Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

From the Fresno Bee today (4/25/2010)
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Two children were seriously injured after a southbound Amtrak train struck a car at California and East avenues south of downtown Fresno shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday, Fresno police said.
The woman who was driving the car saw the flashing traffic lights for an oncoming train but thought they were signaling for a stopped train, Lt. Joe Gomez said.
The woman began crossing the tracks and was hit by the approaching train.
Five people were in the car at the time of the accident, Gomez said. Two children -- ages 1 and 2 -- were seriously injured and taken to area hospitals.
The woman and two other passengers, a man and a 3-year-old boy, were not seriously hurt, Gomez said.

The train was headed to Bakersfield at about 40 mph, said Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero. It was carrying 109 passengers. None was injured.
The train was delayed for two hours and 12 minutes and then continued toward Bakersfield, Romero said.
A railroad crew was repairing the track Sunday night, Gomez said.
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Here's the crossing from the site:
http://www.rxrsignals.net/California/D- ... alifornia/

I just updated that page, and made an accident page for those crossings, including Yesterday's accident.

Due to the layout of the crossing, only one side can be gated. I presume she approached from the ungated side.

gedunk wrote:Due to the layout of the crossing, only one side can be gated. I presume she approached from the ungated side.

Must my worth... but since that is the case then there should be no gate at this crossing on either side. You have to wonder if that motorist saw the gate down on the opposite side, didn't see one in front of her and thought that it was OK to proceed.

Based on the way the car is oriented in the picture, it was coming from the gated side, unless it was spun all the way around by the impact.

Did the train come from the right side of the picture, and then back up to where it is stopped, or did it come from the left (led by a cab car)? If the latter is the case, then the car would have had to have been coming from the ungated side to be hit on the passenger side, and spun around.

The Amtrak train had the cab car leading. According the the news, when she approached the crossing, the lights were already activated because of a stopped BNSF train. She assumed the stopped train was the reason the signals were on. She proceeded across with the Amtrak hit her.

Regardless of what happened it was obviously the driver's fault for disobeying the flashing lights. I would certainly hope that the Amtrak train was sounding it's horn... maybe she had some music thumping on her stereo or something? Will be interesting to see if this ends up in the courts.

Wonder if that gated signal will be salvageable or if they will have to put a new one in? It appears in that picture that the LED's are still working.

I saw a video somewhere which showed the destroyed signal. One of the LEDs was flashing. Some others I saw were not, probably either destroyed, or the wire contacts were broken, so yes, the signal was still working under that mangled mess.

As for salvaging, who knows? I guess it depends on how badly damaged the signal pieces are.

What makes the layout to where there can only be one gate? I would think if they could put a cantlever on the other side than there should be able to be a gate as well..is that even legal according to FRA regulations?

Here's Street View in HD for those who want to know more on what this crossing looks like.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Californi ... 27,,0,5.53