Rail Guard May Have Contributed to Crash : Chatsworth: A driver was hurt skirting a gate that reportedly was often down for no apparent reason. The railroad says the problem is fixed.

A malfunctioning railroad crossing gate may have contributed to an accident in which a car was broadsided by a train in Chatsworth last week, leaving the 72-year-old driver of the car critically injured.

The car driven by Paul Kopelan of New Jersey was crushed Wednesday after Kopelan drove around the lowered crossing gate and into the train’s path in the 9000 block of Corbin Avenue near Nordhoff Street, Los Angeles police said. On Sunday, he remained in critical condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Eleven people contacted The Times after they read the story about Kopelan, saying the crossing gate at the Corbin Avenue tracks would often be lowered for up to half an hour without any trains in sight. It had become commonplace for frustrated drivers to drive around the arms, they said.

Several also said they had complained about the problem to Southern Pacific Transportation Co. without any results.

A Southern Pacific spokesman in San Francisco acknowledged that the gate was “on the fritz” and said work crews were sent out Friday and fixed it.

“It would take a signal engineer to tell you exactly what was wrong, but it appears that the signal control unit was malfunctioning,” company spokesman Mike Furtney said.

Furtney declined comment on the accident itself and said he was not aware of past complaints about the problem.

The gates should only stay down long enough for a train to pass, Furtney said. But callers said that had not been the case for several months.

“I once waited 33 minutes and never saw a train,” said Daniel Hobbit, who lives several blocks away. “I’ve seen drivers get out and lift up the arm of the gate and let others pass through.”

Another man who called The Times admitted to just such an action, defending it by saying, “I had no idea if it would ever go back up, so I looked each way and lifted it up.”

“It was down for 15 minutes after the train was gone--there were about 30 other cars who were thinking the same damn thing,” said the caller, who gave only the name Sean.

Hobbit said he had complained to Southern Pacific several times without results.

Furtney said the company will post a toll-free number on the gate that citizens can call to report any problems.

“We’re aware that’s a very busy intersection. We’ve asked our repair staff to keep any eye on it,” he said. “But we may also need the police department or some citizen to alert us about these problems.”

Times staff writer Michael Arkush contributed to this story.