Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 8-16-18*

Signal on the left: 6 pairs of Modern Industries 12x20 inch lights with Patco LEDs, a WCH mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and General Signals gate lights.
Signal on the right: 5 pairs of Modern Industries 12x20 inch lights with Patco LEDs, a WCH mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RSI "STOP" LED gate lights.

This was the other crossing I recorded the TSRR at in downtown Lawrenceburg.
The reason I set myself up here, even though the crossing just south of this one had a rather classic pair of gateless 8 inch signals, was entirely due to the gate lights on the right-hand signal. These gate lights were made by RSI towards the end of their life as a company, and as far as I'm aware, the TSRR was the only railroad to ever use them, as they were only made for a few years from what I can tell. In fact, this is the last crossing I'm aware to have any anymore, as the other set of these in Lawrenceburg were recently replaced. However, as RSI made rather low-quality products (outside of their LEDs, for the most part), they probably didn't last very long, which might've been why the TSRR doesn't have many of them in use. In fact, this low-quality is quite clearly evidenced by the tip gate light being dead, despite all three being only a couple of years old.
The older WCH bell here is also a bit slow to start, and the other WCH bell sounds rather flat.
Unusually, the gate masts at this crossing were installed in front of the cantilever signals. Typically, you'll see this out in the plains states, especially on UP lines it seems, but not so much elsewhere.
This crossing is on what used to be US 64's route through Lawrenceburg, prior to the highway bypassing the town to the south. Traffic on US 64 also continued to use this road until the section of the bypass west of US 43 was completed, and a couple of US 64 shields at the intersection with US 43 just up the street from this crossing still have US 64 shields posted directing traffic on this older alignment of US 64, despite the highway no longer running down this street. TDOT really needs to remove those shields.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/Lawrenceburg/Gaines