Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

SouthernPacificLines wrote:There used to be a pole with 3 of them on it! As far as I know they all lit up yellow.

Interesting
Why three!

This crossing, east of the one you linked, apparently has two lamps in each black oval signal.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 7&t=h&z=20

What do they mean?
Why not mount them on the grade crossing signals, as here, and not go to the extra expen$e of separate foundations and masts, etc.?

Nice documentation and thoughful photos.
Why are those signals not facing down the track?
Interesting heads - whatever you call them.

In Denver, they used the regular 8-1/4-inch grade crossing signal lamps with blue lens for drag/derail detectors.
That's what I expected here for grade crossing signal activation indicators.

SouthernPacificLines wrote:...Yeah, VCRR is removing most of the older signals from there line.

Go gethem!

PaulSP wrote:

SouthernPacificLines wrote:Those cantilevers are slightly...busy...

No kidding

Found a video of this crossing in action... it is the 2nd crossing in this video:



Also found one with cantilevers like the one in the Back to the Future movie. It even has a folding gate!

PaulSP wrote:Both my videos

Kind of wondered if that was the case!

Those folding gates like that must be a nightmare to a maintainer... especially if you have a lot of impatient drivers wanting to drive off right away as the gates rise. Love the mechanical bells though, like music to my ears.

EXCELLENT videos. Thank you.

In the first video, I would have pulled into that lefturn lane and stopped and continued videoing.
Then, afterward, if no traffic behind, signaled right and proceeded straight.
(Or turned left and then gotten back onto Wooley.)
Good (difficult) shot through the back window!

So, top blinks white, independent of crossing signal blinking lamps.
What does bottom lamp do?

I have never seen such a folding gate. What was above that made them make it folding?

PaulSP wrote:

Any other signals at that crossing? Common sense says yes, but they're just not seen...

PaulSP wrote:Nope that's the ONLY signal on that crossing.

However the traffic lights also "protect" the intersection by going red 4 ways when a train is present, correct? That signal and gate is to stop people from making a right turn into the path of a train.

PaulSP wrote:

cabman701 wrote:

PaulSP wrote:Nope that's the ONLY signal on that crossing.

However the traffic lights also "protect" the intersection by going red 4 ways when a train is present, correct?

Yup thats how it works but people ALWAYS ignore them.

When I saw that intersection back in the 90's, I recall signals all over the place. Wonderful but could be confusing to some.
What is so stange now is the SINGLE signal, also flashing all the way across the intersection to the southbound traffic, with gate dropping behind it.

I expected everyone to receive a RED traffic signal. Westbound traffic would have straight GREEN arrows and southbound could turn right on red.