Orange, Australia.
Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2016 8:53 am
This is the Ash Street crossing, located in the town of Orange, New South Wales. These signals were installed in February 1977. The crossing is one of the few left with WRRS/GRS type D gate mechanisms, and also a very rare Westinghouse teardrop bell. Teardrop bells in Australia were made for many years by McKenzie & Holland, under licence from Union Switch & Signal. In the late 1970's McKenzie & Holland were taken over by Westinghouse, who made teardrop bells with their logo on them only for a short period of time before production was stopped. In the early 1980's they were superseded by the Westinghouse hybrid bell. Today the Westinghouse teardrop bells are extremely rare, there are actually more of the McKenzie & Holland bells left even though they are older.
Another interesting thing about this crossing is that it has a third track which is not protected by the signals. It is a rarely used spur line that was added some time after the signals were installed. I guess they never bothered to move the gated signal further back to protect the extra track. I am not sure if the crossing is activated by a train on that track or if the crossing has to be flagged.
The crossing on GSV in 2015 https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.308861 ... 6656?hl=en
An earlier view from 2010 when the crossing still had 2 Westinghouse teardrop bells https://www.google.com/maps/@-33.308908 ... 6656?hl=en