When will we see the end of level crossings?

[snowball]

Out of interest, why weren't level crossing identified as dangerous say 60 years ago?

There were a lot more train crashes and other dangers then, that have now been successfully reduced. When you remove or reduce one source of danger, another one moves to the top of the list. That was the point of DerekC's post that you quoted, and it seems to me to explain it clearly. There was also less road traffic then.

 

[driver_m]

Hmmm! Unlike many lightly-used rural lines, this has a frequent service of 3rd-rail electric trains. I'm surprised that there aren't more accidents at the crossings on this line. Admittedly most of the streets involved are fairly minor, but I was at Birkdale this afternoon where the level crossing, adjacent to the station platforms, serves a fairly busy suburban high street. It's a dilemma because there doesn't seem to be an easy way of building either a bridge or an underpass.

This same afternoon I used the pedestrian crossing north of Freshfield station and although I looked carefully and stood back (wisely) one train had just passed, immediately followed by one going in the opposite direction. Had I not been concentrating or particularly aware (trains go at a fair whack at that point) I might have started crossing after the first train had passed with disastrous consequences.

Is that the fisherman's path foot crossing? If it is, that has had a number of incidents including fatalities. Not been round there for a long time but heard something about a bridge possibly going in there.

 

[Bald Rick]

Which goes to prove you haven't bothered to look and haven't got a clue how impossible that would be in these situations, and many others across the UK.

I did look. All are able to be closed.

Over the course of my career I have investigated the closure of hundreds of level crossings, and closed well over 100 of them, with more to come. So I rather think I do have a clue, if that's ok.

Closing every level crossing is possible. Some are extremely difficult (and therefore expensive), but still possible. It might take 50 years, or 100, or more, but assuming the railway still exists, one day they will all have gone.

 

[DarloRich]

Wouldn't, to be fair, be a great loss

the people living and working there might disagree...............

MOST importantly it might make getting to the pub harder!

It would probably be worth the local council replacing one of the car parks either side of the railway line with a bus station and maybe finding a suitable site on the edge of the town for a park and ride site

errrrmmmmmm?

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Sorry, I don't follow. Fenny Stratford would not be a sensible place for any kind of park and ride, nor bus interchange. Bletchley station is a better location for the latter, the former would be better on farmland near the A5 roundabout and served by a bus to CMK.

the people living and working there might disagree...............

MOST importantly it might make getting to the pub harder!



errrrmmmmmm?

I was thinking about the one in Lincoln High Street

 

[Harbon 1]

I was thinking about the one in Lincoln High Street

The bus station is already very close to the station and has been moved around the other side of the station while it's being knocked down and rebuilt. Two buildings have been half demolished for the bridge (which is nice but built for people with extremely short memories and extremely PC).

The new road built along the old St Marks line doesn't solve the problem of cutting off the shortest route into the town centre from the west. Pelham bridge was built in the 70s and thus incorporates extremely tight access roads with very poor visibility. I certainly wouldn't want to be a bus driver on one of the many services that traverse high street and will no doubt now be much longer, having to either cross Pelham street bridge and come across, or cross at the Brayford crossing. If this too closes, they, along with everyone else, will have to use the Brayford Way bridge along roads that are gridlocked at the best of times.

Closing the crossing to road traffic will reduce gridlock in the town on a Saturday, but it will be a nightmare trying to get across the railway with 50% of the crossings now available, one of which is queueing most of the time already.
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I did look. All are able to be closed.



Over the course of my career I have investigated the closure of hundreds of level crossings, and closed well over 100 of them, with more to come. So I rather think I do have a clue, if that's ok.



Closing every level crossing is possible. Some are extremely difficult (and therefore expensive), but still possible. It might take 50 years, or 100, or more, but assuming the railway still exists, one day they will all have gone.

Just out of interest, how would you close three near me, Clay Mills, Hatton and Scropton?

 

[Llanigraham]

I did look. All are able to be closed.

Over the course of my career I have investigated the closure of hundreds of level crossings, and closed well over 100 of them, with more to come. So I rather think I do have a clue, if that's ok.

