Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct?

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 13:58 #137565
bugsy
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I'm playing an Exeter sim and have got a crossing failure (see screenshot)
I presume that it has failed in a position that allows vehicles to continue to cross and I'm considering setting the signals in the vicinity to a red aspect.

I think this is the correct course of action. Am I correct?


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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 14:10 #137566
Stephen Fulcher
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Is that a track section failure?

If so, the barriers will be down and road lights flashing.

There are in reality a lot of failure modes for AHB crossings, but in this case I suspect it is showing failed due to the barriers being down for an excessive amount of time.

You should replace the signals.

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 14:15 #137567
Albert
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A crossing failure is automatically generated when the crossing is kept down for a long time, in this case triggered by the TCF. This means that there might be traffic trying to bypass the barriers as they have been waiting for a long time. In real life such a crossing would need police attendance to allow safe operation of the railway but this is not simulated.

SimSig does not simulate other types of crossing failures.

AJP in games
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 14:34 #137568
bugsy
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There could well have been a track section failure beforehand. I can't remember. However, I did put the signals back and once the failure had cleared, reset them to to allow my trains to continue their journey.

Thanks for your replies.

Edit. Looking at the screenshot again I can see a red section of track which is obviously the aforementioned TC failure. Inattention on my part again. Ooops

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Last edited: 03/03/2021 at 14:38 by bugsy
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 15:23 #137569
headshot119
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Albert in post 137567 said:
A crossing failure is automatically generated when the crossing is kept down for a long time, in this case triggered by the TCF. This means that there might be traffic trying to bypass the barriers as they have been waiting for a long time. In real life such a crossing would need police attendance to allow safe operation of the railway but this is not simulated.

SimSig does not simulate other types of crossing failures.
No it wouldn't, during a failure of an AHB a Level Crossing Attendant (LXA) would be appointed who will take the crossing under local control. Until the LXA is on site drivers of trains will be instructed to approach the crossing at caution, and pass over it only when safe to do so.

"Passengers for New Lane, should be seated in the rear coach of the train " - Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 15:56 #137571
TUT
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headshot119 in post 137569 said:
Albert in post 137567 said:
A crossing failure is automatically generated when the crossing is kept down for a long time, in this case triggered by the TCF. This means that there might be traffic trying to bypass the barriers as they have been waiting for a long time. In real life such a crossing would need police attendance to allow safe operation of the railway but this is not simulated.

SimSig does not simulate other types of crossing failures.
No it wouldn't, during a failure of an AHB a Level Crossing Attendant (LXA) would be appointed who will take the crossing under local control. Until the LXA is on site drivers of trains will be instructed to approach the crossing at caution, and pass over it only when safe to do so.
I hate to contradict you, but personally I agree with Albert, is there something I've misunderstood? Perhaps Albert's phrasing implied something much stricter than the actual procedures, which do not require police attendance before any movement can be made over the crossing, but do require that the police be informed. One imagines an officer may be dispatched

Quote:
3.6 Local control when the operation of the crossing is immediately affected

You must arrange for local control to be taken at an AHBC as soon as possible if any of the following happen.

• A failure of the equipment affects the normal operation of the crossing.
• A train fails within the crossing controls.
• The normal flow of road traffic over the crossing is affected by emergency roadworks or a road-traffic incident close to the crossing.

You must arrange for the civil police to be told.

Last edited: 03/03/2021 at 15:56 by TUT
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 16:08 #137572
headshot119
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There's no requirement for the police to attend to a crossing to allow cars over the crossing during the failure, that's what the LXA taking local control is for. I've never actually known civils attend to a crossing when I've had a failure, and even in the event they do attend they can't actually do anything other than direct traffic away from the crossing (TS9 Reg 11).

The requirement to "arrange for the civil police to be told." (I do love that phrasing), is just so they are aware of the situation from a traffic management perspective, and so that they are aware the railway are making arrangements to sort the problem as they tend to get a large number of calls from annoyed motorists.

