no signals, Illegal?

[illinoistrains]

I saw this picture and i noticed that the crossing that the train was about to pass had no signals what so ever. There might be signals at the tracks in the foreground, but if somebody pulled off that side road and turned right and got hit by the train there were no signals to warn them, I know that people need to drive and move smart, but there should still be a sign there

http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=324033

[SirKrunch]

No signals, no crossbucks, just tracks in the road. Even the double track is unmarked. Wonder how they get away with it?
Street View!

And get a load of this crossing as well on the other side of the wye...

[gedunk]

The mystery of this builds when you look at the Google image, just head straight across the signaled crossing and there is nothing for those other tracks anywhere as warning. If you follow that one track around the corner, it is certainly well signaled at its next crrossing.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 07,,0,2.87

[cabman701]

I would venture a guess that those tracks are not used very much, even though the crossing down the way does have signals. I would also have to assume that in the Railpictures photo that the crossing is being flagged, but there is no way to tell.

I posted a video awhile back of a crossing with no type of warning device with a train going through it. The conducter threw flares off the front of the train as it entered the crossing. Guess that was their version of a flag.

Here is a link to that post.

[Crossingman18]

i could also be known that the crossing is privately owned by someone, and as cabman701 said, the line could be just a low used spur. Since we only got half of a picture of the crossing, its undetermined whats really going on in that picture. There could be a flagger. We dont know, and we wont likely ever know. I saw CSX 265 the other day.

[SirKrunch]

I posted a video awhile back of a crossing with no type of warning device with a train going through it. The conducter threw flares off the front of the train as it entered the crossing. Guess that was their version of a flag.

That would be a correct assumption. When Iowa River Railroad restarted operations over the nearly 20-year dormant former CNW line, their engineer (a member of the amesrailfan yahoo group) said he used those as well when he crossed the 120th street crossing at night... before the warning devices were properly fixed and put back into service again, because people in that area weren't used to having to stop for trains in the first place and the worry was that someone would run into the train as it crossed.
Not to mention, class 3 shortlines don't exactly have money around for huge train crews and flagmen either. Their engineer basically said they hired three people total, with the other two in charge of track and signal maintenance.