Moore's Street, Leeds, AL

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 3-18-20*

Signal on the far left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the near left: 3 pairs of cast-iron WRRS 8 inch lights.
Signal on the nera right: 1.5 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, 1 Safetran 12x20 inch light, a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After seeing that abandoned crossbuck near downtown Birmingham, I continued on documenting crossings in the Birmingham area. When I got to this crossing on the NS P Line, I heard a train horn in the distance. I wasn't sure if it was coming from the P Line or the East End District, but I decided to go ahead and set-up here anyways since it sounded like it came from the P Line. And sure enough, after just a bit of waiting, NS 373 came through this crossing with an ES44AC leading an SD70ACu and an ES44DC. Not the most interesting lash-up out there, but this is a nice crossing, so I'm glad I was able to record it.

This crossing is a fairly nice one, and I'm glad I was able to record it. The signals here appear to have originally been an all-WRRS install from the Central of Georgia. However, it appears that the gated signals upgraded by either the SOU or NS in the late-70s/80s. Not entirely sure who did the upgrades and when, as the right-hand gated signal features a mixture of older and newer Safetran 12 inch lights, while the far signal features all newer Safetran 12 inch lights. Either way, it appears that the signals then remained further unchanged until the early 2000s, when the bell and both gate mechs were replaced by the current equipment. Most recently, sometime after 2008, NS replaced the front-left light with a Safetran 12x20 (most likely due to the previous one being struck by a truck) and upgraded the gate lights to LED. However, despite all of these upgrades, the gateless auxiliary signal here has pretty much remained almost completely untouched, which makes this one of only two crossings on the northern end of the line (between Leeds and Sylacauga) to retain 8 inch lights.

Apologies for the truck getting in my shot, I tried pointing my camera out to the driver as he pulled up, but he still pulled into my shot anyways. Thankfully, because I wanted to be on the same side as the 8 inch signal, the classic CofG signal here can be seen throughout the video.The bell here also rang when the gates rose (which might be a clue that this was upgraded in the 80s by NS), though it might be a bit hard to hear over the truck. However, my camera did thankfully pick the bell up better than my own ears did.