Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

[Riverside]

One would think there would be a communication system between trains and emergency response entities. Kind of like Air Traffic Controllers (maybe this already exists?) that would be able to assist in these types situations.

I have a vague recollection that at one point it was common that emergency dispatchers would call railroad dispatchers in a situation like this, but I have no idea how that would actually work in practice. I also can't really imagine a railroad ever giving anyone, even emergency vehicles, permission to go around lowered gates.

Lurking in the background here is a pretty straightforward "false alarm" issue: the only reason it would ever make sense for an emergency responder to bypass the gates is if they believe it's a "false alarm", in that the gates are lowered unnecessarily (or are remaining lowered unnecessarily). And yes, even then, it would not be advisable, but one can imagine a well-meaning individual feeling like they had to make a judgement call if they a) know that there is an urgent crisis on the other side of the tracks, and b) believe that the gates may be lowered unnecessarily: in that scenario, they would be 100% sure that (a) is true, since someone called 911 and spoke verbally; meanwhile, their confidence in (b) might be less than 100% if, for example, they've seen the gates lower in the past without apparent reason.

And… that’s not totally implausible. Not saying it’s likely, but every alarm system will occasionally have false positives. It’s the “boy who cried wolf” danger of “safety theater”: if users lose confidence in the accuracy of the system, inevitably they will take that into consideration during a crisis, for better and worse.

(Just to be very very clear: no one should ever go around lowered gates, unless, like, they are in direct contact with the dispatching railroad and they have clear line of sight, taking into account crossing time and likely speed of trains. That’s an exceptionally rare scenario that’ll never happen for most people. So, practically speaking, no one should ever go around lowered gates.)

 

[HenryAlan]

I share your concern, but at the same rate how are emergency vehicles supposed to respond to emergencies if trains block them? Granted Brightline should pass a crossing quickly, but if the response vehicle already had to wait for another trainset and has to wait for a second one what kind of damage is being suffered by their slow response time? One would think there would be a communication system between trains and emergency response entities. Kind of like Air Traffic Controllers (maybe this already exists?) that would be able to assist in these types situations.

It has to be viewed in the same manner as any other girdlock encountered by the responders. If it isn't possible to safely get to the emergency, then there is going to be a delay. As you point out, the delay isn't likely that significant for a Brightline trainset (or two), but what happens when there is a 2 mile long freight train? Either there is an alternative option (such as a fire truck already on the other side of the tracks), or there will be a delay. The hope is that usually there won't be a train, but if the emergency responder decides to chance it, we'll get this kind of accident. How much did the accident delay emergency response?

On your second point, perhaps there can be some sort of coordination between dispatchers to learn the location of trains, but such an idea has to have a plan b, for when the data coordination doesn't happen. The obvious place to start would be not driving over tracks still under an active train status.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I have a vague recollection that at one point it was common that emergency dispatchers would call railroad dispatchers in a situation like this, but I have no idea how that would actually work in practice. I also can't really imagine a railroad ever giving anyone, even emergency vehicles, permission to go around lowered gates.

Lurking in the background here is a pretty straightforward "false alarm" issue: the only reason it would ever make sense for an emergency responder to bypass the gates is if they believe it's a "false alarm", in that the gates are lowered unnecessarily (or are remaining lowered unnecessarily). And yes, even then, it would not be advisable, but one can imagine a well-meaning individual feeling like they had to make a judgement call if they a) know that there is an urgent crisis on the other side of the tracks, and b) believe that the gates may be lowered unnecessarily: in that scenario, they would be 100% sure that (a) is true, since someone called 911 and spoke verbally; meanwhile, their confidence in (b) might be less than 100% if, for example, they've seen the gates lower in the past without apparent reason.

And… that’s not totally implausible. Not saying it’s likely, but every alarm system will occasionally have false positives. It’s the “boy who cried wolf” danger of “safety theater”: if users lose confidence in the accuracy of the system, inevitably they will take that into consideration during a crisis, for better and worse.

(Just to be very very clear: no one should ever go around lowered gates, unless, like, they are in direct contact with the dispatching railroad and they have clear line of sight, taking into account crossing time and likely speed of trains. That’s an exceptionally rare scenario that’ll never happen for most people. So, practically speaking, no one should ever go around lowered gates.)

This blue sign hangs on every piece of active crossing equipment in the country. . .

. . .and the railroads take those calls very seriously, because they're required by law to. If there's a false alarm where the gates are malfunctioning with no train, call the number on the blue sign and you'll get an immediate answer from dispatch as to whether it's safe to drive around. No gut-feeling judgment calls needed from anyone, least of all the first responders who should be furnished with the phone number to begin with for all the RR crossings in their territory.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I find it astonishing that quad gates aren't required on Class 6 track. It's easy to misjudge how much time one has to go around the gates (not that one should ever, ever do that), because looking up the tracks you really can't tell how fast the train is going.

The FRA rule is that crossing protection must activate no less than 20 seconds before the passage of a train at the max authorized track speed (whether or not the train is operating at the max authorized speed). So on Class 6 track the track circuit activation would be much further out, such that a train doing 110 MPH on-the-button has the same 20+ seconds that a train doing Class 3/60 MPH would have. Therefore there's not really a legal lever for mandating quad gates by speed limit because the timings scale. Class 6 does require full quad gates at all quiet crossings, which isn't necessarily true of lower track classes. And Brightline has a lot of quiet crossings, so it has a lot of quad gate installations. This just happened to not be one of them.

The problem...and temptation for gate evaders...is that not all trains are doing max authorized speed. Freights do at least 20 MPH slower max authorized speed than passenger service on the same track class, and if there's a closeby station stop the passenger train will be going a whole lot slower in acceleration/deceleration than the max authorized speed. So those gates are frequently down a lot longer than 20 seconds because the train isn't operating at top speed for the track class, and when it's an especially slow train taking a long time to approach the crossing that's when drivers get ants-in-the-pants. Get something doing restricted speed at like 10-25 MPH and those gates will be down a very long time before the train comes. Unfortunately even a slow train has poor stopping distance so the accidents happen all the same.