Gas Street Level Crossing

I was determined to have an operational level crossing on my railway. As it's turned out, the crossing gates control a very minor road indeed, just the access to St Petrock gas works, but they do add operational interest and keep visitors enthralled. Crossing keeper Fred Cockram and his long-suffering wife are kept fully occupied and the couple have been rewarded with a nice house to live in.

It's recently dawned on me that Fred ought also to have a little shed by his crossing, from which to communicate with the signal man at St Petrock, so this will be added before too long.

The crossing gates are from Peco and they're operated by a pair of Peco Smartswitch servos. The challenge, of course, was to get the gates to open and close in sequence and this was achieved with a couple of micro-switches, activated by the servo arms.

In this photo the bottom left micro-switch is being held closed, so when the crossing is activated the right hand servo will move first. When it has completed its travel, it will close the top micro-switch and activate the other servo. The amount by which the servos move, and their speed, is controlled by the Smartswitch control module (on the right).


Here is a video of the crossing in operation...