Dolton, IL: RR Crossing Gates Excitement

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Soon after I arrived at Dolton Crossing, a westbound train came around the curve to the east on the B&OCT tracks.

At camera resolution.

But then it stopped and turned off its headlights.

15:03

That was no big deal because there were other trains to watch. Two eastbound container trains.

16:22

While the 16:22 container train rolled by, a mixed freight used the connector from the former Chicago & Eastern Illinois route to the IHB. I did not catch if the mixed freight was a UP or a CSX train because I missed the engines because I was too busy looking at the yellow stripes on the container cars. (All freight cars are supposed to have reflector stripes by May 31, 2015.)

The container train cleared the crossing, but the mixed freight continued. As the train continued through the connection, I heard the crossing bells ring.






This surprised me because I had not heard any recent train horns. The Park/Lincoln Avenue road crossing just east of the Dolton Crossing is not a "quiet zone" crossing. The gates were down by 16:29:24. I kept turning 180 degrees to alternate taking pictures of the mixed freight and the gates because I wanted to time how long the false closure lasted. I noticed that people started going around the gates. So false gate closures must be standard operating procedure around here.

The gates went up at 16:31:28 without a train passing. So they "cried wolf" for over 2 minutes. Then they went back down at 16:32:06 and back up at 16:32:16 with no train passing. And then went down at 16:32:36.

I missed when they went back up because I was looking at the parked UP|CSX freight train trying to figure out if it was going to start moving again. By the time I took this picture at 16:34:46, the gates were up. But notice that a train is finally approaching! I may have taken this picture because I heard a horn sound.

The gates went down at 16:34:56. I include the silver car in this photo because it looks like...


... in the next photo it ignored not only the gates, but the horn.

If that is not exciting enough for you, four kids start running across the tracks. These are the two leaders.

 This photo has all four boys.

The last boy is at the track. I'm sure the crew, as well as myself, am glad that none of the boys tripped. The distance is not compressed because of the use of a telephoto lens. My lens maxes out at 55mm. Fortunately, there was no more crossing gate excitement that day. But there were more trains.

The eastbound BNSF train was a coal train, and it soon met a westbound UP vehicle train.

16:35:56

As the eastbound train left the area, a westbound UP vehicle train came by on the IHB tracks.

It had only one engine on the front because there was a DPU (Distributed Power Unit) on the rear. It is remote controlled from the front unit. Note that the flag shows that this unit suffered from a fire. I used the Diesel Shop to confirm that it is a GE (ES44AC). I have been reading comments on Facebook that GEs tend to have turbo fires.

I caught this train later at Blue Island, and I got a another shot of the fire damage.

I include a close up of some signals to verify that this area has been converted to new signals. (Notice I used "converted" instead of "upgraded." I don't know if the old signals also had false crossings, but these new signals are certainly not good. It appears that this may be another example of "newer is worse.")