Railroad Grade Crossing Flangeway Dangers
WHEEL CHAIRS & MOBILITY SCOOTERS:
The primary hazard is getting the wider wheels pressed into flangeways so tightly that they cannot be withdrawn. Then if the person riding in the device is unable to leave it due to a physical disability, they may be struck by a train unless help arrives in time.
The problem can be avoided if the user crosses perpendicular to the track, however, lapses in that requirement are inevitable since the devices have zero turn attributes and the user is accustomed to using this ability for navigating various obstructions. They will be far more accustomed to impulsive sharp turns than they are to the admonition to cross grade crossings at right angles; especially when the need to do so is completely unapparent without practical experience.
Also, the lead wheels are typically on casters, and even a slight range of zero-turn application will immediately turn the casters at right-angles to the direction of travel. If this happens as the casters are about to cross a flangeway, it aligns the casters to drop into the flangeway.
Also, the casters are easily unintentionally rotated by minor obstructions in the path of travel. Since the flangeway is a major obstruction to a caster, the flangeway alone poses the risk of accidentally rotating the caster ninety-degrees so its wheel is parallel to the flangeway, which the wheel then can easily drop into. If that happens, the wheel may become stuck against withdrawal. This is a fatal danger that can come as a complete surprise.
BICYCLES:
Compared to users of wheelchairs, bicyclists typically are not confined to the bicycle due to a disability. They are also typically traveling much faster than wheelchair uses; and have wheels narrower and larger diameter than the leading wheels of wheel chairs and mobility scooters.
The primary danger with bicycles passing over grade crossings is a crossing flangeways being at an oblique angle to the bicycle line of travel. Then the wheels might drop into the flangeway and cause the bicycle to abruptly veer off course, thus causing it to tip over. When it tips over, the rider can be thrown against the ground and injured. Another result is that a wheel that drops into a flangeway can suddenly bind against forward movement. In that case, it can stop the bicycle and catapult the rider off head-first into the ground ahead.
So, compared to users of wheelchairs and mobility scooters, the danger to bicyclists is not getting struck by a train. The danger to bicyclists is instead being thrown off the bicycle at considerable speed.
PEDESTRIANS:
The danger to pedestrians is the risk of stepping on the rail, getting a foot stuck in the flangeway, or being injured by dropping a foot into the flangeway. Stepping on the rail is a fall hazard almost completely unrecognized outside of the industry. The general public sees no danger in stepping on the rail. They may even try to balance as they walk on the rail for sport. But the railroad industry has a rule that forbids stepping on a rail. For the fall hazard to really kick in, one needs to have snow packed into their tread pattern of their boots and then step on a polished rail head.
Dropping a foot into a flangeway could result in ankle injury, and is best prevented by having enough illumination to see the flangeway, since pedestrians have time to see it and avoid stepping into it.
The second problem with dropping a foot into a flangeway is having it wedge in to the extent that it cannot be pulled out. This is most critical if a person in such a predicament cannot untie the boot or shoe, or otherwise remove their foot from the lodged footwear. If this occurs, the problem is the same as a disabled person with a flangeway-stuck wheeled device being unable to escape the devise to a safe position to avoid being struck by a train.
SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM:
All of these dangers could be mitigated with shallower flangeways. A flangeway 2.5 inches wide by 1.5 inches deep would solve all of the problems except for the following: For the problem of bicyclists having their wheels caused to veer off course and tipping over the bicycle; the only site design solution would be flangeways that are completely filled normally, but deflect to accept the flanges of passing trains. For the problem of pedestrians stepping on the rail, there is no solution that can be implemented by changes in crossing features.
SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM SECONDARY BENEFIT TO THE RAILROADS:
This industry seems to prefer flangeways that are far larger than the minimum suggested above of 2.5” wide by 1.5” deep. The largest size is about 4” wide by 7” deep; or 7.5 times larger in cross section. The objective of the large flangeway seems to be to provide better drainage, and to also provide a larger volume to hold more packed snow and other debris. The ability to hold more of these obstructions increases the interval between flangeway cleaning to clear snow, ice, and debris.
However, the flangeway filler eliminates flangeway, so there is none to be filled with snow, ice, or debris. Likewise, the railseal presents a shallow flangeway made of elastomer that will flex if ice builds up to the point of contacting the wheel flanges. When that happens, the floor of the flangeway will flex and break the bond of ice as the wheel flanges shatter the ice and expel it from the flangeway.
