Question about level crossing barrier timings

al78 · 23 Feb 2024

This isn't intended to be a rant but more a curiosity:

Yesterday when I was travelling home around 10 pm through Horsham (West Sussex) I was cycling along Parsonage Road which has a light and barrier controlled level crossing about half way along. Sods law was in effect and the lights started flashing when I was about 100 meters away so I stopped and waited, and waited, and waited. It was a good five minutes after the barriers had descended before a train came past in the direction of Horsham. I don't know how many here are familiar with the network in that very localised area but I am curious as to why there was such a long delay between barriers and train. Are the barriers activated when a train is approaching Faygate or is it simply that this train stopped at Littlehaven (which is close by) and the trigger is prior to that station?

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Javelin_55 · 23 Feb 2024

Full barrier crossings are manually controlled by a signaller or crossing keeper. Half barrier crossings are automatically triggered by a treadle in the track that the train physically brushes, and tend to be very close to the actual crossing. As you're probably aware Parsonage Road was upgraded from half to full barriers last year. The treadle for this was between Littlehaven and the crossing.

As it is now a full barrier crossing (in anticipation of the new business development on the old Novartis site I believe) the crossing must be lowered manually in time to give clear signals to the next train, so the timetable can be reasonably kept to. In this area that means lowering the barriers so they are down when the train is three signals away.

It may also depend on which signaller is on that panel. Some will lower barriers sooner than others, it's down to their judgement at the end of the day.

AdamWW · 23 Feb 2024

Javelin_55 said:
Full barrier crossings are manually controlled by a signaller or crossing keeper. Half barrier crossings are automatically triggered by a treadle in the track that the train physically brushes, and tend to be very close to the actual crossing. As you're probably aware Parsonage Road was upgraded from half to full barriers last year. The treadle for this was between Littlehaven and the crossing.

As it is now a full barrier crossing (in anticipation of the new business development on the old Novartis site I believe) the crossing must be lowered manually in time to give clear signals to the next train, so the timetable can be reasonably kept to. In this area that means lowering the barriers so they are down when the train is three signals away.

It may also depend on which signaller is on that panel. Some will lower barriers sooner than others, it's down to their judgement at the end of the day.

A bit further down, Billingshurst has a full barrier crossing with automatic obstacle detection. Is this type of crossing still manually triggered, just not manually monitored to be clear of traffic before the signals can be cleared?

Deepgreen · 23 Feb 2024

At the risk of re-igniting the whole level crossing closure discussion, I used to live in Ashtead, where the full barrier level crossing is adjacent to the station and on a very complicated road junction. Traffic builds up very quickly, but it was/is common for the barriers to be lowered for an up train which was some way away, which would then slowly approach the station, stop at the platform for passengers and then depart, giving a total closure time of several minutes, when proper use of the platform starter signal (i.e. maintaining it at red until just before departure and timely closure of the crossing) could have given a far shorter closure time.

A similar thing happens at Reigate on the A217, which is a very busy road. Approaching GWR service trains from Redhill all stop at the station before crossing the road, but again it is the norm for the crossing to be closed before the train has even come into view, giving a similar extended delay to road traffic. It is also nothing to do with potential signal over-runs, because the Southern trains, which terminate there, are allowed into the platform up to same starting signal, but without the crossing being closed.

Apart from the needless delay to large amounts of traffic (with engines running in most cases), the frustration generated by these delays will inevitably lead to road users trying to jump the lights.

Sporty60 · 23 Feb 2024

Ah, good topic and thanks for the enlightening replies.
I live near Paignton where the crossing is adjacent to the station and cuts the main shopping street in half.
Obviously safety is the highest priority, but with 5/6 trains per hour arriving or leaving this means the crossing is closed 25% or so of the time.
There is an arduous footbridge but if the council wanted a more user friendly underpass would the cost fall to them please.?

6Gman · 23 Feb 2024

Sporty60 said:
Ah, good topic and thanks for the enlightening replies.
I live near Paignton where the crossing is adjacent to the station and cuts the main shopping street in half.
Obviously safety is the highest priority, but with 5/6 trains per hour arriving or leaving this means the crossing is closed 25% or so of the time.
There is an arduous footbridge but if the council wanted a more user friendly underpass would the cost fall to them please.?

I believe it would, yes.

