(The following story by Jacob Fenton appeared on the Merced Sun-Star website on December 15.)
MERCED, Calif. — Traffic backed up for blocks Sunday night in Merced as at least four railroad crossing signs malfunctioned.
The warning signals apparently stopped working properly around 6:25 p.m.
With the gates lowered at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway crossing near G and 24th Streets, some motorists made the risky choice to drive around them.
With no police in sight, at least a dozen drivers chose to drive around the gates over the course of several minutes.
“That’s how people get killed right there,” said J. Hisey, 45, of Merced, who sat in traffic at the crossing and watched as a car drove into the opposite lane on G Street, then darted diagonally across the tracks.
“This happens quite frequently,” she said.
Railroad crossing gates also seemed to be stuck down, blocking the streets on track crossings on I, Canal, and M streets.
On G Street, some motorists got help from a pedestrian who manually lifted the gates up momentarily.
A representative from Burlington Northern Santa Fe confirmed that there was a problem, but would not provide any additional information. A BNSF employee working near the G Street crossing declined comment, noting only that he had work to do.
By 7:45 p.m. the G Street crossing gate was back up, but apparently not fixed.
For a while after 8 p.m., the gate seemed stuck in the “up” position, not coming down when a train approached. Though flares burned on the side of the road, the gate remained up and immobile and the warning lights remained off as a freight train rumbled through.