Beneath a railroad crossbuck at a crossing, a small rectangular plate displays the number 2. What does this supplementary plate tell the driver?

Why D is correct

The number plate under a crossbuck states how many tracks cross the roadway. The information is safety-critical in one specific way: when one train passes, another can be approaching on the adjacent track, hidden from view by the first train's length. That is why the rule at multi-track crossings is that you do not start across until the last car of the visible train has cleared the far track, and you re-scan both directions before moving, treating the passing train as a screen rather than as the only hazard present.

Why the other options are wrong

A. Trains here travel at two times normal speed

Speed is not advertised per crossing by number plate. Whatever the schedule or class of service, the stopping-distance arithmetic that keeps you alive at a crossing does not depend on the train's speed rating, and the plate means tracks.

B. The crossing was inspected two years ago

Whether a crossing was inspected, and when, is not published on the plate. Inspection and maintenance records sit with the railroad and the regulator, not on hardware beside the road, and the number on a crossbuck counts tracks and nothing else, so a maintenance date would have nowhere to go on it.

C. The crossing is two miles from the nearest town

Distances to towns are shown on green guide signs, not on railroad hardware. The plate's number relates only to the physical track layout at your front bumper, which is the only geography that matters to a car waiting at the crossing.

On the road

A two-track crossing outside a rail town: a long freight passes, and the car ahead of you noses out the moment the last container clears the near track. You hold back — and forty metres beyond the freight's tail, a second train is already sweeping through on the far track at full line speed. The number plate had told you both exactly this: two tracks, one screen.

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