There is such a crossing near my home in St. Paul, MN. It is a four-track crossing. Between four and five freight trains travel on that Southern Pacific line, which goes from St. Paul to Chicago, on a circuitous route.

Since the crossing is on a street I commonly travel, I get to observe it on a frequent basis. Malfunctions of the crossing gates and lights are very common. Typically, the safety equipment fails safe, with the barriers down. The first time I encountered that, I made several phone calls to MN DOT and the St. Paul police department to report the situation. Typically the person I called had no idea what to do about the problem. Finally, I got a phone number for Southern Pacific, where I could report the crossing problems and speed up the response. There is a maintenance truck parked by the barrier controls very frequently.

In any case, when the barriers are down, people pull up, look both ways, and then drive around the barriers to proceed on their way. I have never encountered the barriers up with a train approaching. However, people here are used to having to drive around the barriers when the system malfunctions. It's a longish drive to turn around and take another route.

So, what was reported wouldn't surprise me. It's probably not the first time that trash truck has seen the barriers down. So, they are used to driving around the barriers. Since the congressional train was not a regular train, it probably was there during a time when there is normally no train traffic. That's the case where I live. I know the four trains that normally go through that crossing and the times they typically go through. That's because I can hear them quite clearly from my house, which is just two blocks away.

The trash truck may have encountered the barriers being down at a time when there is typically no traffic on that section of track. That may have led them to drive around the barriers without carefully checking for a train, since they may have had to do that on many other occasions.

the dispatcher and trucks for a trash collection company. Maintaining the schedule is the highest priority for the dispatcher, who constantly pushes the truck drivers, and often not in a nice way.