Closing every level crossing is possible. Some are extremely difficult (and therefore expensive), but still possible. It might take 50 years, or 100, or more, but assuming the railway still exists, one day they will all have gone.

Bromfield might be closeable, but there is a query about the wording of the enabling Act that might need Parliamentary time to repeal.
Onibury is on a trunk road (A49), has a river close to it and a junction immediately north of it, and yet you say it could be closed!! Dream on!!
Craven Arms is the main access to a Trading Estate and the only other access has a severe height restriction.
Marshbrook does not have a close diversion route, is too close to the A49 for a bridge and has a junction immediately on it.

But then you do seem to always know best!

 

[Bald Rick]

Bromfield might be closeable, but there is a query about the wording of the enabling Act that might need Parliamentary time to repeal.
Onibury is on a trunk road (A49), has a river close to it and a junction immediately north of it, and yet you say it could be closed!! Dream on!!
Craven Arms is the main access to a Trading Estate and the only other access has a severe height restriction.
Marshbrook does not have a close diversion route, is too close to the A49 for a bridge and has a junction immediately on it.

But then you do seem to always know best!

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I promise. I'm not saying that certain LCs will close (although I believe that eventually, they all will). I'm just saying that they can be closed.

For comparison, Ely Station LC is on a very busy A road, next to a river (and appalling ground conditions as a result), right next to a busy junction, a supermarket, an industrial complex, and the station itself. That will close in about 2 years. It's costing the thick end of £40m, but it can be done. Much harder than Onibury.

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Just out of interest, how would you close three near me, Clay Mills, Hatton and Scropton?

Clay Mills: bridge 400m to the north, new access road to A5121 on west of railway, new road to sewage works parallel to the line on east. Cost about £15m

Hatton: bypass village to east, new bridge over river and railway, tie in to Tutbury bypass. Ramped footbridge on site of existing crossing. Similar principle to Ely, but easier. £30m.

Scropton: bridge 300m to the west, link to Lethersley Lane. £10m. Or buy the farm(s) and abandon them so no one needs to use the crossings. Might be cheaper.

These are all my own thoughts, having spent 5 mins looking at the map; and definitely not that of any railway organisation. They would all be expensive, obviously. But then when a highway LC renewal costs the wrong side of £2m every 30 years (sometimes much more when extra signalling is required) and costs another hefty sum to run each year in power, maintenance, repair, delays, risk assessment, and (unfortunately) accidents, the maths does work in a surprising number of cases, particularly if it relieves road traffic congestion as well. However there isn't that much money around.

 

[Harbon 1]

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I promise. I'm not saying that certain LCs will close (although I believe that eventually, they all will). I'm just saying that they can be closed.

For comparison, Ely Station LC is on a very busy A road, next to a river (and appalling ground conditions as a result), right next to a busy junction, a supermarket, an industrial complex, and the station itself. That will close in about 2 years. It's costing the thick end of £40m, but it can be done. Much harder than Omnibury.
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Clay Mills: bridge 400m to the north, new access road to A5121 on west of railway, new road to sewage works parallel to the line on east. Cost about £15m

Hatton: bypass village to east, new bridge over river and railway, tie in to Tutbury bypass. Ramped footbridge on site of existing crossing. Similar principle to Ely, but easier. £30m.

Scropton: bridge 300m to the west, link to Lethersley Lane. £10m. Or buy the farm(s) and abandon them so no one needs to use the crossings. Might be cheaper.

These are all my own thoughts, having spent 5 mins looking at the map; and definitely not that of any railway organisation. They would all be expensive, obviously. But then when a highway LC renewal costs the wrong side of £2m every 30 years (sometimes much more when extra signalling is required) and costs another hefty sum to run each year in power, maintenance, repair, delays, risk assessment, and (unfortunately) accidents, the maths does work in a surprising number of cases, particularly if it relieves road traffic congestion as well. However there isn't that much money around.

They may all be possible but they wouldn't be feasible for local reasons.

I must say interesting solutions however. None of them worth the money for the traffic!

 

[DasLunatic]

I did look. All are able to be closed.

Over the course of my career I have investigated the closure of hundreds of level crossings, and closed well over 100 of them, with more to come. So I rather think I do have a clue, if that's ok.

