HIGH-TECH at the crossing - development of advanced railroad crossing equipment

Railway Age, Oct 1, 1998 by Luther S. Miller

"There are significant differences in the logic. When we get a vehicle detect in the track area, we immediately raise--or if they haven't started down yet we will hold--both exit gates up. We don't try to figure out the direction the vehicle that's in the track area is going. Whereas in Mystic they have a directional logic, three loops tied to one exit gate and three loops to the other exit gate, in our case, we have eight loops and they're all tied to both exit gates. So any detect in the track area brings up both exit gates--or holds both exit gates--up until the track area is clear.

"Mystic--and well-done to those guys!-has the logic extended so that they are stopping trains in the event of a vehicle detection in the track area that doesn't clear out. We are not doing that, though we're going to evaluate it. We're event recording, as well as Mystic, and we will evaluate what the effect would be if we did try to stop light rail trains-how many times would we be sending a cab signal for the train to slow? But one of our ground rules was that we would not affect light rail operations.

"We've gone through a long process here, one that's involved working with the both UP and the Public Utilities Commission. We have completed all of our acceptance test program--we've worked through about a half-inch thick document. We expect to be up and running as early as mid-October--and that will be exactly one year after we finished installation of the gates."