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Rodents gnawing through a cable caused the downtown Mountain View railroad crossing gates to get stuck in the down position early Wednesday morning, leading to hours of flashing lights, clanging bells and traffic backups.
Mountain View police notified Caltrain of the issue at around 1 a.m., after Waymo reported that one of its autonomous cars was stuck at the Castro Street rail crossing, city spokesperson Brian Babcock told the Voice. At about 7:30 a.m., Caltrain told the city that its crews were on scene addressing the issue, Babcock said.
Upon arrival, workers found a damaged ethernet cable that had been chewed by rodents, according to Caltrain spokesperson Dan Lieberman. The crews replaced the wiring, which is associated with the crossing mechanism, and the gates were operational again by 8 a.m., Liberman said.
“This kind of incident is quite rare,” he said via text, adding that Caltrain officials are working on “an engineering solution” to address similar issues in the future.
During the incident, cars heading north on Castro Street were stopped at the railroad crossing. However, Lieberman confirmed that no cars were stuck on the tracks and that Caltrain’s schedule was not affected.
Southbound vehicles are already blocked from crossing the downtown Caltrain tracks, a restriction that the city put in place during the pandemic.
