Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Near crossing (BHRR):
Signal on the left: 2 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights (the rear light on the right has an LED in it).
Signal on the right: 6 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights and a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell.

Middle crossing (CSX):
Signal on the left: 1 pair of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights, 1 pair of WCH 12x20 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, and a General Signals Type-2 electronic bell.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights and 1 pair of WCH 12x20 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs.

Far crossing (BHRR):
Signal on the left: 5 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights and a General Signals Type-2 electronic bell.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of GRS 12x20 inch Lex-C lights.

Very nice! I think that's the first time I saw a 12 inch Lex-C operating.

*originally recorded on 2-8-20*

Western crossing:
Eastbound signal: 5 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights (one pair of which has LEDs) and a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell.
Westbound signal: 3 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights.
Middle crossing:
Eastbound signal: 1 pair of WCH 12x20 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, 1 pair of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights, and a General Signals Type 3 electronic bell.
Westbound signal: 1 pair of WCH 12x20 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and 1 pair of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights.
Eastern crossing:
Eastbound signal: 2 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights (one of which has an LED).
Westbound signal: 6 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20 inch lights and a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell.

First video:
After catching the NS local freight, I continued on over to this crossing to see if there were any changes. When I got out here though, I saw a BHRR train rolling across the near track back to their yard. However, after that train passed, I was going across the crossing when I looked to my left and saw yet another BHRR train down the line! As such, I turned around and sure enough, a second train was approaching, following behind the first one that I had seen. After just a little while of waiting, the BHRR train came through with a single Watco SD40-2 for power, running long-hood forwards.

Second video:
After catching M730 in Hueytown, I decided to stop here to catch him again before continuing onto the Pratt City neighborhood in Birmingham, due to just how slow he was going. However, as he had to pick-up his conductor, M730 stopped just short of the crossing, but also just close enough, causing it to time out.

Third video:
After CSX M730 picked-up his conductor he continued on his way to Boyles Yard. This turned out to be the last time I caught M730, as even though I saw him crawling through Ensley when I looked to my south going over the line, he never showed up after that. Either way, I was able to record some nice crossings along the CSX Mineral Subdivision on this trip, so it was worth it.

Been a few years since I've been out here, hasn't it? Thankfully, the only major change at this crossing was that the bell on the crossing for the CSX Mineral Subdivision (the middle one) was replaced with a GS Type 3, and that all of the signals now sport blue ENS signs. These nice older Birmingham Southern signals are quite nice to see, especially since they still sport most of their original GRS Lex-C lights, with a grand total of 18 pairs of GRS Lex-C 12x20s at it. This triple-crossing is easily the largest stand of GRS Lex-C lights left in the state of Alabama, if not the entire US, so it's pretty easy to see why this one is one of my favorites in the Birmingham area.
It's a bit of a shame that the lights are a bit of a crap design, with them being rather fragile and not being all that visible unless you're directly inline with the light-heads, as, IMHO, they look quite cool.
One thing I did learn with this activation though is that apparently all three crossings will activate, but it appears only the lights facing traffic approaching the crossing will turn on. I had known this was the case for whenever a CSX train came through, but I didn't realize it was also true for whenever a BHRR train was using one of the outer crossings. All in all, this is quite a nice crossing and I'm glad I was able to see it in action once again. Hopefully it remains mostly unchanged for years to come.

Thanks to the fact I was set-up on the west side for the second and third videos, I got to discover that the front mast lights of the western cantilever are also LED. Now y'all can get a good view of how an LED Lex-C light looks. The crossing also did a couple of tail-ring malfunctions after the train passes, one of which I was able to get in the third video. The second happened after my camera was shut-off, so no video of it.
I-20/I-59 can also be seen in the background again of these videos as well.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/F ... /Crawford/

No major changes here as of 11-28-21, thankfully: