Whistle Sign Placement

[leader2302]

In a prototypical U.S. route, on a mainline set for 20 mph, how many feet from a grade crossing should a whistle sign be placed?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[CasyJ]

The whistle (or bell) should be sounded 80 rods or 1630 feet before any grade crossing.

 

[Ferrous]

Is that a set distance for all speeds or is it x number of rods where x is track speed times four?

 

[SR6900]

Approximately 20 seconds before any crossing.
20 Miles per Hour = 29.333333333333332 Feet per Second
29.3fps x 20s = 586 ft
Normally they are placed just before that so about 600-650ft before a crossing.

 

[gfisher]

This will depend upon the regulation of the railroad involved, and also upon the state and local regulations. For the Pennsylvania Railroad the following applies: "Except where regulated by local ordinances or other laws the prescribed sign shall be located at a distance of not less than 1200 feet nor more than 1650 feet in advance of the grade road crossing or point for which the warning is to be sounded." (from the 1929 engineering standards). The rule also is that the long-long-short-long signal must be maintained until the locomotive enters the crossing. This means that the speed limit of the line has a bearing on where the note must first be sounded.

As a practical matter in Trainz, I usually just eyeball the distance, adjusting it as necessary for the speed of the line. Then when I test run over the line I make a note of which signs need to be moved either closer or further away to accomodate train speed and signal length.

 

[CasyJ]

I would imagine that the train speed is irrelevant.

 

[Gandalf0444]

The rule also is that the long-long-short-long signal must be maintained until the locomotive enters the crossing.

That is supposed to be what the engineers do. But many of them do not follow that and make up there own patterns.
And in some areas the crossings are to close to each other to even do that sort of pattern for example Asbury Park,NJ. So what would they do? Just lay on the horn?

 

[gfisher]

Not at all. If it is a 20mph shortline and you start to blow the horn when you see a sign at 1600 feet, you will end up blowing it several times before you get to the crossing.

 

[Gandalf0444]

Not at all. If it is a 20mph shortline and you start to blow the horn when you see a sign at 1600 feet, you will end up blowing it several times before you get to the crossing.

But its not a shortline,and the speed is roughly 40-50mph. And there are about 10-12 crossings in a little less then a mile. And a few of them are less then a block apart from each other.I still don't get how they would do the long,long,short,long before every crossing or if they would just do it for the first one.

 

[StorkNest]

Being near NJ and seen trains operate over NJ crossings, if you have more than one crossing close enough, they sound the Long-Long-Short-Long and keep repeating it until the locomotive clears them all.

 

[themnax]

the proceedure that was fallowed on the s.p., i don't have the book of rules in front of me, is that at the whistle post you start the long long short long, and then just hold the last long, keep it going until actually entering the grade crossing. where there were multiple crossing like that the proceedure would be to use the bell and just keep that going untill you cleared the last one.

whether you held the horn through all of them probably depended somewhat on local politics. but you deffinately had the bell going. also on the s.p. anything that moved had to have some sort of lights on at all times it was moving or going to, and everything that moved on rails 'displaying markers' was considered a train for purposes of the book of rules, that included a pickup truck running on highrailers, those hydraulicly raised and lowered rr wheels that can be mounted on highway vehicules to let them run on rails.

i'm not sure what you did for a bell with a highrailler or a track motor car, parobably just leaned on the horn.

one of the truck mounted backhoes i was on had highrailers and when we ran on the track the same rules applied as if we were any other train.

=^^=
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