Should all railroad crossings be replaced with overpasses?

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you can only do so much to protect the stupid from themselves I've been told by Aussies that it's "strange" that trains in Switzerland travel along city streets or train lines have no fences , and over passes are unheard of , I think it's smart it frees up capital for other rail projects

What I think is strange is here they build a rail line from the 3 rd largest city in Australia to the 7 th largest one (80 km away) and it stops virtually in the country and you have to bus it the rest of the way.

now that's "strange"

And if you think it sounds far fetched here you go

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCy9zZC8oU

pretty cool huh ?

Havg a birdge over the train tracks instead would be more convenient for those who are constantly annoyed at having to stop at them, like me. But yes, money's involved in everything...

Thet just haven't travelled around Australia enough

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM_zaqTEr4Y[/youtube]

touché any others ?

What about this in NZ

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3IC-5-tPOY[/youtube]

yeah I was exhausted just watching the thing

trains are the best .

Trains aren't used that much compared to other modes of transport like automobiles, boats & planes. The 1st two have alot more accidents than anything involving trains do. I think fixing dangerous roads or intersections is aLOT more efficient in preventing accidents for the cost than putting overpasses over railroad crossings. I do think railroad crossings can be improved by installing more solid barriers.

your in the usa , why would they care about trains ? I forget the exact date (1950's) or their abouts trains their on average (nationwide) are slower today than back than thanks to congestion , delays , poor upkeep etc

I think that's why I'm so pro Switzerland the train network is a delight to use and in one of the most rural nations in the world with a small population they manage to have fast rail! only one in 25 people live in the largest citiy (zurich) vs Australia where 1/5 live their (Sydney) seriously it'S weak willed governments who stop It happening.

Yop, it simply depends on the frequency of cars on the street. The major railroad tracks, where you have fast trains and cargo trains every few minutes are normally with bridges or tunnels for streets.

Not so frequented railroad tracks, that meet with heavy frequented streets normally have automatical gates + lights + alarm, that are blocking the whole street. The system of those modern automatical gates is normally pretty good, so they close about a minute before the trains come and open after the train has passed immidiately.

Lesser frequented streets have either not so modern gates, that often close minutes before, and can cost you 5-8 minutes waiting for a train. (The outdated switches for the trains are at the trainstations. So if a train gets into a trainstation A, the trainstationofficer A gives the signal for closing all gates along the railway track to the next trainstation B. When the train finally gets to trainstation B, trainstationofficer B gives the signal to open up the gates again between A and B, and gives additional the signal to close the gates between B and C... Because of this it takes the time, the train needs to get from one station to the other for the gates to close and open again. -.-)

Or they have anyway only alarm, lamps or simply a sign. (Example would be a trainway, that leads to an nearbye army base, so about 20 times in the year they use the train for moving their tanks, trucks, ... into tranining maneuvers, ... so more then a sign on that crossings really should not be that necessary.)

Anyway,what system it is, there are major rules that are always guilty, and shall prevent accidents in case that the system fails:

-You are NEVERNEVERNEVER allowed to hold your car on railways. So even if there is a traffic jam and you are driving in a row. You have to stop before the tracks, and wait until behind the tracks will be sufficient space for you to completely cross the railway tracks. Same thing goes again for the car behind you. The railway tracks, must always be kept free.

-If any kind of signal, alarm, etc... is starting it does not mean "Soon the train will be coming, so better accelerate and try crossing before it." but it means totally STOP, from the moment the signal begins. Ignoring that is heavily sanctioned.

-At every crossing, wayne if with gates, alarms, whatever ... you are ALWAYS supposed to drive slower, turn down the radio and proove yourself acustical and visual, that there is no train coming. All technical systems that can fail, WILL fail from time to time. I lived along a railway, that had pretty outdated mechanical signal systems, so I know how important that rule is.

You'd have no more than a couple of trains a day on a long haul freight line (there's about two a day on the eastern line near me). That's providing you don't live near coal mines, iron ore mines, sugar cane mills etc. If you do the rail traffic is bound to be busier.

I was stuck on the tracks once when a lady in front of me suddenly stopped to turn into her driveway. Luckily I could reverse back before the barriers came down.

I dunno about anyone else but I LOVE stopping for the trains, especially when they're really long and loud.

^^^^

as do I ! they say never trust some one who hates cats, well my saying is never trust some one who hates trains or for that matter who don't warm to them speaking of did you know Malcom Turnball has been accused of killing his gf's cat at uni ? in revenge , my nick name for him now is Malcom Fur ball Perhaps I should let the Labor party know, would it stick?

Some people commit suicide by driving on the tracks & waiting or laying on the tracks & waiting & there's some morons who play chicken with trains. I don't feel bad about any of those deaths/accidents or blame the train or setup in any way because people would of died doing something else if it wasn't the train.

No,because then it will be harder to count them.

It's a nice thought, but the logistics and practicalities would make replacing all railroad crossings with overpasses/crossover bridges virtually impossible, both for considerations of cost to redo the existing crossings (thousands of RR crossings in the United States alone), and the fact that it would be a little silly for many crossings. One crossing I know of not far from my home is just some boards underneath the rails and a pair of crossbucks (RR Crossing signs to non-railfans), no lights, no bells, no gate arms. To my knowledge, that particular crossing has had no incidents involving cars/pedestrians in its history, so there's no need to improve what isn't broke.

Personally, I think all that's needed is to make the lessons of operations like Operation Lifesaver stick in the minds of every single driver. 'Twould be better if you took groups of people, lined them up by a demonstration track at a safe distance, and then go slam a test locomotive into an automobile with dummies inside, then say, "Well, this mangled mess could've been you, and this puddle of plastic that used to be a dummy could've been you, too. In a train vs car scenario, the train ALWAYS wins, so STOP LOOK AND LISTEN!" That'd leave an impression far greater than anything in the classroom.

Another option would be to reconfigure crossing gates so motorists cannot go around or under them, and thus have no choice but to stop. In the UK, many crossings have full length gates with folding metal skirts for this reason, whilst some others are literal gates that slide into place to protect the line. One ingenious one I saw required the drivers to get out and crank open the gates, then close them again behind them before it allowed them to continue (using retractable road spikes). This system was interlocked with the signalling system, so the gate mechanism would be locked and unable to be opened if there was a train coming, and the track signals would be set to red if the gates were open as another safety measure.

I'm not saying that this is a perfect solution, and I'm a firm believer that education makes safer motorists, but there's an old saying, "Sometimes you can't fix stupid" and I would add, "Ignorance kills, so wise up".

These new gates can be as well annoying. We had before a pretty old mechanical system, that was often broken, but people were used to it. If the gates could not be moved from the trainstation-officers anymore, then people simply moved them mechanical into an "half closed" position, which was the sign for "The f*****g gates are broken again, care to watch for trains coming." Even when they were broken when closed, you could move them mechancial.

Now with that new super-automatical, super-safe gate, if the gate gets stucked if its in close position, then its stuck, It cant be moved anymore until it gets repaired. If you live on a particular "dead end" of an town, that is departed by the railroad, and are forced to use 25 miles of muddy, hilly, woodstreets, that were designed for Rovers, tractors and other stuff, that really sucks. -.- The machanical gates were broken five times a year, while the new automatical, supersafe one have been broken once in five years, but it really sucked. -.-