Plantersville Road, Jonesview, AL

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 10-14-23*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Dialight Low Wattage LEDs.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Dialight Low Wattage LEDs and an NEG electronic bell.

After M647 came through, I went over to this crossing for my third crossing of the day. After a bit of waiting, I was able to get this CSX L803 flying through with an SD40-3 leading an AC44CW for power!

This crossing is a pretty decent one and, although a bit on the boring side, is one I've been meaning to record for quite a while now, and it seems to have had a bit of an interesting history to it. It appears that, originally, there was an old gateless ACL install here. However, in the 1990s, CSX replaced the ACL signals with a newer pair of gateless signals, with these signals having a bell on the northern one. It appears that, in the 2000s, the bell here was replaced with a GS e-bell, assuming said bell wasn't the original one from the 90s install. Either way, sometime between 2009 and 2013, the lights here were upgraded with the current Dialight LEDs. Then, sometime between 2013 and 2014, the bell here was replaced with an NEG e-bell.
The crossing remained unchanged for a couple more years, but, in about 2016 or so, as part of CSX's PTC upgrade, CSX installed some new wayside signals right next to this crossing, where there hadn't been any before. Due to this upgrade, CSX decided to replace the existing relay case here with a much larger one to house the equipment for both the crossing and the wayside signals. At the same time, CSX chose to replace the signals here as a result. Interestingly, when CSX upgraded the signals here, they chose to keep the crossing gateless. They also chose to reuse the lights and bell onto the new signals, which definitely makes this crossing look a bit odd as a result, especially since the current signals here use 5 inch masts. Thankfully, since then, no major changes appear to have occurred to this crossing.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/G-Q/J ... tersville/