Brushy Mountain Road, Braswell, GA

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 5-21-23*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, an Invensys Rail gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, an Invensys Rail gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.

After catching that very strange NS 188, I went over to this crossing and set-up and waited. After about an hour of waiting, I was able to get my ninth train of the day: a northbound mixed freight making quite the roar as it climbed this hill with an AC44C6M leading an ES44AC and a Dash-9 for power. The crew was also friendly and gave me a nice horn salute as they passed.

This crossing's another decent one, with equipment that's admittedly a bit on the boring side. The signals here were installed by NS back in the early to mid-2010s, and are basically still entirely original. However, the main reason I went for this crossing wasn't so much for the equipment, but for the ENS signage.
During about the early to mid-2010s or so, NS began experimenting with blue ENS signage to comply with the coming regulation, though eventually decided to go with the standard design shown in the FHWA's MUTCD, with many other railroads using that design as well. This was NS's initial design of blue emergency signage, however, and was basically the older white ones, except it featured a white on blue color scheme rather than a black on white one like the older ones did. Unfortunately, NS didn't seem to use these much before quickly moving on to a different design (that they used a bit more widely before settling on the standard blue ones), and these ones aren't all that widespread as a result.
In fact, it seems these were primarily used on new installs from the brief time-frame they were being made, though thankfully this crossing happened to get signals in that short time-frame with these. Unfortunately, it seems they're only getting rarer as the years go on, due to the fact that many of them are getting quite faded these days, so NS is replacing them with newer ones. In fact, the one on the far signal is quite heavily faded, which is part of the reason why I'm glad I was able to set-up on this side with the one that's still in pretty good shape. I wouldn't be too surprised if these are soon replaced with newer, standard ones, but, either way, I'm glad I got to film this crossing when I did.
As a side note, it appears that the DOT tags stuck onto the relay cases at the installs of this age also featured the white-on-blue color scheme that the ENS signs do. Bit of a shame they never kept doing those either, as they reverted back to the black-on-white ones with the next design they used, and have kept those since.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/A-F/B ... _Mountain/