Closing every level crossing is possible. Some are extremely difficult (and therefore expensive), but still possible. It might take 50 years, or 100, or more, but assuming the railway still exists, one day they will all have gone.

Try these two:

Google does not show the fact that the industrial estate east of the LC is a Royal Mail depot. There is also a Grade II listed building near the junction of East St and Ipswich Road, and the signal box is also listed and thus cannot be removed.

This level crossing is completely hemmed in by housing to the East of the station, and a presumably popular miniature golf course directly SW of the crossing. Maples is a preschool for children in central Acton and the surrounding environs. There is also a frequent service over the LC, owing to it being served by London Overground.

 

[najaB]

...one side has the park...

Park = open land. As per Bald Rick's post that isn't a technical limitation.
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...the signal box is also listed and thus cannot be removed...

Listed buildings can be demolished. There are just more hoops to jump through.

 

[Bletchleyite]

the people living and working there might disagree...............

MOST importantly it might make getting to the pub harder!

The pub = the Red Lion (for some nice draught Old Rosie, though they could do with cleaning their lines out once in a while)? Easy enough to walk along the canal from the bridge

 

[tranzitjim]

Only hours ago, a pedestrian was struck only 1km from where I am. Outer South East Melbourne Australia.

An express train, with the crossing on the away side of the station. Perhaps the pedestrian felt that the train was going to stop???

Only two days ago on a different location an express train struck a car, killing two 70yo ladies.

A bad week for my city.

In any case, I support having all level crossings being protected with wig wags, and be given a decent warning too is also important.

I do not support grade separation as a rule. Only the busy ones, and put protection with wig wags and booms in the rest.

 

[The Ham]

The standard for a wheelchair-compatible ramp is 1 in 20, probably including some level sections to prevent a runaway. So a pedestrian underpass without lifts is going to need at least 60m of ramp on level ground, and more if the ramp is chasing an existing slope. This could be shortened by making it double back, but it would then need stairs as a shortcut otherwise people who didn't have to use it would consider it far to long to be worth considering. The end result would be very similar to those subways of the 60s and 70s that everybody hates (cue response from someone on here that loves them...).

An underpass is more difficult and expensive than a bridge because it involves digging under the railway and road, disrupting both and probably affecting lots of utilities too. For a simple footbridge it's only necessary to clear space for the footings and lift it into place, though the one at Lincoln was more complicated and involved demolishing a building.

[pedantic] the flattest ramp for disabled use without level platforms is greater than 1:20, so designers can specify 1:21 (they could even specify 1:20.00000000000000001 if they wanted but they wouldn't save much in ramp length, 120m/126m, on a bridge going up 6m) [/pedantic]

 

[Bald Rick]

[pedantic] the flattest ramp for disabled use without level platforms is greater than 1:20, so designers can specify 1:21 (they could even specify 1:20.00000000000000001 if they wanted but they wouldn't save much in ramp length, 120m/126m, on a bridge going up 6m) [/pedantic]

You do save quite a bit, as you don't need th length of the level landings.

 

[Darandio]

Park = open land. As per Bald Rick's post that isn't a technical limitation.

The park isn't open land as such, but regardless, it's just a tiny fraction of the whole picture.

But, I suppose if we are to inconvenience people with a 1.3 mile (yep, thats what it is) detour from one side of the crossing to the other, we could also knock down some houses and remove the cricket ground as well.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Just to put a different perspective on this, I wonder what bearing improved technology will have on the long term future of level crossings...?

It's very hard to predict what will happen in the future, but off the top of my head, I would imagine that within the next 20-30 years, it would become relatively simple and cheap for level crossings to be able to automatically detect any incursion into them (by person, animal, or vehicle) and therefore automatically have any approaching train stopped. That in itself would make them safer, and possibly make removing them less of a priority.

Further, if the current trend towards discouraging private cars from urban areas continues, then it's very plausible that many of the level crossings on busy roads in urban areas (which where it's hard to build bridges because of neighbouring buildings) will actually no longer be busy roads, but may be - for example - pedestrianized or bus/taxi-only roads, with the remaining traffic diverted elsewhere.

