End of Year at Reigate Level Crossing

Tuesday December 31 2024 at 15.36 & 15.47. The 15.32 Southern train is shown heading to London then the 14.27 Reading to Gatwick Airport (15.58) service from over ¾ of a mile away, followed by the 15.31 Gatwick to Reading (17.04) train. This is one of the 20 busiest crossings in the country for traffic and, helpfully, trains do manage to safely stop in the station without the crossing having to be activated. Something that clearly should happen at many other places. In the other direction, however, Network Rail is still operating a 19th century system designed for controlling the movement of steam trains. Thus the crossing is activated long before trains reach the outskirts of the town. Simply not good enough. In the video, the unexpected blast of train horn, possibly for a small child watching from the footbridge behind, did make me jump, but the camera filtered most of that out. The lights here do weird things. When each barrier starts to move the unlit light comes on for the briefest moment. This crossing has been over filmed unfortunately, but not by me of course 5 years ago I filmed this: • Reigate Level Crossing and 14 years ago this: • Reigate Level Crossing which is the most viewed video of the crossing.