Javelin_55 · 23 Feb 2024

AdamWW said:
A bit further down, Billingshurst has a full barrier crossing with automatic obstacle detection. Is this type of crossing still manually triggered, just not manually monitored to be clear of traffic before the signals can be cleared?

I'm not sure. I suspect there might be an automatic lowering sequence/signal clearance that only happens if the signaller has set the route.

al78 · 23 Feb 2024

Thanks for the interesting replies, I guessed there was a logical reason. I hadn't noticed that crossing had been upgraded but I wasn't really paying attention to the barriers beyond waiting for them to rise, but thinking about it I recall years ago it was half barrier.

The most notorious crossing in Horsham used to be Rusper Road where it passes Littlehaven station. The station platforms could only accommodate four carriage trains and anything longer would straddle the crossing whilst unloading and loading at the station. Trains coming from Horsham that stopped at the station also triggered the barriers so it was kind of a worst case scenario for having to wait. If you were unlucky, you could be waiting around 12 minutes as three trains go through the crossing, two of them stopping at the station in different directions with the Horsham bound one straddling the crossing. The crossing was upgraded and the platforms at Littlehaven extended to accomodate eight carriage trains so the crossing is a lot better now.

55018ballymoss · 23 Feb 2024

Javelin_55 said:
Full barrier crossings are manually controlled by a signaller or crossing keeper. Half barrier crossings are automatically triggered by a treadle in the track that the train physically brushes, and tend to be very close to the actual crossing. As you're probably aware Parsonage Road was upgraded from half to full barriers last year. The treadle for this was between Littlehaven and the crossing.

As it is now a full barrier crossing (in anticipation of the new business development on the old Novartis site I believe) the crossing must be lowered manually in time to give clear signals to the next train, so the timetable can be reasonably kept to. In this area that means lowering the barriers so they are down when the train is three signals away.

It may also depend on which signaller is on that panel. Some will lower barriers sooner than others, it's down to their judgement at the end of the day.

The sweeping statement that if it is full barriers it must be manually controlled is not correct. Just north of Doncaster on the ECML and several other places there are some OD crossings which are triggered automatically by approaching trains, and use obstacle detection (OD) radars to confirm the crossing is clear before clearing protecting signals. When these are working normally the signaller does not need to intervene and the barriers are down for the minimum time.

AdamWW · 23 Feb 2024

al78 said:
The most notorious crossing in Horsham used to be Rusper Road where it passes Littlehaven station. The station platforms could only accommodate four carriage trains and anything longer would straddle the crossing whilst unloading and loading at the station. Trains coming from Horsham that stopped at the station also triggered the barriers so it was kind of a worst case scenario for having to wait. If you were unlucky, you could be waiting around 12 minutes as three trains go through the crossing, two of them stopping at the station in different directions with the Horsham bound one straddling the crossing. The crossing was upgraded and the platforms at Littlehaven extended to accomodate eight carriage trains so the crossing is a lot better now.

Is that the one that had gates worked by a wheel in a cabin on the platform until not that long ago? (Ten years or so?)

Annetts key · 23 Feb 2024

OD crossings will also have a manual mode.

55018ballymoss · 23 Feb 2024

Annetts key said:
OD crossings will also have a manual mode.

For degraded working yes.

dk1 · 23 Feb 2024

MCB-ODs when they work well are superb. Barriers are across the road the least amount of time yet ensuring trains get clear signals in time to allow greens where needed.

Javelin_55 · 23 Feb 2024

al78 said:
The crossing was upgraded and the platforms at Littlehaven extended to accomodate eight carriage trains so the crossing is a lot better now.

The Down platform at Littlehaven actually now accommodates 12 coaches. I think the Up platform towards Three Bridges is still 8.

Annetts key · 23 Feb 2024

Degraded working is not what I would call using the Local Control Unit (LCU) or using a Crossing Clear Unit (CCU) or other equivalent. Yes, it requires an extra member of staff, but trains can continue running as normal and road traffic can continue to use the crossing.

No different to when a MCB-CCTV crossing has a problem with the CCTV system and a member of suitably trained and competent is required on site to either confirm by 'phone that the crossing is clear, or use the LCU.

55018ballymoss · 23 Feb 2024

Annetts key said:
Degraded working is not what I would call using the Local Control Unit (LCU) or using a Crossing Clear Unit (CCU) or other equivalent. Yes, it requires an extra member of staff, but trains can continue running as normal and road traffic can continue to use the crossing.

