After doing some railfanning, I was relaxing by the fountain area on Front Street when I kept hearing this crossing cycling on and off. As you will obviously hear, this is also the crossing with our favorite scratchy WCH e-bell. I got super excited because the chance of a crossing in Wheaton malfunctioning is almost unheard of. This the first one I have experienced.

By the time I walked to this crossing, the lights and bells were staying on continuously with the gates up and people were crossing the tracks. The bicyclist called the cops, and they were there within a matter of minutes. It was a short malfunction, though. When the next train went through, the gates came down, went back up fully, and things were back to normal. A cop sat near the crossing until Union Pacific showed up. To watch the gates "fix themselves" after the train goes by, please watch the railfanning video:
   • Railfanning Union Pacific West Line -...  

UP workers found the problem and showed it to me. It was some rod inside the gate mechanism on the north mast that was causing the malfunction. Whatever happened to the gate was not allowing it fully raise, in turn causing the whole system to stay activated. I have seen similar problems before on YouTube. When I left, one of them was snapping a picture of the broken part on their iPhone, so I assume they had to call for backup on this one.


As usual, I apologize for the "strobing" effect on the lights. For some reason, both my cameras hate railroad crossing lights.