Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

We've established bells mounted between the lights where you can't see it are weird. How about between the lights... where you CAN see it?

Here's the between the lights set up that makes it hard to see the bell:

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Illinois/A-K/Joilet/Laraway/

Now how about this?:


Cheers,
Joshua

I think UP is now setting up bells under the lights on new installations. VTA has set up bells in hidden spots too. I almost thought there was no bell at this crossing till I found one on the side of the cantilever.

http://g.co/maps/5xxt9

That's neat.

Cheers,
Joshua

I still think it looks the most natural on the top of the signal. Of course, bells don't really need to be seen, just heard.

Caltrain927 wrote:I think UP is now setting up bells under the lights on new installations. VTA has set up bells in hidden spots too. I almost thought there was no bell at this crossing till I found one on the side of the cantilever.

http://g.co/maps/5xxt9

Man you had me going for a sec... I was looking at that on the cantilever and thought I was seeing a mechanical bell with a visor on it!

Upon closer examination I figured out what it was I was looking at. Gotta love those skewed StreetView images!

weatherdan882002 wrote:I still think it looks the most natural on the top of the signal. Of course, bells don't really need to be seen, just heard.

Exactly! Which is why I think mounting them lower is a good thing. On top of a mast signal is OK... but I hate it when they are way up on top of a cantilever. Who are they trying to warn? Birds?

I'm sure a little less headache for a maintainer when something goes wrong when they are lower too.

PaulSP wrote:They are probably mounting those things on the side like that because they are so damn quiet...

There is a volume adjust on the side of the bell. Mine is pretty loud but that's probably because its not mounted anywhere lol. I will say my GS Type 1 is way louder than my Safetran bell is.

cabman701 wrote:Exactly! Which is why I think mounting them lower is a good thing. On top of a mast signal is OK... but I hate it when they are way up on top of a cantilever. Who are they trying to warn? Birds?

I actually like them better on the cantilever. It may affect the volume of the bell a TAD bit, but I've also noticed through vids is that the bell on the opposite side of the tracks can be heard over the train (the train acts as a sound barrier, and the bell being on the cantilever overcomes that effect). It may not seem very important with crossings that have a bell on each side, but if there is only one bell, it can be heard on both sides.

Caltrain927 wrote:

PaulSP wrote:They are probably mounting those things on the side like that because they are so damn quiet...

There is a volume adjust on the side of the bell. Mine is pretty loud but that's probably because its not mounted anywhere lol. I will say my

I installed an NEG bell a week ago and set it to the loudest tone it would go, which was not really loud at all.
I'm going to stop by NEG in a few days, I'll have to ask them about the volume.
Also NEG just got UP as a contract, was told from a friend of the owner of NEG, it was a hard one to get but they got it,
and KLM92 that's stupid CSXTfor ya

Speaking of which, I found a new Florida Midland Railroad crossing installation with the bell mounted in an old fashion way
http://g.co/maps/dsyra