So the flangeway is self-cleaning with a railseal, and thus there is no need for a deep, wide flangeway to provide a large volume capacity to hold debris to reduce the frequency of cleanout. Both the railseal and the flangeway filler are extruded elastomer. The extrusions contain hollow voids. So even if ice accumulates below the elastomer railseal or flangeway filler, the railcar flanges are still able to compress these devices, so they can deflect due to their flexible nature and the ability to take up the compression by collapsing their hollow voids.
Two threads on this aren't enough?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 Two threads on this aren't enough?
If two threads are good, three must be better...
This is a cute treatise but it fails to address the #1 issue with flangeway fillers since the Lord proposed them to Noah: what about flanger operation?
About the best I have come up with in a great deal of time is very precise GPS beaconing that can raise and lower flanger cutters at these crossings, for example via a high-accuracy version of that grade-crossing location app that has now disappeared; or some kind of ramp analogous to those used for some kind of steam-locomotive water scoop that trip retract when encountered ... I don't agree with automatic re-extension but professionals may laugh at me for that.
I also toyed with the idea of a relatively large-diameter sectional wheel, in place of a straight flanger cutter, that would break up and expel ice from the gap, but just press down full-height elastomer fillers -- didn't some sleet cutters work a comparable way? In constant running these would dress the gauge face of the rail continuously and by extension even 'pickable' facing points without throwing them open...
tree68Two threads on this aren't enough?
He has done very good critical thinking about the risks to power chairs; that alone makes this thread distinctively relevant as a thread...
OvermodThis is a cute treatise but it fails to address the #1 issue with flangeway fillers since the Lord proposed them to Noah: what about flanger operation?
Maybe I misunderstand your point, but to my knowledge, flangers have no ability to run through a grade crossing and clean out the flangeways. Flangers are intended to cut snow below the cut bottom of a snow plow pass which is maybe 3-6” above the top of the rail. Then a flanger is run to cut more snow out to a lower elevation to about 3-5” below the tops of the rails. The flanger blade is notched out at each rail location so it can cut below the top of the rail elevation along the outside of the rails and in between them.
While snow plows can pass right over a grade crossing just like on the rest of the track, flangers must be raised in order to pass over a grade crossing. Otherwise, it will snag the crossing planks and tear them out or it will derail the flanger and probably the locomotive pushing it.
This is why there is a flanger sign posted on both sides of every grade crossing. It is to tell the flanger operator to raise the blade to clear the height of the crossing. Flangers must also be raised for other features such as switches, railroad crossings (diamonds), guard rails and tie spacing timbers on bridges and trestles, and anything else that is built up higher than the tops of the ties.
But to the point of flangeway fillers or railseals interfering with ice removal, I have read the manufacturer’s claims that flangeway fillers and railseals actually eliminate the ice accumulation problem with grade crossing flangeways. I detail this in the last paragraph of the first post here.
So, I conclude that both railseals with their very shallow flangeway and flangeway fillers with no flangeway at all actually solve the icing problem that is the reason for the extremely wide and deep flangeways in the first place.
So instead of viewing this as the flangeway filler or railseal merely offering a smaller or practically non-existent version of the current giant flangeway; it is actually that the filler or seal make the smaller flangeway possible by their ability to exclude ice and snow buildup without resorting to a giant flangeway to give more capacity to hold ice and snow.
What I meant is that extraordinary care, discipline, and 'situational awareness' are necessary wherever flanging is necessary to clear packed snow and ice out of 'flange clearance' areas, likely complicated because of the need in unimproved crossing flangeways - almost a what-is-not-forbidden-is-mandatory thing. And this likely being the case for a particular line until ALL its crossings have been fully 'top-fillered'...
Either very precise location or very careful vigilance is needed as even one 'miss' involves potentially huge consequences. Not so much in absolute safety, but in rapid-response costs to 'remediate' what gets torn up or torn out if there is one little slip...
Overmod tree68 Two threads on this aren't enough? Previous experience with Euclid and his predecessor Bucky have taught you that little?
Previous experience with Euclid and his predecessor Bucky have taught you that little?
I'm still waiting for 'Terex' to join the chat......
