Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Signal on the left: 1.5 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and 1 Safetran 12x24 inch light with a Dialight Ball LED.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and a General Signals Type 1 electronic bell.

This was the second train I caught today, and it was pretty boring. It was a northbound coal train with three GEVOs pulling it, with the GEVOs in order from newest to oldest.

However, I don't mind the lash-up too much, since the train was only necessary for what I really wanted to record here, which was this crossing! And that was for three reasons:
#1. I wanted to see if the bell here was a GS Type 1 since it is rather faded (it is, as you can see).
#2. It has the only Dialight Ball LED on a CSX crossing in the Tennessee Valley.
#3. The signal on the left is an old US&S signal dating back to the NC&StL days of the line!
This crossing was also the last incandescent crossing on the CSX Chattanooga Sub in Alabama, as it's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. In fact, this road is pretty much the only road in the "town" of Bass, which appears to be a named area on a map rather than an actual town. In fact, there's only one building in this area, and it's someone's house. I also couldn't get any cell service, if you really want an indicator as to how far out in the boonies I was.

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

*originally recorded on 1-17-25*

Signal on the left: 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Dialight Ball LEDs and 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and a General Signals Type 1 electronic bells.

After catching M647, I saw that there appeared to be a northbound lined through Anderson, so I decided to hop down to this crossing to try and rerecord it at long last. After a while of waiting, however, another railfan passing through (who was looking for the C&O heritage unit, more on that later) informed me that apparently CSX decided to send another southbound instead, so I moved my stuff over to the other side of the crossing and continued to wait. Finally, a bit after sunset, I was able to get my seventh, and what I thought would be my final, train of the day: CSX G315 with an SD70MAC leading a pair of ES40DCs for power! Definitely another nice lash-up on this day.

Sometime between 2017 and 2021, certainly after I'd last filmed this crossing in 2017, CSX replaced the LED in the front-left light on the far signal with a (reused?) Dialight Ball LED. Not entirely sure why this was done, but I ain't complaining. Thankfully, nothing else about this crossing has changed since I last recorded it, which is great to see. I'm especially glad to see the GS Type 1 here is still going strong, and that the old US&S signal on the far side from the NC&StL is still around as well.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/Bass/Bass/