05-10-2017, 01:50 PM
(05-10-2017, 01:36 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: This is why the crossing should have been built slightly further down the track, just far enough from the platform that the gauntlet track was not an issue. Similarly, at UW, the path should just connect the end of the platform to the E5 crossing, instead of having a half-crossing just for the south end of the platform. There was no need to have crossings interacting with the gauntlet tracks at the south end of either platform.
I’m guessing that the concrete plates we use come in standard sizes, and the smaller pieces that would be needed in the gauntlet tracks aren’t among those sizes. I guess the need to put crossings in a gauntlet track section doesn’t come up very often. Although I did see one “brochure” website for a company that makes those plates that advertised custom plates, so a double track would have a single plate running all the way from one track to the next — so instead of rail, plate, concrete, plate, rail it would just be rail, plate rail. Very slick looking, but relied on measuring the exact as-built distance between the tracks so as to custom-fit the plate.
Agreed entirely, the crossings are sub-optimal for sure.
As for plates, it is clearly possible to get or make custom plates, it is only a matter of cost. Asphalt is cheap.