^ The only thing I can think of to say is ….. yup.
The Trackside Treasures article is well written and explains the problem well.
What makes this issue so challenging is that there is empirical evidence that fast, light, short passenger trains do indeed fail to trigger crossing protection on occasion, and this presents an unacceptable risk to all of us (assuming we use rail crossings). So, "continue to live with it" is not an acceptable answer.
I expect there will be a lot of "say it isn't so" commentary about this. And a lot of "why is this suddenly a problem?" reactions. And a lot of technical nitpicking trying to make the case that the evidence is wrong, or something.
This is not the only issue where CN is stubbornly challenging a longstanding "elephant in the room", but that doesn't make them wrong.
The lesson for us enthusiasts and spectators is to not fall into the trap of pointing to some other country's equipment (which undoubtedly is better than ours) and ask, "if they can run this type of train in (pick a country), why can't we?". The simple answer is, North American railways are built a certain way (for good reason) - and those light, short trainsets are not compatible with our built railway infrastructure. We may be able to change the infrastructure, but that's a lot of money and takes time.... and maybe the infrastructure is how it is for a reason, and we should leave well enough alone. It's another reason why mixing passenger and freight doesn't necessarily work in North America, and maybe we need separate infrastructure in more places.
In the meanwhile, we can't just have trains going 100 mph without 100% confidence that the crossing protection will work 100% of the time, even if we have been living with a certain amount of that up to now.
- Paul