Unmanned rly crossings: Users put selves in a spot

Scene 1: On Monday around 2.30pm, when TOI reporter and lensman visited the Unmanned Level Crossing (ULC) at Khargapur, Gomtinagar, there were many schoolchildren crossing it on their cycles. Some of them even got their cycle wheel trapped in the track but they managed.
Scene 2: Five minutes later, a freight train carrying oil containers passed by.When TOI caught up with the students who had just crossed, they said they do it everyday. It's the temptation to save that five minutes they would 'waste' in waiting for the train that makes them hurry along.
Scene 3: Children weren't the only ones to throw caution to the winds. A father and son duo, crossing the track on their bike, escaped a passenger train by a whisker.
Lucknow: The man and his son could have died on Monday. They were in a tearing hurry to cross the ULC at Khargapur but before they could, their vehicle got stuck and the passenger train arrived on the next track.
Onlookers watched with bated breath as the duo stood still.
In a reality check of ULCs in Lucknow, TOI found daily commuters putting their lives in danger everyday. According to residents, every day over 24 trains, including passenger, freight and express, pass from Khargapur railway crossing which is behind Sahara Hospital. Many road users said they have found themselves in a spot many a times. There are prominent schools, colleges, hostels and hospitals near the location.
But railways have put no safety features at the crossing, neither a rumble strip nor a board telling people to "stop, look and then cross".
Ideally, a train should blow the whistle from 600 meters ahead of the ULC but the TOI team noticed that none of the trains that pass did so.
"I have to do this everyday because I am escorting my kids," said Aparna Mukhiya who crosses the ULC daily.
Six year-old Akshat Bhomik resides near the railway crossing and wouldn't miss his favourite cartoon show for anything. He was seen crossing the tracks in a hurry.
"There are thousands of people residing near the crossing and they cross the tracks all day," said Rakesh Kashyap who resides near Sahara Hospital.