Railroad Crossings are not fun

[ghensley]

I don't think I'm the only one seeing this, but I seem to run into railroad crossing arms in AZ, NM, and CO too easily. What I'm finding is that the arms start moving down the moment the bells start, giving me no time to stop or cross safely. The bells often happen just as I'm very close and ALWAYS get catch me. I have wrecked my truck/trailer way too many times. I don't seem to have the same problem in other states. FYI, I run at warp 0.7 if that makes a difference.

Anyone else having this issue? Is there a way/mod to fix this?

[Outlaw Transport]

Yup, same here. It seems tied to other AI traffic - if there are other vehicles around the same tracks, it's usually fine. if you're the only one near it, you always crash into it.

I wish there was a way to disable trains altogether. They add aboslutely nothing to the game.

[clifflandmark]

I think you always think these arms move down while you're passing and that really happens. What do we call it, Murphy Law?

Of course I'm joking, this happened to me several times. It should be fixed.

[Jatruck]

Yessssssssss. Please, give us an option to disable railroad crossings and lifting bridges (the last are inactive in Convoy, so let us to set inactive in single player too).

[flight50]

I crash alot as well. What I started doing is like US school buses except I don't come to a complete stop. I do reduce my speed to like 20-25 mph. The reaction time is much greater to stopping the truck. I also use the lowest braking intensity for realism so that increases my stopping distance. I'm rarely in a rush when I play and it gives me another excuse to jake brake. When using Kriechbaum's sound mod, you'll want to jake as much as you can anyways, lol.

[ghensley]

I’m so glad to know it’s not just me. I hit one in the country doing 50+. Called the tow truck. It was “ding-ding crash”. No time to react.

I’m going to see if I can figure out a mod to change or disable them. The other states seem to give you a little time before the arms start down.

Also interesting that those little arms can stop an 60-80k lb truck and trailer.

[nautofon]

JFTR, the in-game gates are not realistic. In real life the gates are intentionally designed to have a weak spot, so that you can just run them down should you ever get caught between them.

(At least that's the usual arrangement in Europe—not sure about America, but I suppose it should be similar.)

[TopNoodles]

I don't think I've experienced this yet, but I always approach crossings slowly, ready to stop. I also play vanilla most of the time, and my modded profile only has sound and wheel mods. There is a crossing near me IRL that crosses a highway, and there are no gates at all, only lights. So you always cross at full speed, but there is lots of visibility to see when a train is coming. I can't recall encountering something like that in game.

[supersobes]

While I agree that there is little to no warning before the gates go down (in real-life the lights and bells are active for at least 5 to 10 seconds before the gates go down), I also think part of the problem is that the game allows players to drive fast over grade crossings. In real-life, you wouldn't be able to drive 50 MPH over most grade crossings without wrecking your truck's suspension and/or damaging the cargo. I think it would be a nice thing for ATS if the grade crossing were made a little more rough to sort of force the player to slow down. Right now, there're so smooth that you can barely feel it. It's not only the rails themselves, but also the elevation difference. Many railroads are built at a slightly higher elevation than the road, so grade crossings are sort of like a speed bump where you go up, cross the tracks, and come back down again.

[flight50]

Also interesting that those little arms can stop an 60-80k lb truck and trailer.

Technically its not just the arms. There is an invisible wall that comes down when the gates comes down. We use to be able to still drive thru the crossing when the gates are starting to come down. But that invisible wall drops and you slam into it now. I've been half way thru or just about to go thru and that Invisible wall will come down right on top of you. It can completely total out your truck. I've hit them pretty hard plenty of times though. Its always 50% or more damage I get when I hit them.