No different to when a MCB-CCTV crossing has a problem with the CCTV system and a member of suitably trained and competent is required on site to either confirm by 'phone that the crossing is clear, or use the LCU.

Seems someone is in the mood for a disagreement.
I know what we do in the PSB, and how we term it when we are using the LCU and CCU modes....

AirRail · 23 Feb 2024

55018ballymoss said:
The sweeping statement that if it is full barriers it must be manually controlled is not correct. Just north of Doncaster on the ECML and several other places there are some OD crossings which are triggered automatically by approaching trains, and use obstacle detection (OD) radars to confirm the crossing is clear before clearing protecting signals. When these are working normally the signaller does not need to intervene and the barriers are down for the minimum time.

Minimum time being a significantly long time, for those exact crossing you mention immediately North of Doncaster. They are notorious in the area and you can be anything from a few minutes before a train appears to +10 minutes. If its a peak time i've been known to have been stuck for almost 30 minutes on the roads leading to these.

55018ballymoss · 23 Feb 2024

AirRail said:
Minimum time being a significantly long time, for those exact crossing you mention immediately North of Doncaster. They are notorious in the area and you can be anything from a few minutes before a train appears to +10 minutes. If its a peak time i've been known to have been stuck for almost 30 minutes on the roads leading to these.

I think you are confusing which crossings are OD and which are CCTV controlled by a crossing keeper.
Moat Hills, Arksey and Daw Lane immediately north of Doncaster are CCTV.
Balne, Balne Low Gates, Fenwick, Moss, Barworth and Heyworth are OD.

al78 · 23 Feb 2024

Javelin_55 said:
The Down platform at Littlehaven actually now accommodates 12 coaches. I think the Up platform towards Three Bridges is still 8.

That's even better. BTW, what do the railway terms "down" and "up" mean? Is it related to the direction of travel to and from London?

AdamWW said:
Is that the one that had gates worked by a wheel in a cabin on the platform until not that long ago? (Ten years or so?)

Yes, it used to have gates before flashing lights and then barriers were installed. I think it was the only time I have seen a gated crossing.

Mcr Warrior · 23 Feb 2024

Javelin_55 said:
The Down platform at Littlehaven actually now accommodates 12 coaches. I think the Up platform towards Three Bridges is still 8.

al78 said:
That's even better. BTW, what do the railway terms "down" and "up" mean? Is it related to the direction of travel to and from London?

More often than not, "up" is in the direction of London, but in certain parts of the country, "up" can sometimes mean in the direction of where ever the original railway company's HQ was located.

In the case of Littlehaven, "Up" is in the direction of Three Bridges (towards London) and "Down" is in the direction of Horsham (away from London).

class397tpe · 24 Feb 2024

al78 said:
This isn't intended to be a rant but more a curiosity:

Yesterday when I was travelling home around 10 pm through Horsham (West Sussex) I was cycling along Parsonage Road which has a light and barrier controlled level crossing about half way along. Sods law was in effect and the lights started flashing when I was about 100 meters away so I stopped and waited, and waited, and waited. It was a good five minutes after the barriers had descended before a train came past in the direction of Horsham. I don't know how many here are familiar with the network in that very localised area but I am curious as to why there was such a long delay between barriers and train. Are the barriers activated when a train is approaching Faygate or is it simply that this train stopped at Littlehaven (which is close by) and the trigger is prior to that station?

Same here with the Bollo Lane level crossing on the London overground. Have waited upwards of 4 minutes before a train comes past multiple times, and a couple of times waited around 8 minutes when there was a train in both directions a few minutes apart! Always wondered why it was down for so long (it’s a full barrier crossing).

Sometimes it seems the crossing is lowered before southbound trains even pull into South Acton.

joebassman · 24 Feb 2024

At Stowmarket, I've noticed they sometimes put the barriers down up to 7 minutes before the train is due.

Annetts key · 24 Feb 2024

For the purpose of clarity, I only use "signaller" below, but the same applies to crossing keepers.

As per the earlier reply, for a manually controlled full barrier (MCB) crossing (either local to the signal box, crossing keepers box or monitored by CCTV and controlled remotely), it's the duty of the signaller to close the crossing to road traffic in sufficient time such that a train does not receive restrictive aspects. In other words, the train driver will only see green signal aspects, and hence can drive at the line speed or the maximum speed of the train (whichever is the lower figure).

