Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Listen to how the bells stop ringing on this CN(IC) line in Yazoo City,MS.

Yep. That's part of the Hybrid design. Many Hybrid collector owners' bells do the same thing.

legsbluetrain wrote:Listen to how the bells stop ringing on this CN(IC) line in Yazoo City,MS.

its be cause of the down ward hammer

on the final ring the magnet just lets it drop thus making it sound like it just broke

also if you want to get technical these are not m-bells there e-bells, well really a hybrid but were advertised as e-bells

Wow that kinda sucks huh? :/

I was always told the bells were only for pedestrians.

So I'm guessing to reduce "noise pollution" LOL :) they shut the bells off early.
I know there were crossings in Phoenix that were wired to cut the bells off.

Alvin in AZ

AlvinAZ wrote:Wow that kinda sucks huh? :/

I was always told the bells were only for pedestrians.

So I'm guessing to reduce "noise pollution" LOL :) they shut the bells off early.
I know there were crossings in Phoenix that were wired to cut the bells off.

Alvin in AZ

HA
yah thats mainly a southern thing to cut the bells after the gates lower, you need to talk to the famous elton. Hell tell you all about it.
Also welcome to the forum, its alway good to have actual railroaders tell us the facts on signals
regards mike (hopefully a future signal maintainer)

Most of the crossings up here shut off the bells once the gates are lowered. Depending how they're wired (mostly on the Pan Am lines) they may ring again when the gates rise. The newer installations, however, do keep the bells ringing while the gates are down. They may or may not ring while the gates are rising, I've seen both.

Most of Arizona that I've seen has them ringing from startup to shutdown on older ATSF installations, and from startup to turning off when the gates begin to rise on many installations from 1999 to Today on BNSF crossings.

I don't know much on UP crossings since I haven't seen them active, since they are too far away for me to get to.

I'm not sure, but I think some Valley Metro gated crossings silence when the gates lower. Same with UP, I haven't seen those signals active in person, except for the gateless pedestrian crossings.

TRAINMANKIGHT wrote: Also welcome to the forum, its alway good to have actual railroaders tell
us the facts on signals regards mike (hopefully a future signal maintainer)

Cool thanks, very glad to be here. :)

My head is stuffed full of this stuff and it'll be cool as anything (from my side of it)
to pour at least some of it out. LOL :)

What Mike was saying about the bells quitting as soon as the gates start to rise is
from the bell control circuit went thru the "back" contacts of the XR relay so when
it "picked up" the bells quit. The GCR (gate control relay) is real slow to "drop away"
like 4+1/2 seconds but also kinda slow to "pick up" too (usually a DN-18).

{edit} So you can see it in action on an older crossing (Xing) the bells quit then a
second and a half later (if I remember right) the gate starts to rise.

Like I say, packed full. LOL :)
And hadn't had a use since Feb of '90.

Alvin in AZ