What can be done to improve the safety of user worked crossings?

jawr256 · Monday at 09:35

Bevan Price said:
I have taken photos at Astley several times, and whilst users are supposed to close the gates after crossing. However, perhaps 5-10% are too lazy to close the gates, and the signalman has to come out of the box to close the gates. At the incident site, there are no staff to close the gates.

mods note - split from this thread

Incident between Wigan Wallgate and Southport (29th August 2026)

Reports are coming in of a train - Road vehicle collision at Burscough on the Wigan - Southport line. Quite a serious incident with significant damage to front of train. (Pictures taken from 'Ormskirk Live' Facebook Page)...

www.railforums.co.uk

When I first walked across Astley crossing I decided to help close one of the road gates to save time for a passing road user and was grateful for the patience of the signaller as it took me a few goes to get the handle to properly register in the lock, with him advising out of the signalbox window.

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Lighteight123 · Monday at 10:03

jawr256 said:
When I first walked across Astley crossing I decided to help close one of the road gates to save time for a passing road user and was grateful for the patience of the signaller as it took me a few goes to get the handle to properly register in the lock, with him advising out of the signalbox window.

I do find it a terrible gate to both open and close. I don’t know if other UWCs have similar gates but it was quite a sequence.

Unobrow · Monday at 11:05

jawr256 said:
When I first walked across Astley crossing I decided to help close one of the road gates to save time for a passing road user and was grateful for the patience of the signaller as it took me a few goes to get the handle to properly register in the lock, with him advising out of the signalbox window.

I used to “spot” at Astley many years ago before they slightly upgraded the gates. I used to close the gates all the time for the moss users and found them very easy to do then. When I passed through a couple of years back, they were harder to operate as you say. Progress?

philthetube · Monday at 12:23

Is leaving the gates open and offence and if not should it be made endorsable, seems to me that to do this this would be an easy solution to this problem.

a camera capturing number plates and view of the driver opening gates would be all needed.

This could work for all problem user crossings, not just this one.

chris53 · Monday at 13:21

philthetube said:
Is leaving the gates open and offence and if not should it be made endorsable, seems to me that to do this this would be an easy solution to this problem.

a camera capturing number plates and view of the driver opening gates would be all needed.

This could work for all problem user crossings, not just this one.

Yes it is an offence

Elecman · Monday at 13:48

Higher Delacre UWG crossing is regularly misused. Closed the gates 4 times last week when Horse Boxes/cars/Lorrie’s crossed it and the only one who stopped only stopped because they saw me on my phone

marshlinker · Monday at 13:53

philthetube said:
Is leaving the gates open and offence and if not should it be made endorsable, seems to me that to do this this would be an easy solution to this problem.

a camera capturing number plates and view of the driver opening gates would be all needed.

This could work for all problem user crossings, not just this one.

I cant help but feel that where the road leading up to the crossing is a public road in 2026 it should have been upgraded to a proper AHB at least.

Killingworth · Monday at 14:14

marshlinker said:
I cant help but feel that where the road leading up to the crossing is a public road in 2026 it should have been upgraded to a proper AHB at least.

It probably will be now!

andy33gmail · Monday at 18:56

43096 said:
More critically, was the red light showing? Regardless of the position of the gates, if the crossing light is red, you stop.

I’ve never understood that about user worked crossings

If barriers / gates are added and operated appropriately, I get the deterrent effect beyond that of the visible signals. But no physical restriction in practice for any crossing type

But given how many people see “barrier hasn’t closed yet => go”, they seem to just add a failure mode (two consecutive users are careless => protection lost)

Signal Head · Monday at 20:17

D

Unobrow said:
I used to “spot” at Astley many years ago before they slightly upgraded the gates. I used to close the gates all the time for the moss users and found them very easy to do then. When I passed through a couple of years back, they were harder to operate as you say. Progress?

Depending on how far back you are going - the gates were originally locked by mechanical means ("Black's Locks"), however these became worn so would be at risk of Wrong-side failure.

No identical replacements were available so they were replaced c1989 with electric locks of a type usually used on lever frames, slightly modified to engage with a gate bolt, which enters a notch in the lock slide then moves the slide into the locking position when the bolt is is rotated by moving the handle.

Going the other way, until the release is given, the slide cannot move vertically therefore the bolt cannot be rotated and so cannot be withdrawn from the body of the lock.

The locks are proved electrically and interlocked with the protecting signals.

