Milwaukee drawbridge gates

[AndyWS]

Most of the streets in the city of Milwaukee cross at least one of the city's three rivers at some point. The roads have drawbridges which are guarded in part by railroad crossing equipment. Unlike actual railroad crossings in Milwaukee as in most places, the bridge gates have stayed unchanged in close to their original configuration for many decades.

Case in point in the bridge on Juneau Avenue, which like the other bridge has four-quad gates. Each gate is a WRRS wishbone gate with WRRS lantern gate lights and a painted WRRS motor bell on top of the mechanism. Each quadrant of the bridge also has a vertical signal consisting of two traffic light heads which flash alternately.

Wide angles looking west:





The signal and gate across the street from me (north side):



Here you can see the next street to the north has newer bar-type gates at its bridge:



The westbound signal on the south side of the street:



The sign below the signal:



The gate and bell:

[Smjh1979]

Have you seen the lights and gates activate? If so, how do the red beacons work? Do they flash alternately, or together?

[AndyWS]

I have seen a bridge open only once, but the lights flash alternately.

[AndyWS]

I haven't seen that particular bridge open, so I don't know about those motor bells. The bells sounded pretty good at the one drawbridge I did see open, but I don't recall if they were motor bells or "regular" mechanical bells.

The city of Green Bay has several drawbridges over the Fox River. They all had newer bar-type gates and standard WCH mechanical bells. I saw some of the bridges open a few times while I lived there, and I recall most of those bells sounded very weak.

[AndyWS]

I think they're just really old railroad crossing style gates that never got upgraded, like the ones in this photo:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=630511

[SirKrunch]

Agreed... Though I'd never seen bells mounted on the old style gates like that before.

[cabman701]

Ummmm... do we wanna know what this guy was up to?

[SirKrunch]

Wonder if he was the lookout for a train to tell them to manually lower the old gates, since the new ones aren't in service and that signal shanty looks to have its view blocked.

[Smjh1979]

Too bad... I maybe could've made some HO/O scale beacons with auto-flashing LEDs for those... Guess not now.

[SirKrunch]

The text on that page is tough to read, but it looks at though it says the hydrolic gates can be used both for bridge and highway railroad crossing protection... and can be fully automatic, semi-automatic, or completely manual.
Looking at some of the mechs toodling about the Milwaukee bridges on Streetview... It looks as though they just retrofit different gates in place of the wishbone gates when they finally need to be replaced. Odd that they haven't though... Doesn't seem to me like they look very "reflective"... Quite a few need restriped... they've grown very faded over time.

I'd like to see this bad boy swing across the road when they raise the bridge.