On a cold February day I went to Hölövägen crossing, between Järna and Mölnbo to compare a high speed railway crossing in Sweden to the ones I am used to in the U.S..
At this crossing, trains cross it around 145km/h (90MPH). Where I live, I am no where near a crossing that handles train traffic at this speed, so it was a real opportunity to see the timing of the crossing gates and the trains arrival at the roadway. The crossing gates timing was interesting to see.
As this is a high speed crossing SJ needs to preempt the gates in proportion to the speed of the train. From the time the lights and bells began to ring to the time the gates begin to lower is about 13 seconds. The gates lower in 7 seconds and remain fully down for 95 seconds before the train is at the crossing (edit at 0:22). If this crossing's times were implemented in the U.S. no one would put up with the long waits! ;) But to its rescue, when the train clears the island circuit and there is no other rail traffic, only about 2 and one-half seconds goes by before the gates begin to rise. Here in the U.S., sometimes the gates take anywhere from 5-15 seconds after the train passes to go up, what a waste of time!
I have also included some other shots in and around the Hölövägen crossing and Hot Box Detector that include a few X60's and regular long distance passenger trains.
Add &fmt=18 to the end of the YouTube address to watch in High Quality ;)
