Western Railroad Discussion > Question about meets on Caliente NV Cam

The VR railcam at Caliente NV often shows meets. The Spring Street crossing is in the (roughly) middle of the siding, with +/- 7700’ to the end of siding to the west, +/- 6100’ to the east end of siding. Trains taking the siding almost always will block the crossing IF they continue all the way through to the next set of signals at the ends of the siding (not talking about the crossover sidings just east of the cam). However, about half the time (again, rough estimate), the power will hold clear of the crossing, even with a yellow signal at the crossovers, until the freight they are meeting is clear of the switch at the end of the siding the stopped train will exit back to the main. It appears this usually means the freight on the main is slowing for a red until the train in the siding clears the switch it is blocking. (And yes this can be a stopped train on the main....) This happened today between 11:07 and 11:53. But the other half of the time they will continue down the siding, blocking the crossing. I have seen this as long as 2 hours. There is an underpass, route 317, at the west end of town, but doesn’t appear everyone knows that, and so traffic can back up some. My question: who makes the call on whether to clear the crossing or not? Is that the dispatcher, or the train crew? TIA for any insights.
 
Bruce  
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/26 15:55 by StStephen.

Aren't dispatchers too busy to attend to details like that?

Mostly up to the crews. On BNSF it's usually a "slow roll" once it's known the rear of a train is clear the last control point with communication with the approaching train.

So in this case a WB would hit East Caliente, then the Caliente Crossovers and then West Caliente. Once the WB crew knows they are clear of East Caliente, they'll continue to slow roll and communicate with the train approaching them. This is done so the crossing isn't tied up for too long waiting on air releases, etc.

UP may do it a little differently and YMMV.

Regards,

-Frank C.

Frank Christ
Cloverdale, CA
FranksRails Photography, LLC.