Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, Chattanooga, TN

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 9-23-23*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of GRS 8 inch lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of GRS 8 inch lights, a GRS STOP light, and a Safetran mechanical bell.

On September 23rd, I went back up to Chattanooga, TN, mainly to see if I could get the remaining undocumented crossings in the city documented for the site, along with maybe recording some crossings. I decided to head for this one first, as I had been wanting to record it for some time, and figured that the TVRM's Missionary Ridge Local would be the best train to do it with. Here we see the 11 AM Missionary Ridge Local shoving into the crossing and then pulling back-out, as they ran the wye after departing the Grand Junction Station, with the Southern 630 for power.

This crossing is a very nice one, and it should be easy to see why I'd been wanting to record it. This crossing is located at the entrance to the TVRM's museum area, and features a pair of very classic SOU signals from probably the 1950s or before, with almost all GRS equipment. It appears these were installed here by the TVRM to protect their wye track, so I'm glad to see they preserved these. The bell here is a Safetran mechanical bell, which was reused here sometime between 2009 and 2010 to replace a WCH e-bell these signals previously had. Not entirely sure where it came from either Bailey Avenue or McCallie Avenue, as those featured one-way Safetran cantilever set-ups prior to those roads being converted to two-way and the crossings being downgraded to just crossbucks. Strangely, the downgraded cantilevers still stand at both crossings, basically being used as traffic light mast-arms for the most-part.
I believe this crossing is also the only one left in the US with one of these rare STOP lights at it, even if the signals are technically preserved. There used to be some old GRS signals with the horizontal variant of these at 8 Street in Vancouver, WA, the last ones on a Class I mainline, but I believe those were replaced with gated signals in the late-2000s by BNSF and said crossing has long since been closed anyways. There was also reportedly one in Newton, KS, but a quick look around the city on street view shows that it's long gone, as it doesn't seem to appear anywhere on street view imagery, even back in 2007. Sadly, the one here has had the bulbs in the O and the P indications fail, but it's still nice to see none-the-less. Admittedly, this ain't the only one I've filmed either, the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum in Calera, AL, has a preserved example of a vertical US&S one, though not at a crossing.
The GRS 8 inch lights here are also quite nice to see, given how few GRS lights (outside of the Lex-Cs) still exist in the southeastern US. Sadly, the ones here could probably do with a good cleaning and maybe new reflectors/lenses, given how dim they seem to be. Still nice being able to film more though.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/A-F ... ooga/TVRR/