We have enough problems with derailments caused by obstructed flangeways. Good luck convincing the railroads and regulators to deliberately put stuff in them.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
There are numerous flangeway filler designs out there from different companies all over the world. The hazards are just an excuse to spend nothing and do nothing. Here are just a few.
https://www.nap.edu/read/22800/chapter/5
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2020/0063374.html
https://www.environmental-expert.com/products/flangeway-filler-strip-126618
SD70DudeWe have enough problems with derailments caused by obstructed flangeways. Good luck convincing the railroads and regulators to deliberately put stuff in them.
According to the product claims, the purpose and benefit of the flangeway fillers is two-fold:
To eliminate the flangeway hazard to the public using the crossing.
To eliminate the flangeway ice and debris obstruction hazard to trains.
Euclid SD70Dude We have enough problems with derailments caused by obstructed flangeways. Good luck convincing the railroads and regulators to deliberately put stuff in them. According to the product claims, the purpose and benefit of the flangeway fillers is two-fold: To eliminate the flangeway hazard to the public using the crossing. To eliminate the flangeway ice and debris obstruction hazard to trains.
SD70Dude We have enough problems with derailments caused by obstructed flangeways. Good luck convincing the railroads and regulators to deliberately put stuff in them.
Makers of products claim many things that their products don't deliver.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDMakers of products claim many things that their products don't deliver.
Hey - it sounds good on paper!
Yes, but is it known to the State of California to cause cancer?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
How much real-world testing have they done?
How many crossings are they installed on?
How much cleaning and maintenance do they require?
There must be some reason why fillers are so resisted on here, even though many are around and in use on major US railroads even in norhtern Illinois which has plenty of snow and ice. No derailments at crossings with fillers here. Perhaps out-of-date thinking?
charlie hebdoThere must be some reason why fillers are so resisted on here, even though many are around and in use on major US railroads even in norhtern Illinois which has plenty of snow and ice. No derailments at crossings with fillers here. Perhaps out-of-date thinking?
Perhaps the difference between Main Line trains at track speeds of up to 79 MPH, or in some cases more and secondary lines and industrial spurs being operated on at Restricted Speed.
SD70Dude Euclid SD70Dude We have enough problems with derailments caused by obstructed flangeways. Good luck convincing the railroads and regulators to deliberately put stuff in them. According to the product claims, the purpose and benefit of the flangeway fillers is two-fold: To eliminate the flangeway hazard to the public using the crossing. To eliminate the flangeway ice and debris obstruction hazard to trains. How much real-world testing have they done? How many crossings are they installed on? How much cleaning and maintenance do they require?
I don't know those answers to those questions, but am looking into finding them. Generally what I find and conclude is that the concept did not exist before about 2008, and at that time, I find one case of research and development grants being offered, along with a set of guidelines.
At this time, I conclude that full height flangeway fillers are being used on LRT lines, but none are used for heavy rail lines. However, there is also a new development of flangeway fillers that are not full height, but rather, set at the elevation half way from the bottom of the rail ball to its top. This appears to be under development and referred to as a ”Shallow Flangeway Rail Seal."
This design approach does not require much, if any, flexing of the seal body to accommodate the passage of interfering flanges. Also, the entire body of the rail seal is installed to act as a gasket to keep snow, dirt, other debris, and most water out of the crossing pocket that encompasses the embedded rail.
With much current practice, there are deep and wide open gaps not only on the flange side but in many cases also on the field side. Rail seals completely fill the field side gap and fill the flange side gap to the extent of leaving a relatively smaller flangeway, but not as small as the shallow flangeway version of a rail seal I mentioned above.
For the “shallow flangeway” version, the flange gap is about 2.5" wide by 1.5" deep. I expect this to be developed for use with heavy rail applications that include freight trains. It has a flangeway that is not so small that it requires the flangeway floor to compress as flanges pass over it; but still wide enough and shallow enough to eliminate much of the foot, or wheel entrapment hazard. It is the “sweet spot” size configuration.
The full flangeway fillers are really not necessary for wheel chairs. But the sweet spot flangeways are still able to pose a hazard to bicycles, although it is a greatly reduced hazard compared to the jumbo wide and full rail depth flangeways currently in use on many freight railroads.
