Since every post on this thread seems to focus on legal issues and requirements, let me suggest the possibility that the train crew did not fully understand the technical operation of "automated" crossing protection. I don't know the particular railroads or specific crossing, but since lights and gates were mentioned, it is fairly certain that it was not a private crossing. In most of these systems there are two approach circuits and a center island circuit that is a little wider than the auto roadway. Starting from a completely reset system, the approach islands will trigger within a few seconds after detection (let's not complicate this with predictor electronis yet--GCP). A timer also starts that looks for island occupation. If the island isn't detected within a certain time, the gates go up. If that happens, and it does if there is a stop right before the crossing, the train must stop short of the crossing and tiptoe into the island to get a gate reset and drop the arms again. The "island" is very simple in electronic logic: If the island is occupied, the gates come down. The timer for the distant approach is just to make sure a dead track battery, stalled train or other malfunction won't tie up a crossing indefinitely. Some crew who don't get briefed on this detail may go through the crossing assuming the "automatic" aspects of the protection will function immediately. Once a timer has timed out, all crossings become "stop and proceed" (slowly). Even seasoned hoggers from large RRs working on branches and tourist operations can do this from habit, due to almost all mainline and state highway crossings being GCP these days. Crossings with grade crossing predictors change this behavior by actually sensing approach speed and varying the time before gate drop. Most GCPs can allow a stop short of the crossing, and resume functionality when train motion resumes. Rules for the big RRs state that trains must assure that gates are down before entering the crossing. This may or may not explain the scenario, but it seems that tourist RRs may need to make sure that trains do not just bolt forward from a gates-up situation, assuming the gates will drop before the crossing is fouled. Just a thought.