Old Higashi-Kitazawa crossing

[bill937ca]

An old video of one of the worst railroad crossings in Japan.  The gates are down for almost the whole two hours. Not many breaks. Its now underground.

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by bill937ca

[bill937ca]

A night time version.  Video by naha478.

 

 

[railsquid]

Used to live not far from that one.

 

BTW it's "Higashi-Kitazawa", after the eponymous station one stop to the east; on many lines, level crossings are named after the preceding station, usually going away from the city centre.

[bill937ca]

Thank you.  

[Pashina12]

The gates are down for quite some time at the beginning with nothing happening... why?

[bill937ca]

Most probably trains in the station. There is a flickering direction indicator in the background which lets you know which direction is activating the signals. Sometimes its more than one train.  Unfortunately, the direction indicator closest to the camera isn't visible.

[kvp]

4 hours ago, bill937ca said:

Most probably trains in the station. There is a flickering direction indicator in the background which lets you know which direction is activating the signals. Sometimes its more than one train.  Unfortunately, the direction indicator closest to the camera isn't visible.

I checked and it looks like the crossing was tied directly to the block system. This means a trains that has just crossed the crossing will clear the gates but any trains that are approaching or have the right to approach the crossing will block it. This means any train standing at the platforms off view on the right that has a clear path to enter the crossing will block it, along with any trains that are allowed to pass the station without stopping. This setup would have prevented accidents in case a stopping train overshot the platform. The side effect is that once a train is allowed to enter the station from the other side, this side had to be closed due to the crossing being way too close to the departure signal. I think getting rid of the level crossing here really helped everyone (except railfans).

 

ps: One strange thing seen on the first video is that the gates close and the direction indicator is active when a previous train barely start to move, so the crossing seems to be locked during path setup and not just before allowing the route. This means when the operator (or automatic system) preselects the route, the gates go down and when then the block clear signal doesn't have to wait for the closed signal from all of the gates along the route as they are probably already closed by then. This system prioritizes trains over crossing traffic.

[railsquid]

Street view of the same location in 2009: https://goo.gl/maps/EFd3aXnD3Ar

 

There was an interesting view looking east from the end of the platform, you could see people and vehicles going across the crossings to the east while a train was approaching from the west, perspective making the distance between train and open crossings look less than it actually was.

[gmat]

That is Shimo-Kitazawa Station next to the crossing. Higashi-Kitazawa is actually the next station a bit further north. When I used to cycle to Shinjuku for work, I was caught at this crossing many many times. And yes, it was usually a long wait between openings. There wasn't a good alternate route from my home in Sakura-shimmachi for cyclers heading towards Shinjuku that wasn't longer or more hilly. 

I took many photos from the edge of the platform in the videos, some at night. This was before I became aware that light sensor on your camera might also be distracting to the drivers. I now cover it with my hang when I take photos at night. 

 

Grant

[railsquid]

4 hours ago, gmat said:

That is Shimo-Kitazawa Station next to the crossing. Higashi-Kitazawa is actually the next station a bit further north.

 

To clear up any confusion, that is (or was) Higashi-Kitazawa crossing number 6, immediately to the east of Shimo-Kitazawa station.