CSX Fitchburg Secondary Discussion

Vehicle vs Train in Leominster

https://www.wcvb.com/article/leominster ... -autopilot

Train crew OK, driver injured.

A person is hospitalized after a freight train hit a SUV in Leominster on Thursday.

From WCVB:

Just before 7 p.m. on Thursday, a CSX freight train collided with a SUV on the track at Marguerite Avenue in Leominster.

CSX said there were no injuries to the train crew and first responders said the driver of that SUV is in the hospital with unknown injuries.

Leominster Police Department responded and is investigating the crash in collaboration with the Massachusetts State Police reconstruction team.

Clinton run around track has been OOS at least this week, so they've been going up to Leominster every day. I personally witnessed a number of near misses at Marguerite so I'm not shocked there was an accident. Glad the crew is ok.

Any particular reason for the oos Clinton run around?

It's been removed as part of work in process to raise the grade for the bridge raising.

Wow
Not the answer I expected

Makes it simpler if they only have to reconnect one track right away, and taking the siding out of service first means they can do additional prep work before taking the whole line out of service.

To be clear, the removal looks to be temporary, to facilitate the construction.

Here are views from 11/14/24 of the rebuilt Rte 9 grade crossing in Framingham. 136 lb rail was used.

Now they need gates and new lights and the crazy concept of having the cars stop for the trains instead of having the train stop for the cars.

Near Moncton, New Brunswick there are a couple of railway crossings at grade across the Trans-Canada Highway. Utterly bizarre to see such a thing on a divided, multilane 110km/h highway which is the equivalent of an Interstate in the US. Both of those crossings have multiple crossing flashers mounted on both sides of the road and also on gantries above the road, and there are big yellow advance warning signs and flashers about half a kilometer before each crossing too, but neither of the crossings are equipped with gates. I guess in conditions like that, and like Route 9 even with its slightly slower speed limit, gates are just something that's gonna be broken so often and are so pointless and ineffective to stop those truly determined to win a Darwin Award, why bother?

bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 9:39 am Now they need gates and new lights and the crazy concept of having the cars stop for the trains instead of having the train stop for the cars.

Although it would be a lot safer for the crew and motoring morons, I don't believe the volume of rail traffic would justify the expense in CSXT's mind. IIRC, those lights are manually operated. If the state is worried about malfunctions, I that should not be a big issue.

Many years ago, the Fitchburg line had gates where it crosses US 20 in downtown Northborough. The track circuits failed and activated the signals and gates so often, that CSXT ended up removing the gates as traffic would be gridlocked for hours before the signal maintainer would arrive to disable the crossing. My guess with CRW in place in Northborough, the number of failures and broken/vandalized rail bonds causing false signal activations will be much lower in this segment.