I was out exploring a route with my wife on Saturday and came across this diamond crossing in Elgin, TX. The UP line running north and south gets crossed by the Austin Western Railroad line running east and west. both tracks get used but neither get heavy traffic. As I looked at this from a distance I thought, "Gosh, I hope a train doesn't hit that too fast because it might go airborn." It looked like a ramp! I went closer to investigate and it was indeed a ramp. The AWRR line actually crosses OVER the UP line. Have y'all ever seen a diamond like this before? I didn't know such a thing existed. Wish I could have been there when a train came through. I bet the clickety-clack from crossing over this is impressive.
I've never seen this until just a couple days ago actually on a switch, same idea. That one had a sign on the track that called it a "Lift Frog" - there's a wiki page for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange-bearing_frog The train definitely needs to hit this "slow" -Mike
Wow, never seen that sort of arrangement before. Safer passage for the busier line I suppose and a significant savings in track components and maintenance. Who thinks this stuff up?
That's a great write up on Wiki. It sounds like research is still being done on these but that they are proving to save money in maintenance like @Hardcoaler said. I wonder if we'll start seeing more of them in the future?
Definitely a relative of the lift frog, which is usually installed where there is a little-used siding or spur off a heavily-used main. It's usually to reduce maintenance. There are a two in view of the Chehalis VRF camera, and I witnessed a short train crawling slowly through one. It was interesting to see one side of each car lift up and down again as each axle crossed the frog. The AWRR being a Class III short line, there's likely a lot less traffic than on the UP main. The design allows UP mainline trains to cross this diamond without slowing down (some diamonds are restricted in speed to avoid derailments or damage to the hardware!).
INRD (ex-MILW.) crosses the CSX St.Louis line (ex-NYC.) on one of these in Terre Haute, IN. Also in Indiana, the CSX Indiana Sub (ex-B&O.) crosses the LIRC (ex-PRR.) in Seymour.
I was recently watching a video on YouTube, which showed a short line RR crossing CSX via such a diamond. I will see if I can find it again.
Called OWLS crossing; One Way Low Speed. Wheels ride on flange through the crossing on the "low-speed" side, no gap on the "high-speed" side to reduce wheel impact and wear. There are also "flange-bearing" crossings where wheels on both routes ride the flange through the crossing. The premise is there is less wheel pounding overall, but the flange bearing areas are experiencing high wear and failure rates.
There is a diamond crossing in Nagpur, India. The city lies kinda in the middle of the country so north-south and east-west lines criss cross there. I don't think it's exactly perpendicular as you linked in your image but it looks neat still. Attached is an image from Wikipedia.
