54th Street, Huguley, AL

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 10-18-18*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of Modern Industries 12x20 inch lights and a Safetran mechanical bell.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of Modern Industries 12x20 inch lights and a dying Modern Industries mechanical bell.

This crossing is a pretty nice one. I'm not entirely sure if it's a later A&WP install, or an early SBD install, though it does remind me a fair amount of late L&N installs. I believe the Safetran bell on the far signal isn't original to the crossing either. This is one of just two crossings I'm aware of along the CSX WofA Subdivision with a Modern Industries mechanical bell, and like the other one, this one sadly sounds like it's dying. Kinda fitting though, that I started off my trip at a cantilevered crossing with a dying Modern Industries bell, only to end it on another cantilevered crossing with a dying MI bell. Huguley, AL only has two other crossings in it, both of which are gateless 1990s CSX installs. One of them has two WCH mechanical bells while the other only has one (weak sounding) WCH mechanical bell. Would like to get back here and record those two other crossings at some point in the near future.

Huguley is far from the largest city out there, so y'all might be wondering why this street is called 54th Street? Well, it appears that due to the cities/towns of Lanett, AL; Huguley, AL; Valley, AL; and West Point, GA all growing together at some point, they all decided to uniformly number their streets, so that the numbers continued increasing away from the "center", no matter which town you were in. And where the center is, you might ask? Well, it appears to be the intersection of 1st Street and US 29 in Lanett, AL, just southwest of the Georgia state line. Not entirely sure why that was chosen as the "center" of this little "metro-area", as the only thing of note there is a Circle K gas station and a few older traffic signals (including a few abandoned pedestrian signals). In fact, it wasn't even where the parking lot for the now-torn-down factory in Lanett was! So y'all's guess for this is just as good as mine. For whatever reason as well, CSX calls this crossing F O P Road, while the FRA and the town both call it 54th Avenue. Google Maps just gets confused as calls the road by both names.