The same arrangement was employed elsewhere on the former Manchester Division and possibly elsewhere on the LMR, but I think Astley is possibly unique in that the gates are operated by the crossing user rather than the signalman, and this did lead to some reliability problems after the conversion.

I don't know for sure if the 1989 equipment is still there or if it has been replaced again in more recent years.

philthetube · Tuesday at 03:41

I see that the max fine for failing to close gates is a £1000 fine under the

Railways Clauses Consolidation Act 1845.

As far as I can see leaving gates open is not a motoring offence and so generates a criminal record.

It ought to be an easy crime to catch and prosecute offenders. A little spent on enforcement could save a lot of money.

King Lazy · Tuesday at 11:49

A little off topic but still regarding user worked crossings.

Where I worked UWCs with gates were bad at silaging time. Often numerous tractors are working an area as quickly as possible and with 10-20 minute block sections on absolute block would often leave the gates open and come and go all day without phoning and possibly being told to wait. I once had to put the brake in emergency as it seemed a tractor accelerated towards such a crossing as if to try to beat me, but braked hard at the last minute.

On a different note UWC with barriers are an interesting one.

If we spotted gates open at a UWC as we passed we would report to the signaller.

I came out of a station once towards a barriered UWC. I saw the barriers in the air (which was unusual there), placed the brake in and decided to stop and put them down.

I was later asked by my driver manager about a few minutes delay.

I said I stopped to put the barriers down.

He asked if I’d stop at a gated farm crossing to close the gates.

I responded probably not, adding that red and white barriers in the air are easier to spot than open gates low down and often partially hidden by vegetation. By the time you notice them open you are often too late to pull up. On this occasion slowly departing a station and seeing the barriers gave plenty of time to stop.

He was adamant I could’ve just carried on and phoned it in as with gates.

The thing is, he was/is absolutely correct.

But to me, someone who has never seen such a crossing, finding themselves on such a road and seeing barriers in the air is likely from a human factors point of view to jump to the conclusion no train could be approaching regardless of signage or a relatively small red light.

cin88 · Tuesday at 13:13

TrainOnLine said:
Off topic slightly but is there a reason why Astley was never converted to an MCB. if so, would it remove the 40/60 speed restriction?

The road on either side of the crossing isn't wide enough for vehicles to pass each other safely, cars and vans can usually pass each other on the crossing with a bit of careful driving but not without risk of falling onto the track. Stand offs between vehicle drivers are a frequent issue.

Signal Head said:
Depending on how far back you are going - the gates were originally locked by mechanical means ("Black's Locks"), however these became worn so would be at risk of Wrong-side failure.

No identical replacements were available so they were replaced c1989 with electric locks of a type usually used on lever frames, slightly modified to engage with a gate bolt, which enters a notch in the lock slide then moves the slide into the locking position when the bolt is is rotated by moving the handle.

Going the other way, until the release is given, the slide cannot move vertically therefore the bolt cannot be rotated and so cannot be withdrawn from the body of the lock.

The locks are proved electrically and interlocked with the protecting signals.

The same arrangement was employed elsewhere on the former Manchester Division and possibly elsewhere on the LMR, but I think Astley is possibly unique in that the gates are operated by the crossing user rather than the signalman, and this did lead to some reliability problems after the conversion.

I don't know for sure if the 1989 equipment is still there or if it has been replaced again in more recent years.

The locks are still of the same type used on the levers, reliability problems are still very much present and there's always at least one active fault in the system for the gates.

6Gman · Tuesday at 13:20

marshlinker said:
I cant help but feel that where the road leading up to the crossing is a public road in 2026 it should have been upgraded to a proper AHB at least.

How much (ball park figure) does an AHB cost?

How many such crossings (i.e, user worked) are there?

D6130 · Tuesday at 14:08

6Gman said:
How much (ball park figure) does an AHB cost?

How many such crossings (i.e, user worked) are there?

Don't think there are any. All the user-worked barrier crossings that I've ever encountered have been full-barrier. One close to me - Portsmouth, on the Copy Pit line - is frequently left open. A couple of weeks ago - on our way back from Scotland via Preston - the driver of our Blackpool-York train had to make an emergency brake application on rounding the curve and finding the barriers up.

marshlinker · Tuesday at 14:22

6Gman said:
How much (ball park figure) does an AHB cost?

How many such crossings (i.e, user worked) are there?

