Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Just got an email from a friend saying that a fellow railroad employees wife told him that the signal crews are putting in "double Crossing gates" from Hazel Dell rd. (south side of Springfield, IL) to Alton, IL. I'm not fully sure what they mean by double crossing gates. This is going to be a High Speed rail line, so it might be quad gates, but it would be stupid to removed signals like ostermeier rd. and Hambuch rd. in auburn because their signals are only about 1 year old. If it is just putting gates in at all the crossings, that would be easier to do because their are only a few gateless signals crossings, but a fair amount of crossings with just crossbucks. I will try to find out more and let everybody know.

I would be willing to bet they will be quad signals... same as what they did north of Springfield all the way to Joliet. I'm sure the newer signals down by Auburn would be kept, and just have extra signals added on the other side of the road.

Here is a picture of the quad's in Sherman that I took last year. Sherman is about 5 miles north of Springfield. These signals are getting close to 5 years old now:

its going to be sad to see all the signals get removed if that is the case, most of the signals still have their Mechanical bells, most WRRS. and one crossing in Girard, and there might be other, still have 2 GRS/WRRS gate mechanisms.

A bit of good news is that they don't plan on upgrading the signals in the city of Springfield... at least for now... because the trains will be having to slow down and stop at the station anyway. So, they won't be coming through town at 100 + MPH. Most of those signals are quite old and it will be sad to see them go if they do remove them.

There is still quite a big debate going on as far as exactly where the Amtrak trains are going to run. Some of the city leaders are fighting to have the UP tracks moved to the same corridor that NS runs (putting in double tracks) and completely remove the UP tracks that go through the heart of downtown.

It sounds like the decision will be a drawn out process.

I'll keep you posted.

I am against moving the UP tracks to the NS, it is going to create more congestion on that part of town, and how would the trains connect on the north end of town? the only way right now is to switch on the I&M which would be dragging another railroad into the mess and most of their track is in bad shape. The south end would be easy because of Hazel Dell.

Rumor has it that there won't be any quad gates between Alton and Springfield installed this year, unless UP wants to install them on its own.

I went to one of the recent public meetings for starting all the studies to double track the UP corridor between St. Louis and Chicago for higher speed rail. Apparently UP is currently surveying for adding quad gates, possibly in Springfield.