Hi All,
at Germany are some Fire Brigades organized in Volunteer Fire Brigades.
What will happen if the next Hydrant will be in the opposite of railwaytracks?

Have a Look here please!

Smile yourself a little and enjoy the day.

That's an old one staged for the cameras,  on a a day trains weren't running… 

But in real life railway crossings give the emergency services some big headaches. 

 I live next to a crossing. It’s not a busy road but is the only road to cross the railway for around ¾ mile in either direction. To complicate matters the railway, which sees four trains an hour off-peak and eight in the peak hours, forms a triangle or “Y” with a depot in the middle so the barriers are sometimes closed across the road for 5-10 minutes while shunt movements take place. 

Occasionally we see a fire engine or ambulance on a blue-light “shout” waiting patiently for the road to open. One morning we were woken by multiple sirens heading towards us and could smell smoke. I popped outside at 5am to check what was occurring. The air was thick. The barriers were down. The first two trains of the morning duly passed by and a third then ambled cautiously out of the depot. All the while some four fire engined and a police car were waiting…..  

After about seven minutes the barriers lifted and the convoy reached their destination about 200m the far side of the crossing where the golf club had a nasty fire. 

These things affect response times but all emergency service drivers are aware of level crossings and by-pass routes, plus the time taken to go around if faced with flashing red lights. What they won’t know is how long the road might be closed for meaning a judgement call has to be made. In this case it may have been a minute or so quicker to go around but the call was clearly to wait. 

The controlling signaller can see the blue lights via cctv but once the barriers are lowered they will not reopen until it is safe. The signals may have been cleared and the risk of “throwing back” or suddenly reverting signals to red may be greater than causing emergency vehicles to wait or divert. The latter have a choice of route in most cases. 

Hi Rick,
When I was a young boy of 10 years, that is nearly 40 years ago, I lived in a small village, in the countryside of Hessia south of Kassel and north of Frankfurt at the Bird Mountains (Vogelsberg), there was a busy branchline between Gießen and Fulda. Several short local passenger and goods trains moved there onto this single line route into both directions. It was one of the typical forgetten branchlines with very old signal and interlocking technics and mechanical signal boxes alongside this railway line. I was fascinated by the mechanical leverbenches inside the signalboxes. I very often visited a friend, a railway signalman on his workplace at Ehringhausen (Oberhessen - upper Hessia), a small new post war Railway Station Building. A signalbox with ticketoffice and small waitingroom. The Old bigger Station Building had been destroyed, by an exploding Ammunition Train in 1945 when the Royal Airforce shot onto trains inside Stations, well that was reality during the war, long time ago. Nearby this small railway station was a level crossing with full gates and a pub with petrol station. On one day the pub was on fire. The alarmed firebrigade of the village Ehringhausen could not fight alone for theirself the fire and ordered more volunteer firebrigades from other villages. Halftimbered houses are well in the countryside but badly when on fire, they are burning down faster than bricklayed or stone houses. My friend the signalman closed the barriers and blocked the tracks free for the next awaiting train when suddenly came a convoi of fire engines out of the forrest to the closed level crossing.
The railway planned the train movements on timetable, that on stations with bigger level crossings in minimum two trains from both directions will move shortly to cross theirself on those stations with sidings.
The gates were closed and the firebrigades were awaiting the opening of the barriers. It took nearly 15 minutes until the train was coming. It was a local Train on caution to stop on platform. After the Train stopped the signalman blocked the tracks section free for the other through train. It took another five more minutes until the train passend by.
Thereafter he awaited the free blocking from the next signal box before he could open the barriers.
Nearly half an hour the firebrigades awaited impatiently the opening of the gates. A Big explosion of the petrol station tanks were the signal that the additional ordered firebrigades came too late.
Thereafter begun the big debate of the local newspapers about the railway's antique signal boxes on this branchline.
A railway director says that a recall after closing the gates to open it, could be done only after getting the permission of the railway administration and all local involved signal boxes would need giving their permission, too. That procedure will take in minimum up to two hours until the closed gates could be re-opened without passing by trains. So it will take shorter time to let the trains passing by and awaiting patiently until the signalman will open the gates on regularity work. The cause, why some crossing gates got the security option after train movements were, it happened a lot of accidents in the past.