18th Street, Bessemer, AL

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 1-29-22*

Signal on the left: 1 pair of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO gate lights.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Siemens gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After the NS mixed freight came through, Amtrak 20 was running behind it, so we quickly raced on back up to this crossing, having a few minutes to spare after getting here. Here we see Amtrak 20 on its way to New York with a pair of P42DCs for power.

This crossing is a pretty modern NS install, though it's still a bit neat IMHO as it's on a one-way street. It appears that previously, this crossing had a 1980s NS install, but by the late-2000s, the original Safetran mechanical bell had been replaced with a Safetran Type 3 e-bell. The crossing then remained relatively unchanged, but sometime between 2014 and 2016, the first Safetran Type 3 here was replaced with a General Signals e-bell. The crossing then remained unchanged until sometime between 2018 and 2019, when NS replaced both signals here with the current ones. Since then, no major changes appear to have occurred here.
A bit unusually, NS chose to use a Safetran Type 3 e-bell on the new signals here, which they hadn't really been using since about 2016 or so. The occasional one would crop-up here or there, but for the most part, new bells on NS were typically GS Type 3s. No idea why they chose to use a Safetran Type 3 here though.
As you can see as well, one of the gate lights on the left-hand signal here was out at the time.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/Bessemer/18_St/