Shimbleshanks
Member
Had an email from a friend just back from a country ramble in the Strood area:
<<How rare are manually operated level-crossing gates in the South-East?
Was very surprised to see them yesterday, at Cuxton, the first station out of Strood on the Medway Valley Line. A half-hourly service, with several peak trains from Maidstone West extended to St Pancras, so presumably operated by Javelins which makes it even more unusual.
The lane is a dead-end, serving a boatyard and several businesses. Bloke limps out of the cabin and works the old-fashioned gates. Lane is narrower than the permanent way, so each gate extends over only one track.>>
I'm speculating here, but could the reason for retention of manual gates here be because (a)It's still a 'public' crossing in that it's on a public road, albeit a dead-end lane and (b) because of the frequency of the train service (and maybe because of the nature of some of the users...) automation isn't seen as desirable. (c) Could proximity to a station also have something to do with it?
I'd imagine that manually operated crossings (especially ones with no mechanism to operate them from the signal box) are getting rare everywhere, not just in south-east England.
<<How rare are manually operated level-crossing gates in the South-East?
Was very surprised to see them yesterday, at Cuxton, the first station out of Strood on the Medway Valley Line. A half-hourly service, with several peak trains from Maidstone West extended to St Pancras, so presumably operated by Javelins which makes it even more unusual.
The lane is a dead-end, serving a boatyard and several businesses. Bloke limps out of the cabin and works the old-fashioned gates. Lane is narrower than the permanent way, so each gate extends over only one track.>>
I'm speculating here, but could the reason for retention of manual gates here be because (a)It's still a 'public' crossing in that it's on a public road, albeit a dead-end lane and (b) because of the frequency of the train service (and maybe because of the nature of some of the users...) automation isn't seen as desirable. (c) Could proximity to a station also have something to do with it?
I'd imagine that manually operated crossings (especially ones with no mechanism to operate them from the signal box) are getting rare everywhere, not just in south-east England.