University Drive, Auburn, AL

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 4-3-24*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2.5 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, 1 Safetran 12x20 inch light, a dead Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After catching the Lee County siren test, I decided to hop on over to this crossing on the east side of Auburn as it'd been one I'd been meaning to film for a while. After nearly an hour of waiting here, I was able to catch my first of two trains on this day: a southbound CSX local freight with a lone AC44CW for power. After the train passes, you can hear the Opelika defect detector (located just west of this crossing and very much within Auburn's city limits) reading-out for it.

This crossing is a great one, featuring a nice mid-70s WofA install that's still almost entirely original. It appears that, in the late-90s or so, the front-right overhead light on the far signal was replaced with the current head. At about this same time, it appears that CSX replaced most of the original 20 inch backgrounds on the lights here with the current 24 inch ones, though strangely left one of the original 20 inch backgrounds on the rear-left overhead light of the closer signal.
Thankfully, since then, no further major changes appear to have occurred to this crossing, which I'm rather glad to see. I always do enjoy filming these (rarer) 1970s Safetran 12 inch heads, as they look rather neat, IMHO. This crossing also still retains a pair of 1st Generation Safetran mechanical bells, which is easily the biggest reason why I wanted to go for it. Sadly, they are very much in need of some TLC, as the closer signal's bell is dead while the one on the far side sounds a bit rough. Hopefully the bells are fixed-up here and they're able to remain around for many more years to come, but, either way, I'm glad I got to film these signals at long last.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/A ... niversity/