Looking more long term, I would guess that by the end of the century, self-driving road vehicles would be the norm - and would be exceptionally safe. Maybe it'll even be illegal for people to manually drive vehicles on public roads, except in special circumstances - because manually driving would be universally recognized as being so much more dangerous than simply letting the vehicle drive itself? If that's the case then there will basically be no danger at all from motorized vehicles and level crossings - the only issues will be pedestrians or cyclists being silly.

All that suggests to me that, on a timescale of decades, replacing level crossings will gradually become less important - because level crossings will no longer pose such a safety issue. That in turn suggests that in - say - 100 years time - there will still be some level crossings (though probably far fewer than today), and there will be little incentive to replace those that still exist.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

In a word - never (probably....)

Two I'm most familiar with are St Dunstans and St Stephens MCB-CCTV crossings at Canterbury West - both crossings (St Dunstans in particular) very, very busy traffic wise. And too many buildings, estates to reroute the traffic

Many could go over to OD operation but there will still be cost pressures in maintaining them
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Out of interest, why weren't level crossing identified as dangerous say 60 years ago?

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Level crossings are NOT dangerous provided that they are used properly. It's chancers and foolish people that make them dangerous
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--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Out of interest, why weren't level crossing identified as dangerous say 60 years ago?

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

Level crossings are NOT dangerous provided that they are used properly. It's chancers and foolish people that make them dangerous

 

[snowball]

I would imagine that within the next 20-30 years, it would become relatively simple and cheap for level crossings to be able to automatically detect any incursion into them (by person, animal, or vehicle) and therefore automatically have any approaching train stopped. That in itself would make them safer, and possibly make removing them less of a priority.

Some recently upgraded level crossings have obstacle detection but it's not without its problems. If it's too sensitive it detects false obstacles. It caused major delays in East Anglia through that. But if it's not sensitive enough, it could fail to detect a small child who has fallen over on the line.

It also has the problem that trains take a long time to stop. I'm far from being an expert on types of LC but as I understand it not all types of LC are interlocked with signals, and if they were, they would close the road for an unacceptably long time. And I gather some on rural lines impose a serious speed restriction for trains.

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Level crossings are NOT dangerous provided that they are used properly. It's chancers and foolish people that make them dangerous

When people say that, the problem is that they appear to be implying is that it's OK if such people are killed.

Admittedly some people are so stupid that there's nothing that can be done about them, for example those who climb on trains under live wires. But many cases are not like that. Take for example the teenage girls killed at Elsenham.

https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/inv...g-pedestrian-gates-at-highway-level-crossings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-17378565

Were they foolish or chancers and did they deserve the death penalty for it?

 

[neilmc]

I think that unless there is a clear case that the level crossing is causing significant obstruction to the local road network there is no need to close any of them, otherwise it's just a huge waste of money for some unquantified safety concerns. The money could be better spent on ripping out the entire third-rail network which is a menace towards passengers, rail staff and wildlife alike. Or maybe building new footbridges ON stations where Network Rail seem quite happy with people crossing busy tracks via barrow crossings to get between platforms.

Shock, horror - in my native Manchester the number of level crossings has substantially INCREASED! Still, railed traffic is quite clearly perfectly safe when it's painted bright yellow, after all at Piccadilly people constantly walk across the tracks all day long with only the occasional fatality. And if you live in Wythenshawe dangerous trams are still of far less concern than dangerous dogs and dangerous people!

 

[edwin_m]

Some recently upgraded level crossings have obstacle detection but it's not without its problems. If it's too sensitive it detects false obstacles. It caused major delays in East Anglia through that. But if it's not sensitive enough, it could fail to detect a small child who has fallen over on the line.

It also has the problem that trains take a long time to stop. I'm far from being an expert on types of LC but as I understand it not all types of LC are interlocked with signals, and if they were, they would close the road for an unacceptably long time. And I gather some on rural lines impose a serious speed restriction for trains.

The crossings with obstacle detection are interlocked with signals, as are those monitored by a human either directly or via CCTV. The clue is if they have barriers right across the road rather than just over the lane used by traffic going onto the crossing.

