Q: I was on a bike ride with friends along a route that included a railroad crossing. My friend, who has hearing aids, approached the railroad crossing, slowed down, and was almost in the crossing. He did not hear or see a truck coming along the rails. The driver sounded his horn, did not slow down, and went through the crossing. My friend stopped and no accident occurred. First of all, my friend should have looked both ways along the railway line before starting to cross. But also, he crosses at this place daily and knows a train is coming because there is a ringing bell, the boom gate is lowered and the train sounds its horn. Shouldn’t maintenance trucks adhere to these same standards?
A: That seems like a reasonable expectation but, in fact, the converted trucks that drive on the rails (called hi-rail vehicles) are intentionally designed not to trigger the crossing signals. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first let’s talk about the vehicle more commonly found on the tracks: trains.
Trains always have the right-of-way at crossings. Even if we wanted to change that rule, we’d be prevented from doing so by physics. It takes about a mile for a 100-car freight train traveling at 55 mph to come to a stop. By the time a locomotive engineer sees something blocking the tracks it’s too late to stop. And if that object blocking the tracks is your car, well, your car is history. Consider a 12 ounce can of soda. Maybe you’ve driven over a soda can before. If so, you probably barely noticed it. The weight ratio of your car to a can of soda is similar to the weight ratio between a freight train and your car. Trains are massive and slow to stop, so we have no option but to give them the right-of-way.
In addition to right-of-way, we’ve built signals at many crossings that automatically trigger when a train approaches. These signals work because there is a low electrical current running through the tracks. When a train gets close to a crossing, the steel wheels of the train complete a circuit between the two tracks, triggering the lights and crossbar at the rail crossing.
In contrast, a hi-rail vehicle like you described is essentially a pick-up truck with about 1000 extra pounds of hardware attached to it so it can ride on the tracks. Physically, it is capable of stopping in much shorter distances. Legally, it is prohibited from traveling at high speeds and is required to yield to traffic at crossings.
It’s also worth noting the difference in both frequency and consequence of crashes of hi-rail vehicles compared to trains. From January 2010 to November 2015 there were 187 crashes in the US involving maintenance-of-way equipment (which includes hi-rail vehicles) and motor vehicles, resulting in two deaths. In 2016 alone, there were 2025 train-vehicle crashes, resulting in 265 deaths. From a human impact perspective, an injury or death is tragic no matter the mechanism that caused it, but from a systems perspective, we’re dealing with two very different kinds of equipment sharing the same set of tracks.
I mentioned that hi-rail vehicles intentionally don’t trigger crossing signals. That’s not completely true. Some of them are equipped with something called a shunt, which, like the steel wheels on a train, completes the circuit and can trigger a crossing signal. But even then, they’re not exempt from yielding. According to the rules for maintenance of way vehicles, “On-track equipment (including those with activated track shunts) must approach road crossings at grade prepared to stop and must yield the right of way to vehicular traffic.”
It might seem like a good idea to just have shunts on all maintenance of way vehicles, but there are some problems. I don’t understand the complexity of managing train routes, but apparently when a hi-rail vehicle triggers a signal it alerts a dispatcher. If they all were doing that it would create chaos. Plus, a study by the Federal Railroad Administration found that hi-rail vehicles equipped with a shunt could not reliably trigger crossing signals.
From what you described in your question, this was not so much a system problem, but a human problem. That’s not surprising; close to 95 percent of traffic crashes involve human error. Your friend could have paid more attention; the driver of the hi-rail vehicle should have yielded. When we get complacent (like assuming that there’s nothing on the tracks because there is no activated crossing signal or driving a hi-rail vehicle through a crossing without slowing down because there is usually nobody there) we increase our risk. I’m glad your friend was unharmed; his experience is a reminder that it takes all of us to be safe on the road.