A few years back myself and some buddies heard a rumor that if you used a set of jumper cables to connect the rails of a train track it would cause the “railroad crossing” lights to flash and the guard rails to come down and stay that way until you removed the cables. Curiosity got the best of us and we decided to try this out, and lo and behold it actually worked! From where we were standing, we could see three different places where streets crossed the tracks, and every set of crossing guards and lights were working. But after some ensuing arguments about whether or not we should keep the cables on the track or remove them (which we did back and forth about three times) until some sucker comes along, the whole thing stopped working. The cables no longer had any effect. We tried it in different spots the next few days and it never worked again. I am wondering if anyone else has done this and had it work, because I know it worked for us those first few times, and I can’t figure out why it stopped…
Train signals work because the solid axle of the railroad cars closes a circuit between the rails in that block (tracks are divided into electrically insulated “blocks” which is how the signals on the line are able to tell other trains to stop; if the circuit is closed it means there is a train on that block.) So when you connect the jumper cable accross the tracks, you’re closing the circuit, which causes the crossing signals to close, thinking a train is coming.
Not sure why they stopped working all of a sudden, though. Perhaps through your shennanigans you caused a breaker to trip, or something.
used to do this for thrills when I was a kid in rural northern calif. Cracked us up to have an empty RR crossing and all these pickups backed up. 'Course, the local farmers would catch on quick and walk down the track to where the wire was. Some of em would try find the little bastards that set the wire and that could be a lot of fun.
Can just use a copper wire.