With these crossings the protecting signals are not allowed to clear until it has been checked clear of obstructions (either by the automatic equipment or by the operator pressing a button). If the crossing becomes occupied again after that then it might be too late for a train to stop. Having some kind of in-cab alert would make this less likely but not eliminate the risk entirely.

There are broadly two other types of barriered road crossings, both of which are triggered automatically by an approaching train. One type is "locally monitored" and imposes a speed restriction on approaching trains. The remaining crossings with lights but no barriers are also of this type. The driver needs to observe a trackside light to check the crossing equipment has worked, and if it hasn't or if the crossing is visibly blocked should be going slowly enough to stop before reaching it. Again this won't protect against something coming onto the crossing when the train is too close to stop.

The other type is monitored remotely, but this just covers the general health of the equipment. There is no monitoring at all of whether it is blocked and they don't close until the train is far to close to stop (unless it happens to be going very slowly). This type is probably going to be gradually replaced by obstacle detector crossings, which are safer but have much longer road closure times for each train.

There are also numerous footpath and agricultural crossings, some with red and green lights but mostly where the user is trusted to telephone the signaller before crossing, or simply to look for approaching trains.

One interesting development might be if trains were fitted with magnetic track brakes, as are used on trams and I believe on some trains in the Netherlands. This would give a much shorter emergency stopping distance but with the risk of minor injuries to passengers due to the sudden deceleration. It might be a particular benefit for trains used on rural routes with lots of crossings, particularly locally monitored ones where higher approach speeds might be allowed.

 

[snowball]

Shock, horror - in my native Manchester the number of level crossings has substantially INCREASED! Still, railed traffic is quite clearly perfectly safe when it's painted bright yellow, after all at Piccadilly people constantly walk across the tracks all day long with only the occasional fatality. And if you live in Wythenshawe dangerous trams are still of far less concern than dangerous dogs and dangerous people!

Trams are very different. They can stop much, much quicker, they are limited to 30mph on street and their max speed on reserved tracks is typically 50mph.

 

[The Ham]

You do save quite a bit, as you don't need the length of the level landings.

I was talking about the difference between 1:20.000000000001 and 1 in 21 (neither of which technically need the landing).

I agree that otherwise the need for landings does mean that it is almost always worth opting for a gradient of flatter than 1:20.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One interesting development might be if trains were fitted with magnetic track brakes, as are used on trams and I believe on some trains in the Netherlands. This would give a much shorter emergency stopping distance but with the risk of minor injuries to passengers due to the sudden deceleration. It might be a particular benefit for trains used on rural routes with lots of crossings, particularly locally monitored ones where higher approach speeds might be allowed.

I often tend towards the idea that rural branch lines would actually be better as light rail, using lightweight tram-like vehicles with track brakes and assuming people will walk across.

 

[Llanigraham]

Just to put a different perspective on this, I wonder what bearing improved technology will have on the long term future of level crossings...?

It's very hard to predict what will happen in the future, but off the top of my head, I would imagine that within the next 20-30 years, it would become relatively simple and cheap for level crossings to be able to automatically detect any incursion into them (by person, animal, or vehicle) and therefore automatically have any approaching train stopped. That in itself would make them safer, and possibly make removing them less of a priority.

Further, if the current trend towards discouraging private cars from urban areas continues, then it's very plausible that many of the level crossings on busy roads in urban areas (which where it's hard to build bridges because of neighbouring buildings) will actually no longer be busy roads, but may be - for example - pedestrianized or bus/taxi-only roads, with the remaining traffic diverted elsewhere.

Looking more long term, I would guess that by the end of the century, self-driving road vehicles would be the norm - and would be exceptionally safe. Maybe it'll even be illegal for people to manually drive vehicles on public roads, except in special circumstances - because manually driving would be universally recognized as being so much more dangerous than simply letting the vehicle drive itself? If that's the case then there will basically be no danger at all from motorized vehicles and level crossings - the only issues will be pedestrians or cyclists being silly.

