There was another train on a siding (behind the police cars you can see it) waiting for the brown coal cars to go by...and did the crossing arms go up after the first train had passed? I didn't wait to see beyond about 3 minutes, but turned around (after the police had left the empty parking lot) and drove all the way back to Black Mountain and crossed the tracks there. The eastbound train hadn't made it yet coming into town. But as I finally got back to the crossing (just blocks from home) I saw that cars were going through it. Yay, the crossing arms finally had come up. But before I parked in the apartment parking lot, I heard the eastbound train's whistle as it headed out...again making traffic wait for it to pass.
Incidentally, the eastbound train had coal piled high in it's coal cars...on the way to burn in an electricity plant probably near Charlotte.
ReplyDeleteThe freight train lines here tend to be off in the southern end of the city, and by and large most crossing points are bridges or underpasses, so one doesn't have that many waiting points for trains.
ReplyDeleteI waited once for almost an hour down in the arts district (Asheville) where a long long train kept backing and then going forward for some unknown reason. My destination was just the other side of the tracks and I'm not familiar enough with the area to have found a work round.
ReplyDeleteWilliam, our town only has about 3-4 crossing points...so there aren't many options to get around slow trains...I have lived in bigger towns/cities where overpasses make a difference in traffic.
ReplyDeleteVicki, I know of only one overpass in Asheville, near the big train yard near Biltmore...but other areas of town I would have no idea how to get around the trains.