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RailwayWarning every train headed for the crossing
A report of a failed crossing warning system or a vehicle on the tracks has just come in. Before anyone else, you reach every train authorized to run through that crossing, so each crew knows before it gets there. It is the first remedial action the federal rule sets for the most urgent reports at highway-rail and pathway grade crossings.
Free to startScenarios
- A disabled vehicle blocking the track at a highway-rail grade crossing.
- A member of the public reports that the crossing's warning system is malfunctioning.
- The active warning system of a pathway grade crossing fails to perform as intended.
- Several railroads dispatch trains through the crossing, and yours is the appointed primary dispatching railroad.
The steps
- Identify the crossing by its U.S. DOT number and the condition reported.
- Find every train authorized to operate through that crossing.
- Promptly contact each of those trains, to notify its crew of the reported condition before the train arrives at the crossing.
- For a train of a railroad not required to have a working radio in each occupied controlling locomotive: contact the occupied controlling locomotive by the quickest means available.
- As the primary dispatching railroad: promptly contact every other railroad that dispatches trains through the crossing, to warn it of the condition.
- Only after the trains: go on with the next action for that report, the police, the maintaining railroad or both.
- Record the warning to the train crews among the actions taken before the condition is resolved.
Safety rules that stop the station
- The trains come before anyone else: the police and the maintaining railroad are contacted after the trains.
- Each railroad warned by the primary dispatching railroad carries out its own remedial action and keeps its own records.
To pass
- Every train authorized through the crossing warned before it reaches it.
- The trains go first after a public report of a highway-rail warning system malfunction, a pathway warning system failure and an obstruction on the track.
- After a credible report of a malfunction, the railroad that dispatches but does not maintain the system also warns the trains first, then informs the maintaining railroad.
Official source
Federal · FRA, 49 CFR 234.305 and 234.306
49 CFR Part 234, Subpart E: Emergency Notification Systems at Grade Crossings
The eCFR publishes 49 CFR Part 234, Subpart E free: 234.305 sets who is warned first after each kind of report and 234.306 what the primary dispatching railroad does.
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