Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Wow... that's really kind of shocking. I'm surprised that they at least didn't change the light heads to new ones. (Of course, they may have not gotten around to doing that yet.)

Was all that work really necessary? At one point I'm guessing there were more tracks so that is why the signals were spaced out farther?

Is there some type of regulation that requires they move the signals in when a track is removed?

Yes, if you look up the crossing record, there used to be more than one track (infact I remember a "2 Tracks" sign being there when growing up), but there hasn't been in at least 15 years (I don't ever remember seeing two tracks at this crossing). I thought with all the train activity expected that they'd re-install a second track, but obviously that's not the case, which means this will probably be one busy crossing in the near future.

The light upgrade isn't out of the question, and I guess we'll just have to keep waiting to see what happens.

It appears that the signals are now wired to the new relay case. The lights now flash at a much faster rate (about the speed of Viall Ave 2 and Broadway), but the bell stayed the same (rings when the gates are lowering/raising, silent when gates are down). No other noticable changes at the crossing (the damaged crossbuck is still messed up).

That seems like a lot of work to do just to move the signals a few feet. What's the point?

gedunk wrote:That seems like a lot of work to do just to move the signals a few feet. What's the point?

That was my question. Is there some regulation that requires the signals to be moved when an extra track is taken out? I have seen that happen quite a few times.

I wonder that too...

There are a lot of instances on the site where track has been removed, but the signals still remain in place, even after taking about 2 tracks or so out.

KLM92 wrote:Those gate signals are either old TP model S signals or the Raco version of the signal from after TP was bought out. By the way, how would you like to have that front yard?

Not as much as you

WELL. The cones and bases on the east side of the crossing have remained in their places since the signals got moved. Today, I was treated to a surprise though:

http://www.uploads.calvinet.com/uploads/1318347192.jpg

http://www.uploads.calvinet.com/uploads/1318299312.jpg

What surprises me is that it's not from WCH! It's from US&S. This is the only new thing at the crossing (no other new signals lying around). As you can see, the cone and base on the other side of the crossing is still there. IDK if they'll install another signal on that base, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did. This sort of opens up the 2 tracks theory. it can't happen on the west side of the crossing because the relay case blocks any room for a track, but there's certainly room to expand on the east side of the crossing, plus, moving the signals back to their original locations and the wayside signals just kinda ties the theory together. As usual, more time will tell...

BIG changes today!

I left my house this morning around 7 and the Pan Am crews were already hard at work with a ladder in front of the new pedestrian signal. When I came home, I saw a very unique surprise.

To start, here's a partial look inside the new relay case:



Now for the big surprise...



12"x20" RSI LED lights and a US&S electronic bell!!! I'm pretty sure that no crossing in my area has anything like this! You'll notice that they moved the pedestrian signal to where the old one was, so that old base must have just been a temporary holder for the new mechanism. A little while after these pics were taken, a train came by on the tracks, although I wasn't already at the crossing, unfortunately. I drove to the crossing just in time for the end of the train. The bells are still programmed to ring when the gates go up (at least for now) and the e-bell sounds rather nice. I wish I got a recording of it, but from memory and sound comparison, it does sound a lot like a GS Type 2. The lights also have white LED sidelights in them. As for the old signals, they didn't go very far at the time:



After the train passed, I went to the store. 15 min later when I came back, the trucks and workers were all gone. The only things that remained at the crossing were three relatively big boxes along the side of the tracks (as seen in the last pic). Presumably there's signal parts in them, but I didn't go anywhere near them.

It's supposed to rain for the next several days, so IDK if any work will take place, but we'll see. I was kinda disappointed that they went with e-bells for this installation (right now there's one, but that may change once the other signal gets replaced), but seeing as how it's a US&S e-bell and how somewhat rare they are sort of makes it worth while. We'll see what tomorrow has in store for this crossing...

I had a feeling those older signals had their days numbered...