Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

I just saw a video featuring the Main St. ccrossing in Downer's Grove, IL, and the bells have been wired in an arrangement that will take some getting used to, but is the most practical arrangement I've ever heard.

The bells ring from startup, and go silent when the train reaches the island circuit.

It can be seen on the first clip in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WVQqSO6gW0

You won't see widespread use of that anywhere pretty much nowadays. You need a dedicated island circuit...with it's own relay. Most crossing installations today don't use this anymore. They use the built in island circuit in a Motion Sensor or Predictor...which doesn't have it's own island relay...but instead drops and picks up the XR only...and in this case...the only way to silence the bell is to use the gate contact.

Kinda like a Wayside horn.

That's got to be complicated... especially with multiple tracks.

If you watch the whole video... there's a Metra train that stops in the crossing about half way through the video. The bells stop ringing for a minute when that train enters the island, but then they start up again even though the Metra train is still in the crossing because there's an Amtrak train coming on the middle track.

That line has been like that for years. I should know, since I live only a few miles from that spot, and since I was referenced in Frank's video. In my opinion it is the best way to have the bells wired up.