On an unrelated note I remember being called by Lancs police one Saturday evening, asking if I still worked for my now previous employer, on confirming I did they asked if we knew that our AHB crossing was going off. I wasn't aware of it, and I had asked how long it had been going off for. Two hours was the answer. I made my way by car from home to go and take a look, ended up abandoning the car and walking the last mile and a hour to the crossing as the place was gridlocked!

"Passengers for New Lane, should be seated in the rear coach of the train " - Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 16:09 #137573
Stephen Fulcher
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There’s a difference between them being told and required to attend.

If they do attend, they can’t exactly do much

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 16:32 #137574
JamesN
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No police officer has the authority to direct road traffic to cross a railway.

They can only divert road traffic away.

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 16:40 #137575
clive
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JamesN in post 137574 said:
No police officer has the authority to direct road traffic to cross a railway.

They can only divert road traffic away.
More precisely, alternately flashing red lights form an absolute stop signal. Unlike the steady red of normal traffic lights, there are NO exceptions to this stop. A police car or fire appliance can't legally pass it. The police can't legally instruct vehicles to pass it. Passing it is an unconditional offence [1]. End of story. Before vehicles can cross the lights have to be disabled.

[1] Before Keith or his partner chips in, mens rea applies. If your brakes fail without negligence on your part and as a result you can't stop in time, you didn't intend to pass the lights and so no offence occurs. Saying "I didn't know that's what it meant" or "the policeman told me to", on the other hand, is not a defence.

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 16:47 #137576
TUT
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Ah I see what was meant now :)

Too keen to show off, that's my problem!

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 16:57 #137577
Holmes
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As a member of the "civil police", whatever that is, I can confirm we would not generally attend and would leave in the hands of the railway authorities or at a push BTP (who incidently are also civil so not sure what the "civil police" actually means - wierd phrase). (We are informed of course)

We would not get involved in traffic control unless there was serious ongoing danger (idiots ignoring the red lights etc) and then it would be blocking the road to prevent loss of life but as I say we would be looking to leave it to the railway authorities or BTP pretty quickly so we can crack on with general policing. For info no-one from the emergency services has authority to go across a level crossing with red lights flashing (barriers up or down). Its an absolute offence and pretty stupid - this includes blue light runs. If on an emergency call we will wait like everyone else if the red lights are on (probably getting to front of queue but nothing more). Most emergency drivers will avoid level crossings if at all possible to avoid the potential of being delayed and go via an alternative route if at all possible.

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 17:57 #137582
headshot119
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Holmes in post 137577 said:
As a member of the "civil police", whatever that is, I can confirm we would not generally attend and would leave in the hands of the railway authorities or at a push BTP (who incidently are also civil so not sure what the "civil police" actually means - wierd phrase). (We are informed of course)

We would not get involved in traffic control unless there was serious ongoing danger (idiots ignoring the red lights etc) and then it would be blocking the road to prevent loss of life but as I say we would be looking to leave it to the railway authorities or BTP pretty quickly so we can crack on with general policing. For info no-one from the emergency services has authority to go across a level crossing with red lights flashing (barriers up or down). Its an absolute offence and pretty stupid - this includes blue light runs. If on an emergency call we will wait like everyone else if the red lights are on (probably getting to front of queue but nothing more). Most emergency drivers will avoid level crossings if at all possible to avoid the potential of being delayed and go via an alternative route if at all possible.
Always interesting to get a view from the other side, thank you for chipping in.

Civil police is a railway term, and it refers to the local force, rather than BTP. Confusingly we also use the term interchangeably when dealing with CNC to refer to police staff that aren't CNC. Clear as mud

"Passengers for New Lane, should be seated in the rear coach of the train " - Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 18:25 #137584
Holmes
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The police are notorious for acronyms and various terms which can actually vary from force to force - probably on a par with the railways I would imagine. When I transferred forces some years ago I had to learn a whole new set of terms and abbreviations. Nationally we tend to use the term "territorial police force" for the forces that look after a geographical part of the country (the general police if your like) whereas BTP, MOD police and CNC are termed "specialist police forces" looking after a specific limited jurisidiction. They are all 'civilian police' forces so intrigued to know how BTP came to be known as non-civil within railway circles. Very odd.

