Onibury level crossing vs contraflow

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

Onibury's the level crossing where the A49 crosses the line that runs up the Welsh Marches on the skew. Line speed I don't know but it may be 90mph. Driving the A49 northbound on Friday, the A49 has a traffic lights controlled contraflow, the southbound carriageway being out of use for some hundreds of metres. The contraflow extends across the crossing. Especially because the level crossing has a road junction immediately north of it, the arrangement felt a bit perilous, with the risk of traffic queues forming across the level crossing itself. Concentrating on driving, I didn't note what it was that made me feel uneasy - and by now, the entire contraflow may be history.

I've noooooh idea of the precautions that need to be taken when road works / contraflows are combined with level crossings, but presumably Network Rail gets involved and is involved in signing things off?

Mark

[stuving]

According to HUAC UK^▸ (United Kingdom)*, in their "Safety at Street Works and Road Works - A Code of Practice" (which has statutory status" :

Works over and under railways
Works planned by any promoter on a road over rail, or under a rail over road bridge must be advised to Network Rail’s Outside Party Engineer no later than one month in advance of serving the initial notice. The supervisor, manager or other competent person should check with the works promoter that this has taken place and obtain details of the results of the consultation.

The Onibury crossing is manually controlled from a box next to the crossing, which is about the safest type available. It was recently reassessed under ALCRM~ and its score changed from G3 to J4, on a scale from A1 (very dangerous - do something now) to M13 (zero risk, e.g. closed).

As the operator knows what is going on all the time, I wonder what more could be done. Perhaps to provide the crossing operator with a connection to the contraflow lights controller, to monitor what it's doing and going to do next, or even to adjust its timing. Was there signage on the approach side at the crossing saying don't block the railway crossing, or similar?

* The Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee (HAUC(UK)) is the representative body that works with the UK and devolved governments to help make improvements to the management of works and the street and road network.
~ All level crossing risk model, Network rail's standard method. The letter is for the risk to road users per crossing, and the number for the collective risk to all users.

[Mark A]

Thanks for this, that explains a lot. I think one of the things that had alarmed me was that drivers tend to be nose to tail through contraflows and weren't modifying this as they crossed the railway - and the northbound end of the contraflow was close to the crossing itself and there's often a tendency for people to slow down there too - and then there's the road junction as well. I was looking ahead and seeing apparent safety margins evaporate - but with signalling staff on site, the gates raised and interlocked with the railway control systems that's reassuring. (It does show how easy it is for many drivers of vehicles to disregard the basic principle of 'Do not enter a railway crossing until your exit is clear' though. It can be useful for people who may otherwise be distracted, when they need to cross a railway, to think of each individual railway line as one blade of a pair of scissors - so, double track railway = two entirely separate pairs of scissors - and before stepping over the one blade you need to be sure that the other one isn't due to descend.)

Mark