Parks Street, Newbern, TN

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 4-15-26*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with Safetran Fading LEDs, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Dialight Ball LEDs, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After catching the northbound mixed freight, I decided to hop over to York Street and see if I could try to get a southbound at that crossing. However, while waiting there, I heard a northbound hit the Dyersburg detector, so I decided to hop over to this crossing to record it. After a bit of waiting, I was able to catch my fourth train of the day: a northbound empty CN coal train with a CN ES44AC pulling on the head-end and an ex-CitiRail CN ES44AC working as the train's DPU, still wearing its original (patched) CitiRail paint! A bit of a shame that it wasn't leading, but it was nice getting to see another one of these on this day. After this, I hit the road and made it down to Memphis to catch their weekly siren test.

This crossing is another pretty decent one, and appears to have also originally been installed in the late-90s by the IC along with the neighboring Jefferson Street crossing. In the 2000s, it appears, CN upgraded this crossing to LED with the current Safetran Fading LEDs on the far signal and some Dialight Ball LEDs on the closer signal. Then, sometime between 2012 and 2016, CN replaced all of the original 24 inch backgrounds here with 20 inch ones. After that, sometime between 2016 and when EthantheRailfanner first visited this crossing in 2020, CN replaced the original Safetran Hybrid Bell here with the current Safetran Type 3 e-bell here. Finally, sometime between Ethan's visit in 2020 and 2023, CN replaced the closer signal here with the current one. Interestingly, this signal appears to either have been an older spare or was reused from somewhere, given that it features an older Siemens gate mech from the mid-2010s on it. The lights on this signal are definitely all reused ones, as they're a set of mid-90s Safetran heads with some Dialight Ball LEDs in them. For whatever reason, they're mounted rather off-centered on the mast, which certainly gives them a bit of an unusual look. I'm not entirely sure why CN mounted them this way, but I do think it looks a bit neat as a result.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/G-Q/Newbern/Parks/