Crossing Gate

Brown Box Era HO-Scale

Operating Crossing Gate

Crossing Gate
(No.908)

First found on the back cover of the 1968-69 catalog listed as "New in '68," the No.908 Crossing Gate Set remained until TYCO dropped trains in the early 1990s.

The Crossing Gate, listed among Action Cars & Accessories, works without electricity. As a train passes it depresses the piece of plastic located between the rails. This causes the gate to lower. When the train clears, the pressure is gone and the gate raises. One minor goof in this system does work well with cars longer than the plastic piece. Cars with a length of 62' or longer have enough gap between the wheel sets that allows the gate to raise momentarily as they pass. Another functional liability is that the car's weight must bring down the plastic piece. Often many cars don't weigh enough or have wheel sets that want to derail over this piece. Generally however, this item does what it is designed to do without fail.

Crossing Gate No.908

What Did It Come From?

Where Did It Go?

Revell Crossing Gate

Though the base molding appears different, Revell's Operating Crossing Gate(T-6016) is very similar to what TYCO produced as its No.908 Crossing Gate. Perhaps this was the inspiration for TYCO's accessory. This Revell item was available in the company's HO-scale train line offered during the '50s and early '60s.

Other manufacturers have offered crossing gates including AHM, Athearn, Bachmann, Cox, and Life-Like among others, it is after all a very typical accessory for a layout, but only the Revell and Pemco models share such close similarity to TYCO's crossing gate.

Pemco Crossing Gate

Another close relative to TYCO's No.908 Crossing Gate is Pemco's Crossing Gate(No.3802). Rumor is that Aurora was planning to launch a ready-to-run train line around 1980 and it never happened. Apparently enough items were produced and available that the remains of this aborted offering hit the streets under the Pemco Railway System name. These items came in black boxes with gold trim. Similar items have been found with the Aurora name on them from the Canadian market.