Dark Crossing Lights, a Stopped School Bus, and Two Tracks
10:15 p.m., rural two-lane road posted 55 mph; you are doing 45 mph. Ahead is a highway-rail crossing marked by a crossbuck, a 2 TRACKS plaque, and flashing-light signals without gates. A warehouse sits close to the track on the right, and the road rises slightly to the crossing, so your view down the track is short until you are nearly at the stop line. A freight train's horn sounds somewhere ahead but is hard to localize. The lights are dark. One hundred meters ahead of you, in your lane, a school bus has stopped just before the crossing with its hazard lights on and its door open; you can see the driver leaning out to look and listen. A stop line is painted across your lane. Traffic behind you is sparse, and the pavement is dry.
1. The lights are dark. What do you assume, and what do you actually do?
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Dark lights do not mean no train. Bulbs fail, the track circuit can be down, and at night a failed signal looks exactly like a clear one. Assume a train is coming until you have proven otherwise. Stop at the stop line, put the window down, kill the radio and climate fan, and look and listen both directions, watching for a headlight pattern and for a reflected sheen on the rail head. The physics matter: a long freight at 50 mph needs well over a mile to stop, so the horn you hear is not a countdown you can use, because the train cannot yield to you and cannot stop for you. Cross only when you can see both directions clear, and if the warehouse and the crest keep you from seeing, do not cross. Report the dark signal using the emergency number posted on the signal post or by calling 911.
2. The school bus is stopped at the crossing with hazards on and the door open. May you pass it?
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No. This is a railroad-crossing stop, not a student stop, so the bus shows hazard lights and an open door rather than the red eight-way lamps, but you still may not pass a school bus stopped at a crossing in essentially every jurisdiction. Beyond the legal bar, there is a practical one: the bus driver's entire procedure is to open the door and listen for a train over the engine, and a car creeping alongside spoils the sightline and the sound picture. Stay well back, do not edge up to the stop line beside it, and let the bus complete its look-and-listen. When the bus closes its door, kills the hazards, and crosses, you still perform your own stop, look, and listen at the stop line rather than inheriting the bus driver's clearance.
3. A train clears the near track. What now, given the 2 TRACKS plaque?
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Do not move when the first train's last car passes. The 2 TRACKS plaque exists precisely because one train can hide another: a second train on the far track may be moving in the same or the opposite direction, and the noise of the first will mask its approach. Wait until the lights stop flashing, if they are working, and until you have a clear view of the second track in both directions. Because the warehouse and the crest shorten your sight distance, edge forward only far enough to see and stop before fouling the far track. If lights begin flashing or a second train appears as you clear the first track, stop short of the second track and wait. Crossing one track is not crossing the crossing.