(Halogen pedestrian lights) South Woodham Ferrers Level Crossing, Essex

Date filmed: Friday the 10th of November 2023
Videos filmed at: 13:03 | 13:14
Route: Crouch Valley Line
- South Woodham Ferrers Station
Crossing type: Automatic half Barrier Crossing Locally-monitored by traincrew (ABCL)
Location: Hullbridge Road, South Woodham Ferrers
Trains featured:
Lowering 1 (0:00):
720 550 (Greater Anglia) - 1:10
2J30 Wickford ➡ Southminster | On-time
-
Lowering 2 (1:46):
720 562 (Greater Anglia) - 2:15
2J23 Southminster ➡ Wickford | On-time
A locally-monitored half-barrier level crossing located in South Woodham Ferrers next to the town's single-platform Railway Station, a station served every 40 minutes in each direction by Crouch Valley Line trains between Wickford and Southminster (the latter is a town very much in the middle of nowhere on the very remote Dengie Peninsula). An extra set of lights is provided for a driveway here, and it appears to flash completely independently to the other four as it's completely out of sync with the other two on that side, and a tasteful and very well-kept garden ornament in the form of a semaphore signal overlooks the crossing. Despite both alarms being renewed recent to this video, still being really quite loud though, the halogen bulb-type pedestrian lights still remain here and operational in November 2023 despite this being a fairly busy crossing!
This is one of at most a tiny handful of crossings in the entire country to still have them, and these ones in particular are quite unusual; three of the four of them have the 'standing figure' as a stencilled silhouette on a red flashing background, rather than being stencilled out of a black background to reveal the red flashing pedestrian signal in that shape. These are still nice and bright and work perfectly fine despite having been operational here for thirty years now. With these, there is really quite an unusual LED & Halogen bulb-type light combination here with the road traffic lights being of that former kind.
Two trains which came around ten minutes apart are featured, the first stopping in the station before departing over the crossing. Due to the single-track branch line nature and the infrastructure requiring all trains towards Southminster to stop and await the flashing white signal, the level crossing didn't activate until the train was pretty much stopped in the station. Part of the audio at the end of that first clip has been muted, otherwise this video would've been copyrighted quicker than you could say the four-word, five-syllable title of the popular song that was playing!
Train details sourced from:
Real Time Trains: www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sear...
Open Train Times: www.opentraintimes.com/maps
Traksy: traksy.uk/live
Filmed on: Pansonic HC-VX1 in 4K 25fps
Thanks for watching!

[@NWLevelCrossings]

Excellent Videos! 👍🏻👍🏻 Nice to still see the Halogen Pedestrian Lights here! And sounds like there are new alarms too.

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Thank you very much! Yes, new alarms unfortunately, but at least these very rare halogen bulb-type pedestrian signals remain!

[@vanvozozo]

The wigwags are offtiming

[@TheRealTrains806UK]

Love the alarm aswell

[@SouthWestCrossingsUK]

Great video!

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Thanks a lot!

[@freebrickproductions]

Great video and crossing! Love those old halogen lights! I see one of the fences along the sidewalk was crunched by a vehicle recently.

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Thank you!

[@keanubrando3228]

Nice video crossing

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Thanks!

[@keanubrando3228]

@@SouthEastLevelCrossings you welcome

[@MervynPartin]

It is quite a few years since I used to travel on this line, the trains then being 321s, so I was immediately interested in the new trains shown here. As for the crossing itself, I have not seen a pedestrian warning lamp like that. It seemed rather faint for a halogen unit, but it looked like there was a mesh over the lens. It is a pity that traffic is held up for a train stopped at the station, especially with the warning siren sounding continuously. This is, however, fairly common where there are crossings adjacent to stations.

[@UKLevelCrossingAndRailways]

Nice! :) have you got an account on the ABC Railway Guide? I'm excited for the next video

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Thanks! I don't think you need to ask again, as I've already said I don't. Glad to hear you're excited for the next video though!

[@UKLevelCrossingAndRailways]

​@@SouthEastLevelCrossingssorry, but yea I am

[@TheRealTrains806UK]

Cool and uniqe

[@TheRealTrains806UK]

Also 2:35 a bit unsafe

[@yabbaguy]

Multiple ABCL crossings tend to raise the barriers a smidge too soon, I’ve noticed.

[@JPLCUK]

Nice one, that's not very safe with the barriers going up early

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Cheers! Two in Berkshire I've known to raise with the train still covering half of the crossing almost!

[@levelcrossingcreations3731]

New moflash alarms? They sound like moflash

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

Indeed they are. Loud they may be, but they still sound pretty dull compared to previous alarm combinations here.

[@Alfieslevelcrossings]

​@@SouthEastLevelCrossingsatleast they kept the rare halogen pedestrian light

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

@@Alfieslevelcrossings Indeed!

[@WelshTrainspottingYT]

Damn it they’ve given it new Moflash alarms, i preferred the Y03/BTs as they’re my favourite alarm type

[@SouthEastLevelCrossings]

They do sound a bit dull and standard if you ask me, even though they are still pretty loud.

[@WelshTrainspottingYT]

@@SouthEastLevelCrossingsI don’t mind Moflash alarms tbh