Highway crossing out-of-service controller

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9925995-B1
Application number	US-201514612336-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Feb 3, 2015
Priority date	Feb 3, 2015
Publication date	Mar 27, 2018
Grant date	Mar 27, 2018

Abstract

A system for selectively disabling highway crossing equipment includes a timer for controlling a maximum out of service time for the highway crossing equipment, a switch for controlling disablement of the highway crossing equipment, and control circuitry responsive to the timer and the switch. The control circuitry disables the highway crossing equipment in response to an input received from the switch before the maximum out of service time has been reached and re-enables the highway crossing equipment in response to a subsequent input from the switch received before the maximum out of service time has been reached. The control circuitry places the highway crossing equipment in a failsafe condition when the maximum out of service time has been reached without receiving the subsequent input from the switch.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for selectively disabling highway crossing equipment comprising:
a user-programmable timer for controlling a maximum out of service time for the highway crossing equipment;
a user-actuated system enable switch;
a user-actuated equipment disable switch for selectively disabling the highway crossing equipment; and
control circuitry responsive to the timer and the switch and operable to:
while the system enable switch is in a system enable state, disable the highway crossing equipment in response to an input from the equipment disable switch received before the maximum out of service time has been reached;
while the system enable switch is in a system enable state, re-enable the highway crossing equipment in response to a subsequent input received from the equipment disable switch before the maximum out of service time has been reached; and
while the system enable switch is in a system enable state, place the highway crossing equipment in a failsafe condition when the maximum out of service time has been reached without receiving the subsequent input from the equipment disable switch.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry is further operable to:
re-enable the highway crossing equipment when the system enable switch is reset before the maximum out of service time has been reached.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the control circuitry is operable to bypass motion detection equipment to disable the highway crossing equipment.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the equipment disable switch comprises one of a plurality of equipment disable switches each for selectively bypassing motion detection equipment associated with a corresponding railroad track to disable the highway crossing equipment.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a user interface for allowing a user to program the maximum out of service time into the timer; and
a display for displaying the maximum out of service time into the timer.

6. A railroad crossing out-of-service control system comprising: an enable switch for generating an enable signal;
a disable switch for generating a disable signal for selectively disabling highway crossing equipment associated with a railroad track;
a timer for generating a timer signal for controlling an out of service time; and
control circuitry operable to:
generate at least one output signal for disabling the highway crossing equipment in response to a transition of the disable signal to an active state while the enable and timer signals are in an active state;
generate at least one output signal for re-enabling the highway crossing equipment in response to a selected one of:
a transition of the enable signal to an inactive state while the timer signal in the active state; and
a transition of the disable signal to an inactive state while the enable and timer signals are in the active state; and

generate at least one output signal for placing the highway crossing equipment in a safe condition in response to a transition of the timer signal to an inactive state while the enable and disable signals are in the active state.

7. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the control circuitry is operable to generate an output signal for selectively bypassing motion detection equipment controlling the highway crossing equipment to selectively disable and re-enable the highway crossing equipment.

8. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the control circuitry is operable to generate an output signal controlling a vital relay for placing the highway crossing equipment in a safe condition.

9. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the timer is programmable.

10. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 9 , further comprising a user interface including a display and input circuitry for programming the timer.

11. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the control circuitry comprises a programmable processing device.

12. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the control circuitry comprises logic circuitry.

13. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the disable switch comprises one of a plurality of disable switches each for selectively generating a disable signal for disabling highway crossing equipment associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of railroad tracks.

14. The railroad crossing out-of-service control system of claim 6 , wherein the highway crossing equipment is selected from the group consisting of flashers and crossing gates.

15. A railroad highway crossing system comprising;
a crossing relay selectively opening to activate associated highway crossing equipment and closing to deactivate the highway crossing equipment;
a motion detection relay selectively opening to open the crossing relay and closing to close the crossing relay;
a bypass relay selectively closing to bypass the motion relay and hold the crossing relay in a closed state;
a out-of-service relay selectively opening to open the crossing relay when the bypass relay is closed and closing with the bypass relay is closed to maintain the crossing relay closed;
an out-of-service controller operable to:
in response to a first user input during a programmed out-of-service time period, close the bypass relay to bypass the motion detection relay and maintain the out-of-service relay in a closed state to hold the crossing relay closed;
in response to a second subsequent user input during the programmed out-of-service time period, open the bypass relay and maintain the out-of-service relay in a closed state; and
in response to the first user input without the subsequent second user input during the programmed out-of-service time period, open the out-of-service relay to open the crossing relay and activate the highway crossing equipment.

16. The railroad highway crossing system of claim 15 , wherein the first user input comprises switching an enable switch and switching a track disable switch.

17. The railroad highway crossing system of claim 15 , wherein the second user input comprises a selected one of switching the enable switch and switching the track disable switch.

18. The railroad highway crossing system of claim 15 , wherein the out-of-service controller comprises a programmable timer for controlling the out-of-service time.

19. The railroad highway crossing system of claim 15 , wherein the motion detection relay comprises a selected one of a plurality of motion detection relays each associated with a corresponding track and the bypass relay comprises a selected one of a plurality of bypass relays each for selectively bypassing a corresponding one of the motion detection relays.

20. The railroad highway crossing system of claim 15 , further comprising a highway crossing controller controlling the motion detection relay.

Assignees

• Bnsf Railway Co

Inventors

• Schnell Joseph Daniel

Classifications

• B61L29/32

  Timing, e.g. advance warning of approaching train · CPC title

• B61L29/30 Primary

  Supervision, e.g. monitoring arrangements · CPC title

• B61L29/28

  electrically operated · CPC title