Protected road crossings: Failsafe?

I did a cab ride on a short line a few years ago and confirmed they can only see grade crossing action visually. The hogger pointed out that many grade crossing flashers have a hole drilled into the side of the housing, which is there for the crews coming from a 90-degree angle to see the light flashing from inside the housing even though they can't usually see the red portion blinking. I doubt there's any difference for the Class I railroads on high speed mainlines.

I, too, once saw a crossing that didn't work at all. In the era before cells everywhere, I raced to the nearest pay phone and called 911. I didn't go back to see what happened next, as the crossing was on a long straightaway where trains didn't go all that fast.

Yeah, it happens sometimes though it is very rare.

Lots of crossings I see have a large light on a pole illuminated when the crossing is activated.

When I volunteered at Walkersville Southern, plans were (and still are) in the works for grade crossing signals. As I recall, the rulebook changed and the signal box would have several lights on it. One would be an "OK" light, another an error light and there may have been one more. Can't quite remember. Even if the signals appeared to be fine but the error light was on, we have to stop and flag. Obviously we were only running a 10MPH railroad but....

Thanks guys!

I did finally find someone locally to ask also, and they told me the RR was out almost immediately to fix the problem.