Antioch Highway 51, Covington, TN

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 4-22-26*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Safetran Fading LEDs, 1 Safetran 12x24 inch light with a Dialight Ball LED, 1 Safetran 12x24 inch light with a Harmon Fading LED, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Safetran Fading LEDs, 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Dialight Ball LEDs, a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After catching Covington's siren test, we saw that CN had something lined north through Covington so we hopped up to this crossing to wait for it. After a bit of waiting, we were able to catch our third train of the day: a northbound empty CN coal train with a 100th Anniversary ES44AC pulling on the head-end and a 100th Anniversary ET44AC pushing on the rear of the train's DPU!

This crossing is a pretty decent one, featuring an early-90s IC install that's been a bit modernized over the years. In the 2000s, it appears CN upgraded this crossing to LED. Interestingly, it appears the current mix of LEDs is original to the LED upgrade, though I'm not entirely sure why it was done this way. Either way, at about the same time, the closer signal had its bell and gate mech replaced with the current equipment. Thankfully, since then, nothing else too major appears to have changed to this crossing. No idea why the crossing deactivated so late here either.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/A- ... ch_Hwy_51/