What did a railway gatekeeper do?

[myluck!]

No danger to the gates but unfortunately grave danger to railway users
It is amazing to think you may not hear a train travelling towards you i.e. a monster of an engine plus wagons and/or carriages

This article is from only last month
http://www.roscommonherald.ie/news/story/?trs=kfauidgboj

Many people are injured each year at both manned and unmanned crossings through total accident, sometmes ignorance and in some cases pure stupidity.
In some urban areas the unmanned crossings are nearly more lethal as people take chances running across because they feel the gates close too early, not to mention attempting to drive through although the gates are starting to lower.
In this I am not referring to incidents anywhere else along rail lines - just crossings.

[Nick29]

No danger to the gates but unfortunately grave danger to railway users

Oh, I'm aware of the danger, which is why I avoid this crossing like the plague.  Fortunately, the road is in a loop, and where the track runs across the road further up the track there are automatic barriers, so most of the locals use the crossing with the barriers, even though it means a one mile detour.

[Redroger]

Whilst not being familiar with the specific area, it sounds very much as though when the railway wanted to divert the crossing and extinguish user rights on the former crossing, one of the residents, business or home objected, and was able to claim that his right of access via the crossing existed in perpetuity.
Most accidents on level crossings to vehicles and pedestrians are caused by the stupidity and risk taking of users, sometimes with serious consequences, over 20 years ago, there was an incident on a crossing at Lockington nr. Hull when a train was derailed causing the deaths of several passengers. Eventually the railway brought a successful case against the insurers of the vehicle driver, hopefully this precedent will concentrate a few minds in tghe insurance industry.

[Nick29]

Apparently, before the war, the road here didn't go beyond the railway line.   When the war came, they extended the road to form a loop, and inside the loop they placed decoy trains and vehicles, to try to fool the Germans into thinking that the area was a marshalling yard, which in reality was not far away.   When the war ended, the road stayed.

[Rena]

I think your ancestor would have been a very busy man as Driffield connected sea ports to large inland markets and likewise the English hinterland had access to ships which could export their goods, (railway lines as shown on this webpage):

http://www.lner.info/co/NER/MDR/

There's another (genealogy) website which admittedly describes a later era but it shows just how important Driffield and the railway was:
 
<<Alf Limburn, an old relief signalman who still lives in Driffield, can remember recording as many as 125 train movements before lunch. >>

http://www.driffield.org.uk/Driffieldrailway.html

[GrizzlyDad]

Yes, Driffield does seem to have been a lot busier then than now as a railway hub. I'm grateful to everyone who's contributed to the discussion as I am much more knowledgable now than when I posted the topic.

I like to think I'll find more about John Botterill as I search through records and newspapers - please someone digitise the Driffield Times - but in a way it's harder to find out about someone who worked long and hard and didn't get into trouble. We'll see.

[Redroger]

Remember though that when Driffield was a busy junction he would have been very unlikely to have been employed as a crossing keeper on a busy main line. Any at grade crossings on a main line with the traffic density suggested by 125 train movements on the early shift would have had mechanically operated crossing gates controlled by signalmen from signal boxes. Crossing keepers were only practical where traffic density was light.

[Rena]

I lived in the port of Hull and as a kid stood in a field and collected passing engine numbers of goods trains and passenger trains.  I doubt if our group of youngsters would have hung around if there wasn't much action 

From 1955 I cycled to work and it wasn't until later in the 1950's that the busy level crossing gateman was relieved of manually closing and opening the two road gates and the four pedestrian gates.

[Redroger]

On further reflection it did also depend on the density of road traffic as to whether or not a crossing was mechanised; two I am very familiar with, London Road and West Street Boston were both mechanised in the 1940s and probably earlier, the rail traffic at London Road was considerably lighter than that at West Street, though the road traffic was arguably heavier. Even so, the total rail traffic would be considerably less than the 125 suggested on the day shift, so it is very surprising to me that this crossing at Driffield was not mechanised.