Church Road (SC 45), St. Stephen, SC

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 2-25-22*

Signal on the left: 4 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a dead NEG electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a Modern Industries mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After catching the CSX mixed freight, nothing seemed to be in the area so I went on down to St. Stephen to grab myself some lunch and wait for the next train to show up. About 4.5 hours later, this northbound CSX mixed freight with a cut of intermodal containers on the rear came rolling through with an ES40DC leading an ET44AH.

This crossing is a rather nice one, featuring a nice late-70s SCL Safetran install that's still largely original. It appears that in the 80s or 90s, CSX replaced the bell on the closer signal with a re-used Modern Industries bell mounted to a WCH base. Then, in the late-90s or early 2000s, the bell on the far signal got replaced with a General Signals e-bell. Then, sometime between 2008 and 2013, the General Signals e-bell here was replaced with an NEG e-bell. Then, sometime between 2013 and 2018, the bell on the far signal was replaced yet again with another, newer NEG e-bell which appears to be the bell the signal currently has. Since then, likely sometime more recently, the NEG e-bell currently here has also died, so it seems that that signal likes to eat e-bells or something, given that the GS e-bell here probably directly replaced the original Safetran mechanical bell from the late-70s.
In spite of that, I do quite like this crossing. Part of it's probably due to the fact that late-70s Safetran installs like this always just look rather nice, but the nice fading on the lights here definitely helps it a lot. The MI bell here is quite cool to see, something you don't see too often on former SCL lines it seems. The bell here also sounds somewhat noticeably rough, but still seems to be pretty healthy over all. Hopefully this crossing remains mostly unchanged for many more years to come as well.