Closed

When I go shopping for my mother and drive to her house, I usually need to cross the railway line at least twice. It’s quite a busy line that runs parallel to the Rhine, and most streets cross it in tunnels or on bridges, but the closest one to us has this level crossing.

Today when I approached it, the gates were closed and there was already a long queue of cars. So I thought, it will be opening soon. A minute or so after I had stopped, a long freight train passed, and then… nothing happened. 
We waited some more, and a ICE (fast train) rushed past us. Finally, the gates opened and the line of cars started to move.

Not quite fast enough, though. Just before I reached the gates, they started to close again. We had to wait another couple of minutes for this delayed local train, and since I was in the first car waiting at the crossing now, I blipped it. After all, it had just stolen about 15 minutes of my day.