I am wrong about the motors being strong enough.

Again, the signals appear to be malfunctioning, meaning they are activated thinking there's a train coming. The gates will not go all the way down unless there is a gate on the other end to balance out the counterweights. Even with no gate on, the mechanism will go down to about a 45 degree angle and stop. This is because of the drive down feature. It's supposed to fall the remaining 45 degrees by gravity, but with no gate on to pull it down more...it stops at 45 degrees. If the signals weren't malfunctioning...the gates would be in the full park position...and the lights would be off.

It appears that sombody...such as a trucker tried to weave between the malfunctioning signals...and broke the gates. That's what I get from this scenario.