Dunton Avenue, Arlington Heights, IL

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Dunton Avenue, Arlington Heights, IL

Post by freebrickproductions » Thu Aug 04, 2022 5:29 pm



*originally recorded on 6-4-22*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Electro-tech LEDs, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Electro-tech LEDs, an ASC electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Pedestrian signal on the left: a Safetran gate mechanism.
Pedestrian signal on the right: a Safetran gate mechanism.
This crossing is in a quiet zone. Trains do not blow their horns at this crossing.

While at Whinny City Pony Con, I still wanted to get out some and do at least a little bit of railfanning. As such, on Saturday evening, I decided to hop on up to the UP Harvard Sub in Arlington Heights since it wasn't too far from the hotel the convention is at. When I got up here, an outbound Metra was due to arrive at the station here, so I set on up at this crossing. Not too long after, the outbound Metra pulled into the station with an F40PH-3 for power. After this I waited around a bit, but decided to head on back to the hotel. There was an inbound Metra that eventually did get lined through Arlington Heights, but there were some panels and musicians I wanted to catch at the convention, so I decided to let that one go.

This crossing is a rather nice one, and I'm glad I got to record it as my first crossing in Illinois. The signals here seem to have been installed by the Chicago & Northwestern back in the mid-1980s, and featured Safetran Model 85 gate mechs for the pedestrian gates. In the mid-90s, the C&NW replaced the bell here with the current ASC e-bell and the right-hand pedestrian signal had its gate mech replaced with the current one. The crossing then remained unchanged until the late-2000s/early-2010s, when it appears UP gate the crossing its LED upgrade. At around the same time, the remaining Safetran Model 85 gate mech here was sadly also replaced with the current Safetran one. Since then, however, thankfully no further major changes appear to have occurred to this crossing.
I'm honestly quite glad to see these older signals are still around here, especially since the closer road signal still retains an ASC e-bell. Don't really get to record these too often, especially since the ones closest to me were sadly removed when the crossing they were at in Nashville was closed. This ASC e-bell is also the less-common directional variant of the ASC e-bell, so it was nice getting to find and film one of those for the first time. Hopefully no major changes occur to this crossing for many more years to come, but it's definitely another nice one I'm glad I got to film.
This crossing is also located right next to the Arlington Heights Metra station.
They/Them for me, please.

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