To my mind the risk assessment should be wholly safety based and not based on a legal technicality. This you should be looking at the traffic count and the type of traffic. The multiple premises on this crossing can't really be expected to instruct every Amazon and Tesco delivery in the safe operation of a non standard crossing.

zwk500 · Tuesday at 14:49

6Gman said:
How much (ball park figure) does an AHB cost?

It's difficult to get costs because new ones don't seem to be installed much any more (due to the risk of weaving around the barriers)

6Gman said:
How many such crossings (i.e, user worked) are there?

https://www.orr.gov.uk/node/4540/book_pdf_print Has a breakdown of the number of LC's by type. Data from 2025.

There are 1,514 UWC-T (User Worked Crossing with Telephone), 286 UWC, and 259 UWC-MSL (UWC with Miniature stop lights) according to their list. In comparison there are 404 AHBs.

Morrissey20202 · Tuesday at 15:02

• Shaws UWC / FP MSL – 26m 71ch

• Crabtree UWC / FP MSL – 28m 19ch

• Martins Lane UWC MSL – 29m 70ch

• Dean Lane AHBC – 25m 57ch

• Hoscar AHBC – 26m 42ch

• New Lane AHBC – 28m 70ch

• Bescar Lane AHBC – 30m 78ch

The MSLs have a proposal to be replaced with power operated barriers, the AHBCs are to be full barrier crossings. These are just proposals at this stage and were in progress long before this incident. I imagine that the works will take on a more urgent approach in light of this event.

6Gman · Tuesday at 18:08

zwk500 said:
It's difficult to get costs because new ones don't seem to be installed much any more (due to the risk of weaving around the barriers)

https://www.orr.gov.uk/node/4540/book_pdf_print Has a breakdown of the number of LC's by type. Data from 2025.

There are 1,514 UWC-T (User Worked Crossing with Telephone), 286 UWC, and 259 UWC-MSL (UWC with Miniature stop lights) according to their list. In comparison there are 404 AHBs.

So around 2,000 User Worked Crossings.

If I pluck a figure of £100k out of the ether (I suspect it's significantly higher*) that's £200 million.

* I have seen suggestions that maintenance can cost up to £100k per annum for some crossings!

zwk500 · Wednesday at 08:29

6Gman said:
So around 2,000 User Worked Crossings.

If I pluck a figure of £100k out of the ether (I suspect it's significantly higher*) that's £200 million.

* I have seen suggestions that maintenance can cost up to £100k per annum for some crossings!

Well this Rail Engineer Article from April 2024 suggests new AHBs are essentially banned: https://www.railengineer.co.uk/level-crossing-safety/

AHBs account for just 6% of the total crossing estate but hold 32% of the total level crossing modelled risk, therefore no new AHBs are being installed and measures to mitigate against weaving are being looked into.

So any conversion of a UWC would need to be to a MCB variant - MCB-OD being the most likely today, and given that upgrading a MCB to MCB-OD cost £2m in 2018, I think the figure for converting a UWC to a MCB-OD would be in the £5-10m range. Taking £7.5m as a midpoint, that's £15 BILLION to convert all UWCs.

No wonder NR are trying to replace as many as possible with bridges, if you're paying bridge prices for a LC anyway. There's a wider discussion about whether we have an appropriate balance of cost and risk, and how much blame lands on "the railway" and how much lands on road users, but that's for a separate thread.

6Gman · Wednesday at 12:27

zwk500 said:
Well this Rail Engineer Article from April 2024 suggests new AHBs are essentially banned: https://www.railengineer.co.uk/level-crossing-safety/

So any conversion of a UWC would need to be to a MCB variant - MCB-OD being the most likely today, and given that upgrading a MCB to MCB-OD cost £2m in 2018, I think the figure for converting a UWC to a MCB-OD would be in the £5-10m range. Taking £7.5m as a midpoint, that's £15 BILLION to convert all UWCs.

No wonder NR are trying to replace as many as possible with bridges, if you're paying bridge prices for a LC anyway. There's a wider discussion about whether we have an appropriate balance of cost and risk, and how much blame lands on "the railway" and how much lands on road users, but that's for a separate thread.

Thank you for those figures (I rather suspected my figure was too low by at least an order of magnitude!).

The regional tv news was quoting "a local resident" as saying that the "use of technology" should eliminate such risks. But without any indication of what technology or at what cost.