So the very best are the full flangeway filler, but I think that is a bridge too far. With them, the rail seal elastomer material does totally interfere with the passing flanges, so the material must compress about 1.5” under each passing flange and then rebound to normal height after the train passes. And this does have to happen at high train speed, so the severe compression and release may even build up significant heat in the material.
As this design has been tried in the recent past with freight railroads, I suspect the rail seals may have been molded with a solid cross section. And also there were likely some poor choices of elastomer material used. Solid section material chilled to sub-zero temperatures may very well have rendered the flangeway fillers to be incompressible by the flanges. Then the flange weight on the solid material might have caused it to fracture and spall out, thus causing short life and frequent replacement as has been mentioned to some extent in various references. Yet the concept has been adopted for LRT railroads and must therefore work okay for them.
The most important claim for the industry is not only does the Shallow Flangeway Rail Seal not constitute a flangeway obstruction that adds to the snow, ice, and debris that needs to be cleaned out of flangeways, but it also renders the normal flangeways able to remain free of those blockages by making the crossing flangeways self-cleaning.
With the latest versions of these devices, the ideal elastomer material is probably used, and instead of being molded solid, they are extruded with hollow cores. You can see that in several patent illustrations. So if these shallow flangeways do happen to collect snow and ice, the flanges will much more easily compress the elastomer by collapsing its hollow cores, as opposed to the extra force it would take to compress solid elastomer material that was likely tried in the past.
Ice that freezes to adhere to these more flexible floor shallow flangeways will not bond as well as it does when sticking to concrete, wood, and steel of the conventional jumbo flangeways. And an ice buildup in the flexible flangeways will interfere with the passing flanges, thus tending to cause the flanges to lift. But the flexible flangeway material, the poor ice bond to that material, and the extreme weight on the flanges will result in the flanges easily cracking the ice and shattering it, and expelling it from either side of the flangeway.
Some form of the shallow flangeway type must be what the UP is using at five or more crossings in my town. The mainline is three tracks and many heavy freight trains plus Metra daily. It's one of the busiest spots in the US for freight. No derailments.
This poster is confused. I have observed on street car and light rail lines what appears to be a metal U shaped flangeway bolted to the guage side of rails . On the inside of the 2 rails the pavement is completely filled with concrete or asphalt. Would that be more expensive but more permanent ?
blue streak 1I have observed on streetcar and light rail lines what appears to be a metal U shaped flangeway bolted to the gauge side of rails.
Bolted? What you're describing sounds like 'girder rail', which I always thought was rolled in one piece to that profile, not fabricated, and which was a mainstay of street running where 'permanence' was important. As you note this was 'paved in' and thereafter kept swept out -- I sort of ASSumed that traction flangers had 'fingers' that would run in girder rail to clean out anything that wouldn't 'broom'.
Personally the problem I have with such a thing on main lines is that, if you have a rock wedged in such a particular hard place, the thing that's going to give on impact is the metal in the wheel. And that is something that is never good, whether it is only a piece of the flange or a larger chunk of tread or split across the web.
Overmod Bolted? What you're describing sounds like 'girder rail', which I always thought was rolled in one piece to that profile, not fabricated, and which was a mainstay of street running where 'permanence' was important.
Bolted? What you're describing sounds like 'girder rail', which I always thought was rolled in one piece to that profile, not fabricated, and which was a mainstay of street running where 'permanence' was important.
I've seen a drawing for a bolt on guard rail, but I agree it is much more likely to be a rolled section. I've seen that section called both "grooved rail" and "grooved girder rail" - both were definitely rolled to that profile and not fabricated. Richey's "Electric Railway Handbook" uses "girder rail" to describe profiles taller than standard profiles for a given weight, and were available in "tee", "tram" or "grooved" profiles. Doane's "Electric Railway Engineering" uses "girder" rail to refer to the "tram" proflie, with a flat surface, the tram, projecting from the gauge side of the rail head to form a flat bottomed flangeway.
One concern with grooved rail was dirt or other stuff accumulating in the groove and causing a derailment.
There may be grade crossing flangeways made by bolting a channel or maybe a “Z” shape length of steel to the rail web. However, the girder rail in a grade crossing would look like an intended flangeway, even though it continues as the stock rail and is not just confined to the crossing as a flangeway would be.
However, if perceived as a flangeway in a crossing, the girder rail flange groove would indeed suggest the tiniest of flangeways intended to offer the least discomfort and danger to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. So it would easy to perceive that as being its purpose.
