Wouldn't quite say so. All-told we've probably found upwards of 1,000 bells, but per mile of track or per crossing they still are rare. However, we've found some useful trends:freebrickproductions wrote: Also, with 25 pages (and counting) of locations of Teardrop bells, would the count a rare anymore?
1. Teardrops tend to appear in conjunction with some permutation of Westinghouse "Triangle" gates or RACO Hydraulic gates out west.
2. Southern Pacific and its subsidiary roads (examples being Pacific Electric and the NWP) tended to use Teardrops more than...say...ATSF or UP (both loyal RACO and Griswold customers, respectively).
3. Countries that primarily did business with Westinghouse or any licensee thereof tend to have Teardrops (or, in the case of Japan, a NABCO "snowclone" of the Teardrop).
In keeping with #2 of this corollary, here's a few streetview captures of the McCloud Railway:
North Mount Shasta Boulevard, at the UP Interchange:
https://maps.google.com/?ll=41.321654,- ... .2,,0,0.56
...and two of 'em on County Highway A10:
https://maps.google.com/?ll=41.325996,- ... .81,,0,5.2
By the way, last I heard McCloud's gone dormant, as their dinner train operation haven't been scraping up the needed cash. Sad to see this line go, aside from the vintage crossings they've got one of the last standard-gauge switchbacks in the West.
