Johnson Avenue #1, Talladega, AL

[freebrickproductions]

Signal on the far left: 2.5 pairs of Harmon 12x24 inch lights, 1.5 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a General Signals Type-1 e-bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO gate lights.
Signal on the near left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran Type-3 e-bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

For some reason the bells here ring until the gates start to rise.

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Alabama/Talladega/Johnson/

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 5-11-22*

Signal on the far left: 4 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, a General Signals Type 1 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.
Signal on the near left: 1 pair of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.

This was the second train I caught on May 11th. This was a southbound autorack train heading for Inter-Rail with a YN2 AC44CW leading a YN3b AC44CW. It was sweet getting two YN2 leaders in a row for my first two trains out here, though I believe these were the only two YN2 units I caught leading all afternoon.

Since I last recorded this crossing all the way back in 2015, there have been a few changes here. The biggest and most notable one is that the crossing was given a full LED upgrade, with all remaining incandescent lights (including the gate lights on the far signal) being upgraded to LED. This change happened a few years ago, as I documented the LEDs here back in 2019, but I've only just finally been able to get it recorded. Almost all of the light heads here were replaced with WCH ones during this upgrade, though both mast signals on the closer side of the crossing still retain their original Safetran lights on the rear pair, just with Leotke EV Series LEDs in them now. Not entirely sure why CSX did the upgrade here this way, but I suspect CSX may have wanted to replace all of the lights here, but undercounted/underestimated the number of lights here by two pairs.
Since this upgrade though, the only changes I noticed is that both gated signals had their tip gate lights replaced with NEG LED gate lights. Thankfully, no other major changes appear to have occurred here and the neat GS Type 1/Safetran Type 3 bell combo remains here. Unfortunately, the bells here no longer ring while the gate are down, however.
The crossing also had a long tail-ring malfunction after the train had passed.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/R-Z/T ... /Johnson1/