We do not know what happened in this specific case (nor should we speculate pre-RAIB report) but there do seem to be some risk factors at UWCs which may have emerged in (relatively) recent times:

Silaging and other agricultural activities, now often carried out by contractors rather than landowners.
Deliveries, now often carried out by delivery companies employing ... well, whoever will do the job cheapest, rather than the local postie.
Distractions (in cab sound systems, ear phones/protectors, mobile phones).

zwk500 · Wednesday at 12:39

6Gman said:
Thank you for those figures (I rather suspected my figure was too low by at least an order of magnitude!).

The costs are from this document: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FOI2018-00730-Merged.pdf

Key bit is this table:

[Table of options showing Upgrade of MCB to MCB-OD level crossing estimated at £2m in 2018]

duffield · Wednesday at 13:35

Maybe this is stupid, but if gates are frequently left open, would it not be safer to have an open crossing with no gates, just lights, and then drivers would be more likely to obey the lights and stop rather than focus on the gates being open and think it was safe to proceed?

Killingworth · Wednesday at 14:03

zwk500 said:
The costs are from this document: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FOI2018-00730-Merged.pdf

Key bit is this table:
View attachment 210850
[Table of options showing Upgrade of MCB to MCB-OD level crossing estimated at £2m in 2018]

In this case the best future option would seem to be to close the crossing and upgrade private White House Lane to Midge Hall Lane and Bescar Lane..

zwk500 · Wednesday at 14:24

Killingworth said:
In this case the best future option would seem to be to close the crossing and upgrade private White House Lane to Midge Hall Lane and Bescar Lane..

Best if it's not your budget. Ground conditions for a bridge in the locality look tricky to say the least.

In a very joined-up world, the opportunity to remove some of the sharper corners and more dangerous junctions of the local lanes would be combined with the opportunity to replace Bescar Lane LC with a bridge at the west end of the station, which would also allow the complete closure of the footpath crossing at the junction of Midge Hall Lane and White House lane, and the closure to vehicles of the Martin Lane crossing. It would be an extra driving distance of 3.5km/2.2 miles or so, but then again nobody would sanction putting in a LC for the sake of saving a handful of houses a couple of miles drive...

However, that would require several departments to contribute to the budgets and in today's Britain that is an exceptionally unlikely thing to happen for what is a relatively minor railway and very minor road. If Helpston on the ECML can't get removed...

josh-j · Wednesday at 14:43

duffield said:
Maybe this is stupid, but if gates are frequently left open, would it not be safer to have an open crossing with no gates, just lights, and then drivers would be more likely to obey the lights and stop rather than focus on the gates being open and think it was safe to proceed?

Along the same lines, I can't help but feel the lights would be obeyed more if they were the full size large flashing lights present on larger crossings that everyone should know mean "level crossing, stop". The small red light is a bit unobvious, it isn't a proper traffic light, it isn't an "normal' crossing light.

edwin_m · Wednesday at 17:48

josh-j said:
Along the same lines, I can't help but feel the lights would be obeyed more if they were the full size large flashing lights present on larger crossings that everyone should know mean "level crossing, stop". The small red light is a bit unobvious, it isn't a proper traffic light, it isn't an "normal' crossing light.

More recent crossings of this type use larger red and green lights, about the same size as normal traffic lights but closer to ground level.

AlterEgo · Wednesday at 18:01

josh-j said:
Along the same lines, I can't help but feel the lights would be obeyed more if they were the full size large flashing lights present on larger crossings that everyone should know mean "level crossing, stop". The small red light is a bit unobvious, it isn't a proper traffic light, it isn't an "normal' crossing light.

The light arrangement is also nowhere in the Highway Code or driving test.

UWCs are nowhere to be found where one might need to operate it oneself. This crossing had none of the standard Highway Code warning signs or lights.

norbitonflyer · Wednesday at 18:49

Kentish RYS said:
Juts a guess, but issues with some users, such as driven animals (or escaped onto the road animals) which are more likely on farm crossings

Cattle grids on approaches? (With the usual arrangement of a side gate for herding and horse drawn vehicles)

Kentish RYS · Wednesday at 18:54

norbitonflyer said:
Cattle grids on approaches? (With the usual arrangement of a side gate for herding and horse drawn vehicles)

The other thing I was thinking but not sure how to word it, it those like children, who may run ahead of parents, and blind (or partially sighted) that it is a reference for. Could then use the phone if they can't see the lights. Some crossings are already pretty inaccessible, so you need to think of all the edge cases if doing something 'big' like removing gates

What can be done to improve the safety of user worked crossings?

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