It's interesting this came up when it did.
Yesterday on the way home from work, I was waiting to cross Grand Ave, whcih is parallel with railroad tracks that often have trains on them at the times I am there, usually passing the intersection within 2-3 minutes, depending on how long they are. Grand goes from southeast to northwest, and is at 45 degrees to Northern (whcih goes east-west and is what I travel on right now), and another street goes over the top of the intersection via bridge, but has a feeder street that goes north-south and crosses at right angles to Northern ( and also 45 degrees to Grand).
I always cross the tracks at right angles to prevent the tire-stuck / crash problem.
But not all car drivers do...some of them are morons, and decide to go around the traffic control lights when red, whcih also say no right turns on red, by going onto the tracks themselves and then worming their way left into a lane. It's happened twice while I've been waiting to cross, once with a larger newer sedan, and once with a little bitty car (Yugo-sized, I'd guess).
I really wish I had had my camera with me, becuase that little car, with a donut on the rear left, got himself stuck on the tracks (not quite the way a bike can, but unable to get the tire over the rail while nearly parallel to them, after he'd run out of asphalt and was on the crossbeams and gravel part), while doing that stupid maneuver. He panicked and was spinning tires and throwing gravel, but couldn't get that tire up on the rails and over, just going further down the tracks, until finally he got smart and put it in reverse, until he was back on the asphalt at the intersection (but then he almost backed into another car waiting to turn--if that car hadn't themselves been watching, saw him coming, and backed up they would have been hit). This time he waited for the red light to clear.
Funny thing is that if he had just waited a few seconds, the light had changed to green while he was panicking to get off the tracks, and everyone else was already going, except me (because I waited off to the side to see what was going to happen, not being in any hurry to go home yet). By the time he figured out to back up onto the asphalt it had already changed to red again.
I've also seen three cars go across teh tracks while the train crossing lights are flashing but the train isn't there yet, then get stuck blocking part of Grand Ave with traffic flowing, other cars honking at them as they have to slow and go around them sticking out into their lane...but the car still isnt' clear of the tracks yet, and if a gap didnt' open up for them to go inot the traffic on Grand (which isnt' where they were trying to go, AFAICT) then they'd be hit by the train when it did finally get there. Again, if they were just patient, they could have crossed normally--one of the "trains" was just a couple of engines and no cars, so it only took about 30 seconds to cross and the traffic controls to let everyone thru again.
There arent' a lot of train tracks here in town, and the few places I've been two have them at nearly right angles to the road they cross, except for Grand--if you want to cross those at rigth angles you ahve to start in the right half of your lane, then go 45 degrees thru your lane while crossing, to end up in the left half of your lane and then go back to the right half or middle of your lane once across.
Interestingly no one has honked at me or tried to run me over while I did that, even when the light was green when I got there and no one slowed down from the 40-50MPH they're doing there, and I'm only at about 15-18MPH (because road conditions for about half a mile around that intersection are not very good). Hasn't mattered whether I was on the trike or on CrazyBike2 so far.
Anyway, just chiming in in my own wierd OT way.
it was so slippery and dangerous
Good to hear you are not broken anywhere.
