They are especially a nightmare when you get stuck at a crossing with no other way around them (no bridges). I sat at a crossing for over 15 minutes waiting for a extremely long train to pass.
It gets even worse when you live near a place that has the train come to a compelete stop so that cars can be unhitched, taken off to a side rail, then have the engine reverse to connect back to the rest of the cars, for it to finally slowly pull away. The small town I lived it was forced to build a second fire department as the only one would get stuck behind trains delaying help. They evenutally built a new access road with a bridge over the tracks.
There's an area in SE Portland where trains regularly take an hour or more to pass. Many of the streets that get blocked are one-way or really have no alternate once you are on them. It takes the cooperation and coordination of a lots of drivers and vehicles to prevent the effective shutdown of 40+ square blocks when these crossings happen a few times a day.
After 15mins, I turn the car around and go back home for an hour. I'm not sitting in my car stationary for an hour for the train to pass. Trains aren't allowed to stop during commute hours. They have to do that in certain windows.
Willing to guess this happens across pretty much every Smalltown, USA.
The train came to town, and all rejoiced! The trains continued to get bigger, but towns did not anticipate this. The mayor doesn't live on "that" side of the tracks, so doesn't ever think about it. People complaining about it are from "that" side of the tracks, so doesn't rate highly on the TODO.
They are especially a nightmare when you get stuck at a crossing with no other way around them (no bridges). I sat at a crossing for over 15 minutes waiting for a extremely long train to pass.
It gets even worse when you live near a place that has the train come to a compelete stop so that cars can be unhitched, taken off to a side rail, then have the engine reverse to connect back to the rest of the cars, for it to finally slowly pull away. The small town I lived it was forced to build a second fire department as the only one would get stuck behind trains delaying help. They evenutally built a new access road with a bridge over the tracks.