Black Oak Road, Bonneau, SC

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 2-25-22*

Signal on the left: 1 pair of Harmon 8 inch lights, 1 pair of Safetran 8 inch lights, 2 pairs of Harmon 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of Harmon 8 inch lights, 1 pair of Safetran 8 inch lights, 2 pairs of Harmon 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After catching the northbound mixed freight in St. Stephen, I heard them meeting something to my north so I quickly made my way down to this crossing in Bonneau to catch them. The train they met turned-out to be Q401, which we get to see come through here with an ES44AH leading an ES40DC and an ST70AH on the head-end and another ES44AH working as the mid-train DPU. The Bonneau defect detector just south of me actually wound-up catching a bad axle bearing on one of the cars towards the rear of this train, which would hold them up in Moncks Corner for a little while. Forget the exact car count number (and out of how many cars they had) that the conductor told me it was, but I do know the car was a tank car numbered SHPX 204634, which can be seen passing by at 3:26 in the video.
Had I known that there was both a defect detector just south of me, and it'd catch a defect, I probably would've tried to record it, TBH.

On the other hand, this crossing is a very nice one, and I'm certainly glad I was able to record this one, at the very least. These signals were installed by the SCL back in the late-70s, and are pretty much entirely original with no major changes having been done to them since they were installed. Of course, the gate arms, gate lights, and signage are all newer, but most of the original equipment is still here. The gate mechs here did get raised-up a bit sometime after 2008, likely to keep them high enough above the road, but they're both still the original Safetran ones. Both of the Safetran mechanical bells are also still here, which is quite nice to see, and they also still sound quite healthy. Hopefully this crossing continues to be fully original for many more years to come, and it's definitely one that I'm quite glad I got to record on this trip.