# bike dismount signs at railroad crossings?



## degill2 (Jun 7, 2009)

I just noticed at mp126.6 (beecherstreet cresent beach ) on the seattle -vancouver bc canada line of the BNSF there is a caution - bike dismount use side walk when crossing sign at the crossing . Is this a new ploy by all railroads for safety or just a trial on my local line ?.


----------



## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

This is a common sign where there are bicycle trails. Especially if the crossing is not at 90-degrees. Too much chance of a bike tire falling into the flangeway and tossing the rider to the ground. Not far from here there was a sign that warned bicycle riders to "cross the tracks at a right angle" and I saw some riders doing so and others going over the handle bars! Oops! Seems to always bend the front rim, too!


----------



## degill2 (Jun 7, 2009)

thanks semper vaporo , I'll post the pics soon that i took of the signs in my area soon then the others will know what i'm talking about .


----------



## Tom Lapointe (Jan 2, 2008)

"Too much chance of a bike tire falling into the flangeway and tossing the rider to the ground."

*Been there, done that. *







Years before I started biking on rail-trails, I used to ride a loop around our city's main water reservoir (about a 12 mile loop). At the time, my bike was conventional Schwinn 12-speed road bike *(with narrow tires). *At one part of the loop, I came to a *T-shaped road intersection *where the side road I came out to US Rt. 6 in Westport MA. *The ex-New Haven "Watuppa" branch crossed this intersection at a 45-degree angle; *a curved guardrail on the right side of the road I was coming from was about *3 feet from the closest rail. *Normally I would come to a full stop at that intersection before turning right onto Rt. 6 (with *50 MPH traffic).*

That particular day I was making *excellent time *







on my ride. When I came to that intersection, since I wanted to keep my speed up, I decided to just keep going around the corner; *not noticing that there was some sand accumulated on the road there. *When I tried turning hard while on the sand, *the bike skidded sideways, the tires falling directly into the flangeways. *







I didn't upset then; but the bike *wanted to follow the rails directly out into 50 MPH traffic! *







I had a choice; *force the bike out of the flangeways or risk getting hit by a car. *







I manged to muscle the front wheel out; but the rear wheel stuck & bent the rim; *& I somersaulted over the handlebars, *







*piling up in the breakdown lane of Route 6. *I lay there dazed for about a minute; then struggled to my feet, figured I get back on the bike (it was only about a mile-&-1/2 more to get back to the house), not realizing that the bike was damaged. Then I happened to glance down at my left arm - *& saw a huge swollen lump - *and thought *"Oh God! I must've broken my left arm!" *









This was *long before cell phones were around; *but being a ham radio operator, I had a small hand-held 2 Meter amateur radio in the handlebar bag on the bike, which *I could make phone calls through on our local repeater system. *







Dialed home, got my father, told him to grab my minivan & come pick me up, that I just had a bad bike accident. He showed up in about 5 minutes, we tossed the bike in the back of the van, & went straight to the ER of a local hospital. There, at least I got some *good news; it wasn't a break, just a bruise on the bone. *







They did put the arm in a sling, but I *only had to wear it a week, vs. months if I had broken it. *


Ironically, I the time, I was working for a small 2-way radio company; one of our accounts was *Bay Colony RR, who were then operating the Watuppa branch! *This had happened over the Labor Day holiday weekend; the following Tuesday, I got a service call from them *to repair a locomotive radio - *only the doctor had told me *no heavy lifting for at least a week! *(I couldn't haul myself up the locomotive grab irons, let along lug the *50 pound Motorola service monitor up there!). *







(Fortunately, I was able to *"talk" *them through the repair job - it was only a bad handset).












*Even more ironically - that section of the Watuppa branch has since been abandoned, the grade crosssing pulled, & the abandoned stretch is being converted to a bike trail! *










*Tom*


----------

