(The following report by Steve Kemme appeared on the Cincinnati Enquirer website on May 4.)
LOVELAND, Ohio — Ohio’s first four-light and four-gate railroad crossing, designed to improve safety and to make the crossing quieter, will be activated today in Loveland’s historic downtown district.
The new crossing system at the railroad tracks on Second Street, just north of West Loveland Avenue, will prevent motorists from trying to beat an approaching train by driving around the gates.
Unlike the traditional two-gate system, it’s physically impossible to drive around the four-gate system, said Stu Nicholson, spokesman for the Ohio Railroad Development Commission.
“Over half of the railroad crossing accidents we’re seeing,” he said, “are motorists driving across with the gates down, the warning lights flashing and a train coming. With this new system, when the gates come down, cars can’t sneak around them.”
At 10:30 a.m. today, an Indiana & Ohio Railway Co. train will break the ceremonial ribbon and activate the new lights and gates for the first time. State and local officials will attend the ceremony.
The Ohio Railroad Development Commission chose Loveland as the first Ohio site for the four-gate system, known as “Four-Quad,” because it was already planning to upgrade the Second Street crossing and there are two other crossings nearby, Nicholson said.
The crossings on Second Street, West Loveland Avenue and Riverside Drive have had flashing lights, but no gates.
“The city and the railroad commission got together and said, ‘Let’s make this a larger project,'” Nicholson said. “I sense you’re going to see a lot of these new gates once people have a chance to see one up and operating.”
The $1 million project, financed totally with federal money, involves the installation not only of a Four-Quad system on Second Street, but also two-gate systems at West Loveland and Riverside crossings. A Four-Quad system costs $400,000, twice as much as a traditional two-gate system.
Each day, about 13,000 vehicles drive through Loveland’s Second Street railroad crossing, he said. There have been two accidents with no fatalities there in the past five years, he said.
Loveland has coordinated three nearby traffic signals in that area with the three railroad gate crossings to stop some cars at traffic signals before they reach the crossings, City Manager Tom Carroll said.
“It’ll be safer,” he said. “The timing of those traffic lights will adjust as the train approaches. It will also help with the recovery of traffic flow after a train goes through.”
The four-gate system grew out of the Federal Railroad Administration’s desire to make railroad crossings quieter, especially in communities with a lot of train traffic. With the four-gate system, train engineers don’t have to blow the train whistle.
But the Ohio Railroad Development Commission likes the safety aspect of the four-gate system more than the quiet zone it creates, Nicholson said.
“First and foremost, our concern is to create a safe crossing,” he said. “To us, a safe crossing is one that prevents cars, bicyclists and pedestrians from crossing when a train is approaching.”