Snow and obstacle detection level crossings

[androdas]

Lots of delays and cancellations on the Northumberland line today due to snow affecting the Mk2 OD level crossings. Trains being talked past signals at danger.

From my casual observation of the Northumberland Line since opening this does seem to happen quite often during snow or heavy rain.

Does this affect the older style obstacle detection crossings as well?

From my non railway background a workaround not be for the signaller to look at the CCTV and manually press 'crossing clear'. The crossings would be automatic 99% of the time but if it detects something a human signaller can have a look? Is there something stopping this happening, Just curious.

 

[ex-probationer]

Obstacle detection is an automated alternative to a Signaller looking at a CCTV and pressing 'Crossing Clear'. Consequently, Obstacle Detection crossings are not provided with CCTV for the Signaller.

 

[androdas]

I suppose the question is , should they have been fitted with it for times of disruption. The signaller could then use them to confirm crossing clear rather than asking drivers to pass the signal and drive on sight to ensure it is clear. JUst thinking if the tools are available why not use them. Would providing signaller CCTV to these crossing significantly added to cost?

 

[Lucy1501]

Generally speaking MCB-OD crossings are provided to reduce signaller workload over MCB-CCTV, which in the past would have required separate crossing desks or retaining local control. In a scenario like this, the signaller could end up overwhelmed trying to monitor several crossings in a failed state and make fatal mistakes.

In addition there’s the whole question of is there actually just an OD failure or are other failures present that may not be obvious to a signaller looking from a CCTV screen?

 

[Deepgreen]

Well, the interminably long upgrade of our local crossing (Burrows Lane, Gomshall) was well worth the slow progress as it has failed twice in the short time it has been in use, most recently yesterday, with trains passing at little above walking pace. Obstacle detection had beeen installed, and I don't know whether this was the issue (we did have heavy snow in the morning). Has yet another potential failure cause been introduced, I wonder.

 

[Belperpete]

Generally speaking MCB-OD crossings are provided to reduce signaller workload over MCB-CCTV, which in the past would have required separate crossing desks or retaining local control. In a scenario like this, the signaller could end up overwhelmed trying to monitor several crossings in a failed state and make fatal mistakes.

But the signaller is having to deal with MCB-OD crossings when they fail.

In response to a previous question, adding CCTV of a standard suitable for remote control of level crossings would add significant cost.

 

[ajwffc]

MCB-OD should have a second control box that allows a level crossing attendant to act like the obstacle detector.
One box is for normal local control the other for obstacle detection

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[Spartacus]

In my experience obstacle detectors picking up snow or rain are usually new ones that need tweaking a bit, if it's heavy snow they're picking up then it's quite likely that'd be obscuring CCTV anyway. Same goes for them sometimes picking up fog, which unless a tweak's needed would likely obscure CCTV too.

 

[Deepgreen]

In my experience obstacle detectors picking up snow or rain are usually new ones that need tweaking a bit, if it's heavy snow they're picking up then it's quite likely that'd be obscuring CCTV anyway. Same goes for them sometimes picking up fog, which unless a tweak's needed would likely obscure CCTV too.

In that circumstance, does that mean that the crossing is automatically declared to be passable only at caution? That seemed (not sure) to have been the case the other day at my local one at Gomshall, when the snow was falrly heavy but nowhere near as thickly-falling as it could be.

 

[Anvil1984]

MCB-OD should have a second control box that allows a level crossing attendant to act like the obstacle detector.
One box is for normal local control the other for obstacle detection

​

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The problem in the OP’s case which I had to endure too was that 4 OD Level Crossings in less than 4 miles were struggling in the weather. 1 faulty LC isn’t an issue or 2 over a distance as you can spread the man power to put it under local control. On a line where timings are very tight, delays mount up rather quickly. And the 5th, 6th, 7th time of having to read back the “pass signal xxxx at danger” script in 20 minutes suddenly loses all enthusiasm

As for the original question, the MK1 OD crossings (the ones with the minions) don’t seem to have the same issues as the MK2 ones. May be over sensitive and need reconfigured or something more as it wasn’t the first time it’s happened up there

 

[Annetts key]

In my experience obstacle detectors picking up snow or rain are usually new ones that need tweaking a bit, if it's heavy snow they're picking up then it's quite likely that'd be obscuring CCTV anyway. Same goes for them sometimes picking up fog, which unless a tweak's needed would likely obscure CCTV too.

During my time on an S&T fault team, I can't remember ever being called to a CCTV crossing due to the signaller/crossing keeper having difficulty due to rain, fog or snow. And when I have been in a signal box or crossing keepers box during bad weather, again, I can't remember it ever being so bad that the picture on the monitor was completely unusable.

If the weather was really, really bad, that is really heavy rain, sleet, snow or hail, generally visibility would improve enough after a couple of minutes.

That is not to say there weren't problems, but that was normally a detective heater in the camera housing or damp causing condensation on the inside of the glass window of the camera housing. A defective wiper. camera faults, cable faults, transmission system faults or monitor faults.

But then it's not often that we get really bad weather in the West country. So I am welcome to hear about the experiences of others.

 

[Deepgreen]

During my time on an S&T fault team, I can't remember ever being called to a CCTV crossing due to the signaller/crossing keeper having difficulty due to rain, fog or snow. And when I have been in a signal box or crossing keepers box during bad weather, again, I can't remember it ever being so bad that the picture on the monitor was completely unusable.

If the weather was really, really bad, that is really heavy rain, sleet, snow or hail, generally visibility would improve enough after a couple of minutes.

That is not to say there weren't problems, but that was normally a detective heater in the camera housing or damp causing condensation on the inside of the glass window of the camera housing. A defective wiper. camera faults, cable faults, transmission system faults or monitor faults.

But then it's not often that we get really bad weather in the West country. So I am welcome to hear about the experiences of others.

Really??!

 

[Annetts key]

Really??!

BRISTOL WINTERS

Year	Snow days	Total snow depth
2023/2024	1	0cm
2022/2023	2	2cm
2021/2022	0	0cm
2020/2021	7	2cm

From http://www.bristolweather.org.uk/winter.html