The gate can stop a pickup truck traveling at 45 mph. We cannot allow penetration onto the tracks. In fact, the New York company's first installation of the new gate is right outside Kreunen's office on Whitney Way in Madison. The safety gate moves up and down similar to conventional crossing gates, but it locks at the far end of the road or median to prevent motorists from driving around the gate. To stop vehicles from reaching the tracks, the gate uses energy-absorbing steel cables inside tubes.
Collisions occur at the gate, rather than at the tracks.
There's a great deal of interest in it, but it's a slow-moving type of thing. Departments of transportation and railroads are quite conservative. And motorists don't challenge the gates, Davis said. And if they are never challenged, that would be a wonderful thing. It boils down to protecting the trains and allowing them to operate, he said.