Passenger Trains > SMART at Rohnert Park, CA (video)

Monday, October 24 at the SMART station in Rohnert Park, CA:

The video opens with a still shot of the Rohnert Park station, showing the gauntlet track that will
permit freight trains to pass the high platform.  Then a SMART train, headed toward Santa Rosa
despite the "San Rafael" destination signs, approaches, pauses at the station, and then proceeds
onward, the station living up (down?) to its Windswept Platform design.  Train crews must still hold
until they visually confirm that crossing gates are down, then proceed at no more than 15mph until
clear of the crossing.  Grade crossing circuit problems continue.

Incidentally, it started to rain after this video was recorded, and this morning there are many frequent
horn sounds from the SMART tracks.  It has been raining steadily since Monday night.  I wonder how
the crossing circuits are doing in the wet!  In areas receiving a lot of salt spray from the ocean
(Santa Fe Surf Line), the first rain of the season on the salted right-of-way could bring red signals
galore...but salt's not a problem here.

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/16 20:26 by GenePoon.

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Nice.  Thanks for taking and posting.  That's a lot of horn-blowing.  I'm surprised they didn't go for Quiet Zones.

That's a senior citizen mobile home park to the left of the R-O-W, behind a soundwall of questionable
efficacy.  Many residents want the three crossings in town to be in a Quiet Zone and have petitioned
the City but since all expenses for the studies, design of four-quadrant crossings and the liability for
grade crossing collisions would then fall upon the City, the City Council steadfastly has said, "NO."

Crossing gate problems or not, any trains that stops that close to a crossing should be required to approach the crossing prepared to stop until the crossing gates and lights have had time to provide warning at the crossing. One has to expect them to time out when the train stops. Anything less than that is just asking for trouble. Now as far as other issues SMART has been having with their grade crossings, I digress. Something tells me the fact that the train only has 8 axles may be part of their problems, but what do I know...

I probably have missed the discussion on the subject, but wondering about those gauntlet tracks ... I saw one at Santa Rosa on my last visit, and now I see one in this photo at Rohnert Park ... is that for freight train operation as they might be too close to the platforms? 

They are there so that the freight trains will clear the high level platforms.

Westbound at Santa Ana we had a DTMF code we punched up on the radio to activate the gates.