On a different note, can I just thank Geoff and the various developers of sims and timetables for their hard work. Its been incredibly relaxing using SimSig over the years to chill out to after a particularly difficult shift.

Last edited: 03/03/2021 at 18:26 by Holmes
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 20:14 #137586
TUT
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Holmes in post 137584 said:
They are all 'civilian police' forces so intrigued to know how BTP came to be known as non-civil within railway circles. Very odd.
I think it probably goes back to the concept of railway police. While Wikipedia may not always be all that reliable I think its article on the history of the British Transport Police probably contains the answers. Paragraphs such as

Quote:
The modern British Transport Police was formed by the British Transport Commission Act 1949[14] which combined the already-existing police forces inherited from the pre-nationalisation railways by British Railways, those forces having been previously formed by powers available under common law to parishes, landowners and other bodies to appoint constables to patrol land and/or property under their control.[citation needed] This is distinct from the establishment of a police force by statute, as applicable to the Metropolitan Police in 1829; BTP did not have jurisdiction on a statutory basis until the enactment of the Transport Police (Jurisdiction) Act 1994,[15] which was subsequently amended by the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003.[16]
And

Quote:
The Railways Act 1921 amalgamated over one hundred separate railway systems (of which about 20 had organised police forces) into four groups:

The Great Western Railway
The London and North Eastern Railway
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway
The Southern Railway

Each had its own police force controlled by a chief of police. These four forces were organised in the same way; each split into a number of divisions headed by a superintendent, divided into a number of divisions posts led by an inspector. Detectives worked with their uniformed colleagues at most locations. Many 'non-police' duties were retained however, with officers acting as crossing keepers or locking and sealing wagons.[citation needed]
Seem to suggest that for many a year the railway companies had their own police, much as the military does and perhaps akin to the American university police forces? The civil police would obviously be the police police

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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 03/03/2021 at 20:24 #137587
jc92
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Early Railways had privately employed police officers, who also doubled as human signals for the purpose of time interval working (hence the term Bobby for signalman).

The BTP is the modern equivalent, minus standing trackside signalling stop, clear or caution!

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 10/03/2021 at 22:35 #137735
jc92
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As an extension question to this subject:

An AHB shows a failure indication while a train is passing, about pass, or has just passed it, normally a slower class of train which forces the barriers down for "too long". would the signals protecting the other line still need to be replaced, or would the first train be allowed to clear (and in likelihood clear the failure). Theres a bias not to act in Simsig world as we know 100% the AHB hasn't actually failed, but I'm curious if anything needs to happen in real life.

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 11/03/2021 at 09:23 #137737
Hap
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jc92 in post 137735 said:
As an extension question to this subject:

An AHB shows a failure indication while a train is passing, about pass, or has just passed it, normally a slower class of train which forces the barriers down for "too long". would the signals protecting the other line still need to be replaced, or would the first train be allowed to clear (and in likelihood clear the failure). Theres a bias not to act in Simsig world as we know 100% the AHB hasn't actually failed, but I'm curious if anything needs to happen in real life.
Few criteria. But ultimately you can resume normal working if you are sure that the failure indications was caused by a train occupying a controlling TC for a long time and/or the indication clears.

If it wasn't to clear then treat the crossing as defective and trains would need to be cautioned, along with crossing taken into local control and other measures.

(very brief summary. It's in the rule book)

How to report an issue: www.SimSig.co.uk/Wiki/Show?page=usertrack:reportanissue
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Crossing Failure. Is what I intend to do correct? 11/03/2021 at 15:27 #137739
Andy174
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I served 25 years with BTP and the term "civil" police was always used in railway circles when referring to HO Forces, like the other posts have said it probably stems back to when the pre-nationalised system had their own individual police forces which truely were private entities. Even after the BTC then BTP was formed they were seen by the railway as being "our" police.
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