My dad grew up in Greenville, TX, the seat of Hunt County, about 60 miles northeast of Dallas and a bit of a railroad center. This is a portion of a Sanborn map - probably about 1930 or so. As you can see, for a small city, it had numerous diamond crossings. My grandfather was a machinist in the Louisiana and Arkansas' (Now part of KCS) Greenville roundhouse, and helped dad get a job with the railroad after he graduated from High School. Dad started out as a roundhouse laborer - the lowwest of the low - was promoted to machinist's helper and finally bid on a job on the road, firing steam. He did this for three years to earn money for college. He kept his union membership after he started school, so he was "furloughed" or had "marked off" rather then quit. That way, he could "mark back up" onto the Extra Board during Christmas and Easter Break and during the summer. Anyway, this is a long winded introduction to the topic. He mentioned that when they reached Greenville from Shreveport, they had to unlock and swing a gate open in order to cross the Cotton Belt. They would cross the other railroad and stop to allow the rear end crew to restore the gate to its normal position. Apparently this was done on low traffic lines that had a smple diamond rather than have a manned tower. I think this a modern look at the gate he was talking about, with the Cotton Belt runnibg from lower left to upper right and the L&A from lower right to upper left and apparently such arrangements were not uncommon. I have never seen such gates modeled. But depending on your skill and prefered materials, brass or plastic, it would seem to be be easy to "imagineer" and build such a gate - probably no two were alike. You don't even have to have an operating railroad for your line to cross. You could have a weed grown branch (ties bleached gray by the elements and an especially nice touch would a smaller code rail than your mainline) or even a narrow gauge operation. The tracks of the other operation would disappear behind scenery at eiither end and you would set the gate permanently across those tracks as having your main line clear would be the normal position for the gate. Anyway, food for thought. Let me know if you have such a gate on your railroad or are inspired to construct one. Don't forget to include photos!
A few hours ago, I picked up the September issue of Model Railroader. Guess what the subject is in one of the articles.
Sometimes where both lines were lightly used, the gate could be left lined as last used. No need to "close" the gate after clearing the crossing.
Jeff
There is or was such a gate where the Cotton Belt/SP 'spur' north from Shreveport/Bossier to the main across Arkansas (that roughly followed Rt.82) intersected the KCS line just north of the bridge. As I recall it was a chain-link panel on gate hinges. Neither of those lines is what I would call 'lightly trafficked'.
BEAUSABREI have never seen such gates modeled.
Mike
I never even knew these gates existed until I saw the recent MR article about them. Then yesterday I got the latest issue of Classic Trains and on page 45 there is a photo of one where the Santa Fe and MoPac lines crossed on the outskirts of Wichita. The caption indicates these were branchlines.
I have seen such a gate at a crossing in Canton IL where a CB&Q (BN) north/south branch crossed the then-TP&W east/west line that headed west to Keokuk Jct. The remnants of the gate were still there even after the BN severed the track and the crossing itself was removed. I am sure the rulebooks of both railroads called for restricted speed approaching the crossing, capable of stopping short if the gate was set against you. There might even have been signals from all four approaches that were on permanent restricted aspect. I'd defer to the signal experts on that one.
A variant on the swinging gate was called a "smash board" and one of the classic examples was in Plymouth Wisconsin where the nearly parallel lines of the C&NW and Milwaukee Road crossed. There was an entire Model Railroader article about Plymouth WI in July 1960 that I strongly recommend. If I recall right the lines were so close to each other that the "smash board" (which had a head somewhat resembling a tennis racket or paddle) was L shaped on a central axis and could be lowered to "block" this or that railroad's approach with its own smashboard head. Obviously if the smash board actually was smashed that would be pretty good evidence of which railroad's crew was being inattentive. That tight angle crossing of two railroads in Plymouth is actually more practical for a junction of two railroads on a model railroad than the more usually seen 90 degree crossing with the gates.
Obviously neither a gate nor a smashboard was intended, or physically capable of, stopping the train.
I am relying on memory here but I think Model Railroad Planning magazine had coverage of gates/smash boards in those issues that had a special emphasis on junctions. MRP 1995 was one such.
Dave Nelson
Gates will typically have and approach signal to the stop at the gate. It will normally be a fixed sign with a yellow "semaphore" blade at a 45 degree angle. It always displays approach and does not indicate occupancy, only an approach to the stop at the gate.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com