what is the purpose of an elevated gate house on a railroad?

Answer 1

There used to be "gate houses" that were very short lived in our country, at least by that name. A "gate" is railroad slang for a track switch used to route equipment one way or another.

In addition, Germany, as well as some other European countries had crossing guards that would lower crossing gate protection on a schedule tied to the running time of the trains on the schedule, to protect roadway traffic, which were the manual version of the automatic crossing gates we have today.

In the U.S., gate houses came to be elevated so that the personnel inside could view the yard, and they were simply called "towers".

Just like airliners, engineers or trainmen would call the terminal "tower" for "yarding instructions", then the yardmaster would inform the crew as to the disposition of their train and power, the comparison being "FLT 220, cleared for approach on runway 25L" or such from an airport tower.