Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 2-12-19*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, an NEG electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.

This crossing is a rather interesting one, and is also the only 8 inch crossing (that I'm aware of) left in Corinth, MS. The signals here appear to have been installed by the Illinois Central Gulf in either the 1970s or the early 1980s, and have received very few changes since then, despite changing owners three times since they were installed. At some point under KCS's current ownership, the original bell here (likely a Safetran mechanical) died and was replaced with the current one. The oldest street view imagery at this crossing (which is from 2014) shows the current bell, but based on the coloring of it, I'm guesstimating that it's an NEG e-bell and not a Safetran Type 2. It appears that the near gate arm was hit and repaired at some point, though it appears that the tip section was put on backwards, and the tip gate light lost its cover at about the same time. More recently, one of the side lights has managed to get rotated and now faces across the tracks.

*originally recorded on 4-12-23*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, an NEG electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, NEG gate lights, and a WCH LED gate light.

After NS 284 came through, I went over to the KCS Artesia Sub to wait for the cross-town local to depart. After a bit of waiting, they got clearance across the NS Memphis District West End and began their journey for the former Corinth & Counce yard on the other side of Corinth. Here we see them come through with a pair of GP40-3s in Southern Belle paint leading a GP40-3LW that's still in KCS's Grey Ghost paint scheme for power.

Since I was last here, these classic late-70s ICG signals have had a couple of changes to them. First off, and more notably, the far signal was remounted onto a new foundation much closer to the two active tracks here, though the old foundation is still in place where it had originally been. On the closer signal, the damaged NEG gate light on the tip of the gate arm has been replaced with a (seemingly re-used) WCH LED gate light, which is honestly quite nice to see. Not too many of those down here in the southeast, and I always enjoy finding them. Finally, both signals also had their gate mechs raised-up on the masts a bit, to comply with current federal regulations.
Thankfully, these signals remain fairly unchanged otherwise, and I'm especially glad both signals still retain their original Safetran 8 inch lights.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Mississippi/A ... h/Waldron/