My understanding is that the girder rail is intended to provide more protection against derailment for trams rounding exceptionally sharp curves. Rather than just the one outer wheel (to the curve) being protected against rail climbing by the field side of its flange; the inner wheel adds protection against rail climbing by the back side of its flange bearing against the corresponding field side of the groove in the girder rail. So each flange uses both of its sides to guide the wheels.
The purpose of grooved girder rail was to provide protection for the flangeway as well as making the flangeway as small as possible. The metal on the gauge side of the groove was to prevent pavement away from the gauge side of the rail head.
A fair amount of girder rail was rolled specifically to handle streetcar wheels with smaller flanges than normal RR wheels to minimize trapping of wagon and early truck wheels (think steel tired wood wheels). Normal RR wheels would be riding on the flanges and not the treads.
Both Eric and Euclid are correct. There was at least one streetcar system, and Connecticut Company's New Haven Division, that used girder rail only on curves. Somehow, flangeways were kept clear of enroaching pavement. It's not a prolem with concrete pavement or with traditional paving stones.
West Penn did not use any girder rail. even on curves in street trackage. They either used traditional railroad-type guard rails or a plain steel band with flanges bolted or spiked to the ties under the pavement. Their one-time trolley-freight connection, Pittsburgh Railways used lots of girder rail, and PAT light rail may still have some on the over-the-mountain emergency connection for use when the Mt. Washington Tunnel is closed. And possibly some where RoW is shared with buses.
Jerusalem iLight Rail is almost 100% (German) girder rail, even on the limited un-paved RoW. All tracks on on private RoW, except that most is paved for emergency vihicles.
The only tracks not girder rail are in the yard and shops.
Considering that the context of street railways is like one boundless grade crossing, it might be expected that they would be designed with the smallest flangeways to provide the least inconvenience to vehicles and pedestrians. And, girder rails do provide the smallest flangeway possible.
The heavy rail industry, however, seems to prefer the largest flangeway possible in order to provide the least possible chance of fouling the flangeway. So this position places them in conflict with the public desire for the least flangeway disruption to pedestrians and vehicles. Thus, large versus small seems to be the flangeway dilemma.
So, while the girder rail can serve the purpose of flangeway size reduction, I would be surprised to learn that it has ever been installed in heavy rail grade crossings for that purpose. Heavy rail systems are in perpetual conflict with the public interest on the matter of flangeway size, and only regulatory pressure can reduce flangeway size on heavy rail systems.
I have never seen an actual girder rail that I recall. I have only seen references to them in railroad equipment catalogs, and was slightly curious about their purpose. So, with the subject mentioned here, I have sought to find the purpose of girder rails, and find that it is to increase the guidance in the extra sharp curves of tram systems. I have not found any reference to the purpose being to minimize flangeway size to reduce interference with road crossing traffic. But there may indeed be such references.
Here is 2-part reference to the function of girder rails that gets into a lot of detail about how they use the backside of the wheel flange to achieve guidance in addition to that provided by the rail side of the flange:
Understanding the wheel/rail interface – part one
http://www.tautonline.com/understanding-the-wheelrail-interface-part-one/
Understanding the wheel/rail interface – part two
http://www.tautonline.com/understanding-the-wheelrail-interface-part-two/
Most of the information I refer to is in Part Two. This includes a highly detailed cross section drawing of the interface between flanged wheel and girder rail.
Is it possible tht heavy rail does not want girder rail because there are always a few RR cars that the guage of an axel is not corrrect and that would cause a problem ? c
A possibly more important reason is that railheads are slowly worn down, which means at some point the groove will no longer be deep enough to clear the flanges. While it is possible to make the groove deeper by grinding, the process would be a royal pain in the posterior. The other possibility is to have a deeper groove initially, but that tends to defeat the purpose of using grooved girder rail.
I'm guessing that wheelsets that are out of gauge sufficiently to cause problems with grooved rail will also cause problems with frogs on switches and crossings.
I do not recall ever reading of an incident due to an out-of-gauge wheel-set.
Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens. and Manhattan streetcar tracks in pavement were nearly all girder rail. One unusual exception was on Surf Avenue, Coney Island, tracks not replaced from horsecar days, "L-rail," the flangeway without the guard-rail. T-rail was used on unpaved track with normal guard rails on curves.
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