Vandals likely cause of Santa Rosa's rail crossing snafu

<p>Vandals are believed to be behind the malfunction of several railroad crossing warning systems Monday evening in downtown Santa Rosa, commute rail officials said.</p><p>“Our guy that was out there took a look at it, and they seem to think it was an act of vandalism, that somebody cut the bonding wires,” said Bill Gamlen, chief engineer for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, or SMART, which owns and maintains the rails.</p><p>The wires are attached to the rails and are part of the system that detects oncoming trains. If they are cut or otherwise damaged. the crossing gates automatically fail into the safe position, which is down, Gamlen said.</p><p>The crossing arms lowered at several locations near downtown just before 8 p.m. Monday and remained down with red lights flashing and alarm bells ringing.</p><p>SMART contracts with Summit Signals of Willits to operate the crossing guards. Company officials did not respond to calls for comment Tuesday.</p><p>Gamlen said a similar act of apparent vandalism occurred Sunday and temporarily disabled a crossing gate in Penngrove. </p><p>“It's one thing to have this happen now,” Gamlen said. “It would be a lot more serious if we were running passenger service.”</p><p>-- Jeremy Hay</p>