Questions about construction trucks on train tracks
Another day, another bit of local flavor, but this time it's something I wish I didn't have to write about.
In August 2012, I wrote about seeing a maintenance truck rolling down the Caltrain line in Mountain View. It had a special attachment to let it stay on the rails. At no point did the arms come down for the crossing. It managed to approach, then the people inside looked around and went through, and the arms never budged. There were no flashing lights or bells.
Based on my understanding of how those crossings work, that says "whatever holds that truck to the rails does not manage to connect them in whatever way that a train does to trigger the crossing arms".
This is not great. Then today happened. Earlier this morning, Caltrain hit *two* different trucks on the rails north of Millbrae. Then it caught fire. A bunch of people were hurt. More were shaken up.
These weren't random trucks from some random idiots gallavanting up and down the lines. These were their own construction trucks which have been working to install overhead power for the future electric trains.
I'm assuming their construction trucks don't trigger the "short the rails together to signal various things" logic, either. This would mean that crossing arms stay up... and I have to assume it also means the signals along the way stay green instead of going red.
We will presumably hear more about whatever the signals said, and whether the train went past a red signal or not. I just have a bad feeling that they saw a green and kept on going.