Pedestrian Crossing, Pascagoula, MS

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Pedestrian Crossing, Pascagoula, MS

Post by freebrickproductions » Fri Jul 29, 2022 3:07 pm



*originally recorded on 5-19-22*

Signal on the left: a Safetran Type 2 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and a dead RECO gate light.
Signal on the right: a Safetran Type 2 electronic bell and a Safetran gate mechanism.

On May 19th, I got up and went out to Pascagoula to get four more crossings of interest there recorded. After waiting here for a few hours (with the driver of a truck that pulled-up to make a delivery thankfully being kind enough to turn the engine off), this westbound CSX local freight came through with an SD40-3 for power again, though a different one from the one I caught yesterday.

This crossing is a pretty neat little crossing, IMHO, even if others find it a bit boring. In fact, the page for this crossing on the site only features two pictures as those were the only two pictures TrainmanKight shot as he just found the crossing super uninteresting. As always, I do like filming pedestrian crossings, and I find set-ups without lights like this kinda neat. Honestly kinda reminds me of some ped crossings over in the Netherlands.
These signals appear to have been installed by CSX back in the mid-2000s, with no major changes since. It appears that this crossing originally had RECO gate lights on both signals, but CSX seems to have stopped maintaining them early-on, as this crossing was caught in action back in 2013 by street view and neither gate light seemed to work at the time. Between 2013 and 2016, the closer signal had its gate arm replaced and lost its RECO gate light, but as the other signal still (thankfully) retains its original arm, it still has it's (nonfunctional) RECO gate light.
I'm actually not entirely sure where this crossing is controlled from. It activated with the Pascagoula Street crossing to my east and deactivated with the Magnolia Street crossing to my west, I assume the inverse would be for an eastbound train. However, despite that, its relays don't seem to be housed with either crossing. The old NE Pascagoula relay case is still around from when this crossing was installed, though that one seems like it was disconnected and left in place by CSX, so I don't think the crossing is currently controlled from there, unless there's still power being run to it for this crossing. It's also possible that the crossing is also controlled from the current NE Pascagoula case, though I don't recall hearing the wayside signals here having issues, so I doubt it's run from there either.
Seems like this crossing does need a bit of TLC though. As mentioned above, CSX seems to have stopped maintaining the gate lights on these signals years ago and even removed one at one point, and I'm kinda surprised they haven't either fixed and reinstalled the missing one, or removed the remaining one. The far signal's gate mech also probably needs a new capacitor for it, as it begins to descent immediately upon activation while the closer signal has a delay to it. Looking at the time GSV caught the crossing activating, both signals lowered their gate arms at the same time. Finally, I'm just glad I got this crossing first, as not too long after I filmed this crossing and moved to my next one, it began malfunctioning (with neither of the surrounding signals being affected, it seems), occasionally beginning to raise or even raising and almost immediately lowering again.
All in all, this is a rather neat little crossing and I'm quite glad I got to record it. Hopefully CSX does a bit of needed TLC to it though.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Mississippi/P ... edestrian/
They/Them for me, please.

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