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Tau, Blaine County, Oklahoma.
Tau was the lesser-known sister town of Alpha and Omega, Oklahoma. Founded by Emery Collins in 1889 as a member of the land run. Tau was your normal rural Oklahoma town for the first years of its existence.
That was until the railroad came through town.
The railroad brought jobs to Tau, and with the added income the town expanded. At the hight of the town's life, there was two elementary schools, a middle school, a general store, a post office, and several motels to accommodate people traveling. The closest high school was Watonga High School in Watonga, 15 kilometers away.
There was one little thing about the railroad, however. In the north of the town there was a railroad crossing that was… dangerous after the car arrived, to say the least. No one really cared, until one man named Calvin O'Brian was killed in a collision. He didn't realize there was a train on the way until it was too late and he was hit. In his grief, his father—Clement O'Brian—decided to work on a project that would make sure this never happened again.
Clement began working on a crossing signal for this railroad in early October 1909. He equipped the ground with sensors that would detect from what direction a train car was coming from, and it would send a signal to the main crossing signal. It consisted of a large sign holder (gantry) with two arrows filled with xenon; one going left and the other going right. The arrow would light up in the direction the train was coming from.
He thought this would be enough to inform drivers of the oncoming train, but it wasn't. More people were crushed by trains, and Clement added to the crossing signal more each time.
First he added a crossbuck (the X with "railroad crossing" on it), then bar gates, then a bell. He eventually hired a flag man to wave a flag to warn drivers. When those didn't work, he let the flag man go and installed a "Stop, look, and listen" sign. Nothing was working, so he went the terror route.
He changed the gantry to include a skull and the words "STOP - CERTAIN DEATH APPROACHES" that would flash with the same xenon lamps. When not even this worked, he added many more signs, tire popping spikes, stronger bars, and barbed wire. Finally, in late 1919, he added the crowning jewel of his invention.
He added an air raid siren that could be heard all the way in Watonga. This finally worked; it terrified drivers so much they were so terrified they had to stop. This creation was hated by townspeople and the railroad company alike, but he kept it in place. He had finally avenged his son after many years of work.
As the signal got older, it started falling into disrepair. The xenon lamps started to break, the spikes would stay up after being deployed, and more; the siren would even stay on after the train passed. People had to come by and fix each component various times, and it became too expensive for Clement to hire people to fix it. He began to do it himself.
One late December night in the middle of a snowstorm, Clement went to fix a part of his magnum opus. As he did, a train came across the tracks. After gazing into the lights for several seconds, he stepped onto the tracks and was hit.
He had to have died instantly upon being struck. He lived a life of struggle and toil and died underneath the fruit of his life's work. Who knows exactly why he did that; maybe he finally just wanted to be with his son in whatever afterlife there was. Blaine County was devoutly Christian, after all.
After a few months, the town removed the signal and sold it for parts. Despite the money from selling it, Tau's economy crashed. The railroad didn't even go through town anymore.
At least no one would end up like Clement O'Brian in Tau anymore.