All that suggests to me that, on a timescale of decades, replacing level crossings will gradually become less important - because level crossings will no longer pose such a safety issue. That in turn suggests that in - say - 100 years time - there will still be some level crossings (though probably far fewer than today), and there will be little incentive to replace those that still exist.

Fine for the urban situation, but like many on here you are forgetting that there are thousands of User Worked Crossings across the countryside that none of this applies to.
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It also has the problem that trains take a long time to stop. I'm far from being an expert on types of LC but as I understand it not all types of LC are interlocked with signals, and if they were, they would close the road for an unacceptably long time. And I gather some on rural lines impose a serious speed restriction for trains.

Correct, Automatic Half Barrier crossings are not linked to the signalling system.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

When people say that, the problem is that they appear to be implying is that it's OK if such people are killed.

Admittedly some people are so stupid that there's nothing that can be done about them, for example those who climb on trains under live wires. But many cases are not like that. Take for example the teenage girls killed at Elsenham.

https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/inv...g-pedestrian-gates-at-highway-level-crossings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-17378565

Were they foolish or chancers and did they deserve the death penalty for it?

I agree, this was a tragedy but the warning lights were flashing and the girls didn't see, or chose to ignore them and crossed the line. Had they stayed behind the gate, they would be alive today.

 

[Taunton]

Some recently upgraded level crossings have obstacle detection but it's not without its problems. If it's too sensitive it detects false obstacles. It caused major delays in East Anglia through that. But if it's not sensitive enough, it could fail to detect a small child who has fallen over on the line.

These units, certainly the current generation, appear not fit for purpose and fail far too often. They may "fail safe" with the gates down but then cause gross road disruption, sufficiently often and to the extent that for the ones in East Anglia the area MP had to get involved to apply pressure on Network Rail.

But it would be good to ask signallers of conventional crossings, have you ever experienced a small child to fall on the rails to be so low down, and to meanwhile be on their own with no adult with them. Is it a realistic scenario? Over to those of you who manage crossings.

Take for example the teenage girls killed at Elsenham. Were they foolish or chancers and did they deserve the death penalty for it?

There was a lot more to this which disappointingly was not in the RAIB accident report. The village is on the Cambridge side of the line. "Efficient modernisation" had closed the ticket office on the Cambridge side, leaving only that on the London side. There is no footbridge, only the crossing. Posters about draconian penalties for boarding without a ticket meant anyone going to Cambridge had to cross the line via the crossing twice, once to the ticket office and once coming back to the platform. The train they wished to catch passed over the crossing to stop at the platform beyond and there was a general belief that the gates had been down for it and, if they waited, they would miss it. The approach from the north was curved, there was no "second train coming" indicator, nor was there any procedure that, in this circumstance, the train would wait for passengers stuck on the ticket office side of the line. Finally the NR report that identified the site as a gross risk was concealed from the initial enquiry.

 

[HSTEd]

In Argentina they recently closed down a commuter line and replaced it with a tunnelled metro route on a similar alignment to allow many crossings to be closed.

Such a programme would be very very expensive but entirely technically feasible.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

There was a lot more to this which disappointingly was not in the RAIB accident report. The village is on the Cambridge side of the line. "Efficient modernisation" had closed the ticket office on the Cambridge side, leaving only that on the London side. There is no footbridge, only the crossing. Posters about draconian penalties for boarding without a ticket meant anyone going to Cambridge had to cross the line via the crossing twice, once to the ticket office and once coming back to the platform. The train they wished to catch passed over the crossing to stop at the platform beyond and there was a general belief that the gates had been down for it and, if they waited, they would miss it. The approach from the north was curved, there was no "second train coming" indicator, nor was there any procedure that, in this circumstance, the train would wait for passengers stuck on the ticket office side of the line. Finally the NR report that identified the site as a gross risk was concealed from the initial enquiry.

I don't know the area but why can't NR, or rail safety officers go to schools and educate our youngsters about level crossing safety etc? This used to happen in BR days when I was at school, including police officers coming to talk about road safety. But this is taking this discussion OT now

 

[Bletchleyite]

In Argentina they recently closed down a commuter line and replaced it with a tunnelled metro route on a similar alignment to allow many crossings to be closed.

That's been done in a few places in Hamburg.