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Throughout this thread, my premise has been that there is a fundamental flaw in the setup of this Nevada grade crossing that may have contributed to the 6/24/11 crash, and the 9/10 near miss; and might contribute to future crashes.  It is not an issue of the crossing protection system working properly.  Testing has established that it was working properly.  Instead, the issue is about a possible design flaw concerning inadequate advance warning on such a fast highway.  <o:p></o:p> We have discussed how much warning is enough, as well as how much warning there actually is at this crossing.  The amount of warning is debatable because, although the train triggers a 25-second warning upon approach, a portion of this warning may not be visually available to an approaching driver.   <o:p></o:p> I calculated that the actual warning to a driver is 2.92 seconds in the case of the heaviest trucks such as the one involved in the 6/24 crash.  Lighter vehicles that can stop faster will have a longer warning because they will use less stopping distance.   <o:p></o:p> A few weeks ago, I spoke to the Public Information Officer of the Nevada D.O.T. about the 6/24 crash.  I asked him how much warning is intended with the design of this crossing.  He did not know the answer.  Then I explained my analysis of the warning for the largest trucks to be 2.92 seconds, and asked him if he agreed.  He said he did not know if I was right or wrong, but he said that he could relay my questions to the technical people in their organization to obtain the answers.  <o:p></o:p> I mentioned the lawsuit against the U.P. concerning the issues of warning and timing of the grade crossing involved in the 6/24 crash.  And I asked him of the D.O.T. had any reservations about releasing technical information about the crossing because of that lawsuit or other potential legal action.  He said there was not any concern about that, and the public information office was charged with answering any questions the public might present, including technical information about the crossing.  <o:p></o:p> I sent my question and analysis about the short warning to him by email and asked him to forward it to the appropriate technical authorities within their organization as we had discussed earlier.  I also sent the same to another contact within their organization who is directly involved in the evaluation of crossing safety resulting from the 6/24 crash.  Getting no response from either contact, I followed up with three phone message inquiries and one more email asking when I might expect an answer.   I have received no response to these follow-up inquiries.  <o:p></o:p> So, unless I hear otherwise, I will assume that they are intentionally not responding to my inquiry.  I do not know why they are refusing to respond.  However, I do conclude that if they were firmly convinced that my 2.92-second analysis was incorrect, they would have quickly and emphatically told me I was wrong.
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