Turnstile barriers for protection of unguarded railroad crossings

Abstract

This paper proposes a mechanical system against car-bomb attack for the protection of unguarded railroad crossings. In 1982, a suicide car-bomb attack destroyed the Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 240 people. Similar suicide attacks continued in the following years and triggered the present research to counteract them. The result was the invention of the turnstile barrier described in this paper. The turnstile barrier was developed and thoroughly tested in 1987-1989, to protect important buildings and other installations against possible car-bomb attack by speeding vehicles carrying highly explosive materials. In 1995 the turnstile was certified by the US Department of State as a reliable barrier against such attacks and was placed on the DOS list of certified equipment, which is available for use by architects and planners. The turnstile barrier can easily be adapted to be used as an efficient and low cost device to prevent collisions between cars and trains at unguarded railroad crossings. The same basic system is used to deflect moving vehicles that fail to stop before a railroad crossing when trains approach.