They need to install a better grade of train detector then. While I imagine they are much more expensive than the standard ones, they can determine the speed and distance of the train.* While it is triggered to lower the gates for the standard 30-seconds before the train gets to the crossing if it senses the train has stopped it will raise them after a time then lower them again when the train starts moving.
*The resistance from the detector down the rail to where the first axle is shunting the current then back up the other rail is sensed.
I live in a small (20k) town that used to be a major railroad hub, and still sees a lot of rail activity. A main line of BNSF runs smack dab through town, diagonally, so a train will stop traffic on all east-west AND north-south streets. One learns to live with the delay, or to take a 2-3 mile detour when a slow freight plods through town.
There are train tracks just north of us, and my reaction depends on the train. Most of them are short commuter trains, so I don’t mind them. Longer freight trains can be fun if you get to look at their cars. Don’t mind them either unless I’m in a rush - and there is a way around them using a road that goes over the tracks.
I only have minded if the train gets parked so a car sticks onto the road keeping the gate down for no damn reason. That’s infrequent.
Just don’t make the mistake of crossing anyway and then finding out there was another train that wasn’t stopped.
I’m not a railfan (or foamer) at all, despite working in the industry at the moment. My girlfriend drives the local metro trains so there is some mild interest if she’s at work as to whether she might be driving it. I control signalling for a part of New Zealand that is 99.9999% freight trains and have slightly more interest in trains now. Mostly my reaction to stopping for a train is the same as stopping for any intersection.
Pretty much A, which is what I voted; but this level crossing - in Worthing (UK), on our way to the seaside there - can drive me to hysterical fury.
Yes, that’s a regular four way road junction controlled by traffic lights - with a level crossing in the middle of it. No, the lights and the level crossing gates do not talk to each other. Yes, it is the main line along the coast. And it’s busy.
Is it dangerous? Well you’d think so, wouldn’t you? So you can be held by by a red light, and just as you get a green light the barrier comes down? I’ve had that happen to me twice in a single crossing of the fecking thing. Isn’t there another route you can take? Sure - along the hideous A27 and through the middle of Worthing.
On a good trip my stress levels go through the roof.
I voted “something else” because it really depends on how rushed I happen to be that day.
If I’m late for an appointment, of course I’m sitting there saying “dratted train”.
If not, I can enjoy the moment - a little time when I can look around and enjoy the scenery.
Look at the train cars and wonder what they might be carrying.
And – nowadays I’m usually looking at all of the graffiti and thinking “some people have WAY too much free time on their hands.” (Thank goodness these people haven’t started doing this to automobiles in parking lots!)
I’m not usually in enough of a hurry to let it bother me. There has been a time or two when the train has stopped for more than 10 minutes or so and motivated me to turn around and look for another route.
If I’m in the front of the line when a long train is passing I take the opportunity to check out the graffiti on the cars and take photos if a camera is handy.
Considering the fact that one of my grandfathers was killed when he tried to beat a train and had his truck stall on the tracks, I’m fine with waiting even though most traffic delays try my patience.
Usually, I just patiently wait. However, where I live there is one intersection that if you hit it when the train is there, it’s not unusual to be stuck for 45 min or more. In that case, if at all possible, I flip a u turn and go another way.
When I was stationed at Atsugi NAF in Ayase, Kanagaw, Japan, straight out the main gate the road went to a T-intersection right in front of the Ayase train station. Just to the east of that was a nice little pub practically on the tracks (at least that’s the way it felt). When the trains would go by, of course they’d sound their whistle and everyone in the pub would pick up their beers while the building was shaking. When the shaking stopped, the beers were placed back on the tables. It was kind of a fun experience, actually.
Because at the time they assumed people would be sensible and stop when the gate told them to. Now we get safety grants to install raised curb medians on both sides of the track so that the first four or so cars can’t evade the gate.
We’re still trusting that the fifth car back will pull a uey instead of trying to pull a major zoom around the gate.
“Other” – explanation: Last few times that happened to me, I was looking out the window at you sitting there waiting for us to go by. Occasionally I will maybe smirk a little if it is an oversize pickup truck. Sometimes I feel a bit of empathy when we stop at one of the smaller stations where the last few cars hang out across the road, stops which always seem to take a long time.
There’s a busy railroad crossing on a main road that leads into my subdivision.
I can hear the train at night. It’s 1.5 miles away and I’ve learned to ignore it.
I get stopped at the crossing two or three times a week. I pass the time watching the box cars as they go by. Some have graffiti to read.
There’s several RR crossings. I will sometimes take a detour and get ahead of the train. Cross a mile down the track, while it’s stopped changing boxcars.
I would be more irritated in a strange town. Unfamiliar roads and a railroad crossing would be a unwelcome surprise.
I’m boxed in by active rail tracks supporting a commercial port, with the exception of one very circuitous route. So I got blocked by them constantly, lately it seems like 3 to 4 times a week. Usually it is about 5 minutes, once in awhile 10-15, very rarely 20-30.
I don’t enjoy it. But I’ve gotten used to it. Mostly I just sigh and shrug. I am not a train nerd, but even if I were there isn’t much diversity of rail cars being hauled. I find it all quietly monotonous and very slightly annoying, but not even close to day ruining.
My “something else” answer is “I’m fine with waiting”. My father was an aggressive, sometimes reckless driver who would try to “beat” the gates while my mom and sisters and I would yell “No! Stop!”
I currently live near a busy suburban train line. There’s a big project replacing grade crossings with overpasses; out of 9 or 10 crossings that I know, there’s just 2 that don’t have an overpass yet, and one is on a relatively quiet line with just 1 train an hour as opposed to 10 an hour.
Many times I had to use a grade crossing where 7 men were killed in a 1942 accident and 9 teenagers were killed in a 1982 accident; it wasn’t replaced with an underpass until 16 years after the second accident, in 1998. And there was another grade crossing a few miles away where 3 men were killed in 2019.
