Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Hi all. For a long time I believed that the Safetran Type 3 E-Bells and their newer Siemens versions were identical. However, it has come to my attention that the Siemens versions actually have a much smaller base than the older Safetran models. Here are some comparison shots:

This is an original Safetran Type 3 E-Bell that was installed around 2008:


While here is a Siemens model installed a couple of years ago:


You can see that the base of the housing has a completely different design. I've never heard anybody mention this difference before and am wondering if there are any other small differences between models/versions of equipment that are generally thought to be the same?

Actually, the change in base started with Safetran at some point, as this crossing in Limrock, AL has a pair of Type 3s with the newer base and Safetran gate mechs & everything else:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6677546 ... 312!8i6656
However, the DOT tags are the style that NS used on their Invensys Rail installs (at least the ones that didn't re-use the old DOT tags), so it's possible that Invensys Rail made the change before they changed the branding on the gate mechs. Either way, it seems rare to find an install like that, and the change occurred sometime around when Safetran became Invensys Rail.

EDIT: Moved topic.

Also, to throw another wrench into the enigma, this crossing on the site is an NS crossing featuring Invensys Rail signals, yet has both older and newer Safetran Type 3s:
http://www.rxrsignals.com/New_Jersey/Fl ... ows_Mill1/

Though I'm guessing one of two things happened there. Either:
A: The older bell was installed on the old gateless signals that used to be there, and NS re-used it on the new set-up. (According to the FRA, the crossing used to have a pair of gateless signals, but I forget if they had a bell or not.)
or
B: It was installed with a pair of newer Type 3s, but one of them died young, and was replaced with an older Type 3 (which NS seems to only be installing as replacement Type 3s as of late).