10-19-2018, 12:45 PM
(10-19-2018, 12:31 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: How long are the signals and arms going to be stopping traffic when a train goes through a level crossing, or traffic lights at an intersection? What is the legal minimum and what is typical?
Longer than necessary if what we’ve seen so far is any indication. In particular, after the train has cleared the crossing the protection should stop immediately — there is no need to wait for the train to make any distance. The trailing coupler could literally still be overhanging the sidewalk and it wouldn’t be a problem.
On the other end, it’s harder to say — sometimes the gates seem to be down for an awfully long time before the train finally arrives, but they may still be driving slowly during testing and evaluating the safety of different timings is non-trivial. Although I will say that I saw a video which appeared to show a crossing in Britain where the protection was enabled for literally 5 minutes before the train came, which is obviously absurd and had the predictable effect of people trying to beat it, or even climbing over the gates to run across. Ours are definitely not that bad.