Crossing Gates in Industrial Areas

[rrinker]

Before they ripped out the track that ran through South Bethlehem, a group of us had the opportunity to be shown the equipment cabinets around the crossing of New Street by a signal maintainer. He mentioned that the detection system was speed sensitive, so that a train rolling along at road speed would trigger the gates to drop sooner than a switcher creeping through at 10 mph. All automatically handled by the track circuit, so the gates would be down in sufficient time to protect the crossing without having them drop too early when a slow train came through, causing peopel to start taking chances and drive or walk around the gate when they couldn't see a train in view.

--Randy