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Fixing the Crossing - Taft Avenue

Meats Road at Glassell Street

Automobile Versus Railroad Warning Device - Truck Loses

Orange, CA

Nevember 13, 2008
Story and photographs copyright 2008 by Richard Elgenson
RailNews Network

On Thursday, November 13, 2008, I happened upon a usual location on my way to the worker bee day job.  What was unusual was the traffic being stopped just before the Taft Road highway rail grade crossing with the Metrolink Olive Sub track.  There were plenty of emergency vehicle flashing lights.  There was a railroad warning device on the rails and a nice white pickup truck past the rails.  Orange Police were doing their job whiile Metrolink personnel were sweeping debris off the track.  I asked OPD what happened, which was just about obvious anyway.  It appears that a lone driver lost control of his brand new white pickup truck and struck the railroad warning device comprised of crossbuck, flashing lights, bell and crossing arm.  This device was even protected with old rail welded together in a semicircle.  Everything was taken out of the ground.  For those of you unfamiliar with this area, it is in the City of Orange in central Orange County California.  The streets around here intersect mostly at right angles.  At Taft Road crossing, the railroad intersects the road at an angle slightly off 90 degrees.  Just past the grade crossing is another perpendicular road intersection with Glassell Street.  Taft Rd. is an east-west street while Glassell is a north-south street.  About 500 hundred feet north of Taft Rd, Glassell splits in a" Y" crossing the Metrolink track with the other arm of the Y becoming Orange-Olive Road and parallelling the railroad north easterly.  Needless to say, it is a somewhat slightly complicated intersection.  Use your favorite mapping application to view the scene.  The railroad is part of a giant wye.  This stretch of track connects to the BNSF at Atwood on the north to funnel trains from the east and to the Surfline on the south in the City of Orange at CP Walnut.  Metrolink Inland Empire - Orange County  trains and BNSF use this track.  There is a minor amount of shippers on the line.  The Surfline from the south connects CP Walnut to Fullerton, west of Atwood.

A number of people on their way to work had seen the aftermath of the incident.  I told my supervisor and he was very interested in checking out the scene.  We arranged to get our vehicle and took off with out the boss, as he had an important meeting with his superior.  By the time we arrived back at the scene, traffic was back to normal and the rail crossing was mostly swept clean of debris.  The Metrolink people were disassembling the knocked over warning equipment.  The destroyed truck was gone.  Looking up the track, I could see a headlight, which was either Metrolink 803 or 805.  I do know that 803 could not have gotten through at its normal time, since I can usually hear it and sometimes see it around 6 AM.  When I frst happened on the scene, there was too much debris on the crossing as well as a high rail facing north south of the crossing.  When I returned to take the photographs, I did see a southbound Metrolink train at about 6:35 AM.  It was definitely on a slow order, but was still moving at a fast speed.

The work camera is an old Cannon A-40 and does not get good photos on the fly.  However, you can see the warning equipment has been moved off the street.  The gate is parallel to the concrete curb and the bell is sitting on the dirt.  The flashers got mangled.  The rails are just visible at the top of the picture.  All 5 photographs were taken around 6:30 AM.

The Metrolink maintainers were disassembling the device just after sunrise.

The next view shows the track as I am looking south-southwest.  This location is about 1/2 mile north of where I photographed the Circus train in August.

There is a red flag draped over the crossbuck.  My guess is the maintainers used the flag to stop eastbound vehicular traffic for trains.

At least the incident did not take out the electrical box.


On my way home after 4:30 PM, they were still working on the crossing.  The gate was still not installed yet, though the post had been erected.  I did see Metrolink 804 traverse the crossing at normal speed on my way home.  All in all, it was a fine day in the neighborhood since I had to work a dredging job in Newport Beach on a beautiful fall day in Southern California.

Richard Elgenson RailNews Site

Richard@trainweb.com


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