If the railway line side signals are each spaced one mile from each other, in a three aspect signalled area, that means the signaller will start the close crossing procedure when the approaching train is around three to four miles away. This assumes the line speed is 60MPH, hence the train is taking 60 seconds to travel one mile. For higher speeds, the close crossing procedure needs to start even earlier.

Code:

    S1 Green   S2 Green   S3 Yellow  S4 Red
    |-OOO      |-OOO      |-OOO      |-OOO  
------------------------------------------|-|---
------------------------------------------|-|---
                                         Crossing

Above is the signal aspect sequence assuming no trains in the area and the crossing is open to road traffic. In order to ensure that the train driver does not see a restrictive aspect (that is any other than green), the signaller has to have the barriers fully lowered before the train passes signal S2. Hence the signaller will want to start the close crossing procedure as soon as they see a train approaching signal S1 or if the speed is higher, the previous signal.

I hope that helps to explain why it takes four to six minutes between a road user seeing the amber and red road lights, the barriers lowering and then a 'long wait" before the train appears.

Please note that the above is but one possible example, and for each crossing, in the real world, there are many other factors. Such as stations and junctions that mean a particular crossing has more complexities.

dk1 · 24 Feb 2024

joebassman said:
At Stowmarket, I've noticed they sometimes put the barriers down up to 7 minutes before the train is due.

Trouble with Stowmarket particularly down road is that even though it’s a stopping train priority is given to allow trains to have a green signal just after Needham Market.

Deepgreen · 24 Feb 2024

I recall a steam special on my local line last year which stopped at Shalford. At the next station, Chilworth, the full-barrier crossing adjacent to the station was closed before the steam train had even arrived at Shalford and remained shut from then until the train's passing - a total of eight minutes! I know this because I was filming, and monitoring the train's position, aghast at the ludicrous delay to road users. Ironically, the much busier A248 level crossing further along towards Shalford only closed about half a minute before the train passed, because, although it is far busier, it is only an AHB!

dk1 said:
Trouble with Stowmarket particularly down road is that even though it’s a stopping train priority is given to allow trains to have a green signal just after Needham Market.

Yes, I have never understood why a train that is scheduled to stop needs a green signal! The same applies at Reigate, as I mentioned earlier - there is no point in giving an approaching stopping train a green signal if it is just about to stop at the station anyway.

Ken H · 24 Feb 2024

Kildwick, between Connonley and Steeton and Silsden is another horror. I have been stuck there while up to 3 trains cross. Quite annoying as its on the route from Skipton and further east to Airedale Hospital A+E.

Hest Hank too, but it only goes to a car park and beach so less of an issue. But I have see cars try and sneak under the barriers as they close.

dk1 · 24 Feb 2024

Deepgreen said:
Yes, I have never understood why a train that is scheduled to stop needs a green signal! The same applies at Reigate, as I mentioned earlier - there is no point in giving an approaching stopping train a green signal if it is just about to stop at the station anyway.

It would affect a trains performance as some drivers would apply more defensive driving. It’s better to give trains a green signal wherever possible. Stowmarket has no overlap after the down platform starting signal either.

norbitonflyer · 24 Feb 2024

Manor Road, nest to North Sheen station, is particularly bad - 6tph off-peak, and it is not uncommon to have three trains pass between barrier lifts, as the second is within three blocks before the first has crossed, and by the time the second has crossed, a third one following the first, is within range. The delay is longest for trains in the down direction calling at North Sheen, as they are travelling more slowly anyway and there is also the dwell time at the station itself (on the London side of the crossing). Local residents are divided over whether the halving of the stopping service at North Sheen (and Mortlake, which has a similar issue) to 2tph due to the withdrawal of the Hounslow Roundabout services, is a Bad Thing.

Jamiescott1 · 24 Feb 2024

Without going off course, trains between marlow and bourne end were cancelled last night. The reason given "a road vehicle stuck on a level crossing"

There are 2 single barrier crossings and one gate that has to be opened by hand on this stretch of line.

Gloster · 24 Feb 2024

There is also the time factor. The signalman will put down the barriers at the moment s/he thinks is the correct one for a train running as fast as some trains do: that might be just correct or too early. There might be something else that the signalman has to do in a few seconds: best put the barriers down first, rather than leave it too late. And there is the road traffic situation: get the barriers down now as there is a gap, rather than waiting until the perfect moment and finding you have a load of farm tractors nose-to-tailing across.

Question about level crossing barrier timings

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