Which M3 caught fire @ Brentwood

The Charlotte Ave. crossing in Hicksville was actually a 5-track crossing and yes, the overpass was built circa 1973. In addition to the 2 main-line tracks there was a siding on the south side that served a business west of the crossing. And north of the main-line tracks was (and still is) about a mile-long third-rail equipped siding the LIRR calls "the north side" and then there is a yard track as well. I seem to remember a tractor-trailer vs. train collision there when I was a kid circa 1962, happened early one morning.

Was Charlotte Ave. a very hazardous crossing? I mean 5 tracks with a couple of sidings would definitely be a pain in the neck. Did the crossing look like Herricks Road or was it two lanes? Long gates, or short?

The original Charlotte Ave. was a narrow 2-lane road from before World War II. The road was widened when the bridge was built. Short gates if I remember right. There was a slight bend in the road as it went over the crossing, just like now at the bridge. In the afternoon rush-hour there used to be a long line of cars waiting for the train(s) to pass. I only knew of the one accident that I mentioned.

MattAmity90 wrote:Was Charlotte Ave. a very hazardous crossing? I mean 5 tracks with a couple of sidings would definitely be a pain in the neck. Did the crossing look like Herricks Road or was it two lanes? Long gates, or short?

It looked like this.

http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s48 ... 8688d7.jpg

Wow, that photo must be 1950's before the area got so built up. It looks west toward the Wantagh Pkwy. That whole open area behind the locomotive is now occupied by one and two story commercial buildings.

Head-end View wrote:Wow, that photo must be 1950's before the area got so built up. It looks west toward the Wantagh Pkwy. That whole open area behind the locomotive is now occupied by one and two story commercial buildings.

Photo is from 1952.

Well, it sure looks like the early 1950's; the front of the loco isn't painted orange yet. But I didn't know that automatic gates existed that far back. I never saw them anywhere until the late 1950's. They were not installed at crossings in neighboring Westbury 'til about 1961. Before that was just flashers.

Am I the only one who thinks this thread title is a little insensitive? Nonetheless glad to hear the engineer and everyone on board the train is okay. Just so no one hurls ant stereotypes at young drivers, i always, always, slow to a crawl and look both ways when going over a railroad crossing with my car. Doesnt matter to me if the lights are on or not, don't need to find out hard way that the gates aren't working when I get hit by a train. If the lights are on, I stop and never even conceive of going around the gates., and I'm 21 I wish more people paid respect to grade crossings and train crews, it would avoid a lot of fatalities. There was a suicide about a week ago in my town, the woman just laid down in the tracks on an overpass til the train came along. Really is sad when something like this happens, and I wish when it did happen that people in the media and legal offices wouldn't immediately start pointing fingers over who did it, as though the train engineer doesn't have enough to deal with. I have immense respect for you railroaders and any way I can be safe around the tracks so as to not end up in the front of your train I do.

The S-2 (Class AS-10) in the photo was only 3 or 4 years old in 1952. Still wearing her factory black paint with Dulux gold lettering. Those were the days...

Head-end View wrote:Well, it sure looks like the early 1950's; the front of the loco isn't painted orange yet. But I didn't know that automatic gates existed that far back. I never saw them anywhere until the late 1950's. They were not installed at crossings in neighboring Westbury 'til about 1961. Before that was just flashers.

LIRR began installing Automatic Crossing Gates in 1942, starting with Bayshore (3rd & 4th Ave, Windsor Ave, N Park Ave). The LIRR Track Maps on Steve Lynch's "Trains are Fun" website show the progression of crossing protection at various LIRR locations, Bayshore is shown below.

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/lirrtr ... P40-41.jpg

Yeah, I saw in one photo of Farmingdale having them in 1948.

They all started out with black & white stripes and were dual-planked. Sometime in the mid-1970's they switched to your current red & white stripes, however at the same time most of the crossings were switching from dual-planked to single-planked fiberglass gates. LB said in another subject that Herricks Road was the last grade crossing to have dual-planked gates, and they were removed when the crossing's elimination project started by reducing the crossing to 2 lanes, closing the 2 Eastern lanes to traffic.

I had no idea that automatic gates went that far back in history. LIRR must have saved the branches for last. There were still watchmen cranking the gates in the 5-towns area on the Atlantic Branch and in Garden City on the Hempstead Branch until around 1959-60. As a kid I just assumed those automatic gates were late 1950's technology. Imagine finding out now, over 50 years later how uninformed I was......