Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 4-12-21*

Signal on the left: 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, 1 Safetran 12x24 inch light with a Leotek EV Series LED, 1 WCH 12x24 inch light with a WCH 2nd Generation LED, an extremely slow WABCO mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of US&S 12x24 inch lights, an NEG electronic bell, a US&S Model 75 gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After catching A700 in Cartersville, I then chased the train on out here, but I had to wait a while before they came through as they stopped to work a few customers, including one just before the next crossing east of this one. However, once they got the customers worked, they finally came on through making a nice clatter as they rolled over the jointed rail around here.

This crossing is also quite a nice one, and was easily the highest-priority one that I was able to film (more on that later). The signals here are an old early SBD install from the 80s, and originally both signals had US&S 12x20 inch lights with US&S Model 75 gate mechs and WABCO mechanical bells. In the late-90s or early 2000s though, CSX replaced all of the lights and the gate mech on the far signal with newer Safetran equipment, but I will admit I'm not entirely sure why. The signals would remain unchanged for several more years, until an about 10-year timespan between 2008 and 2019. During this timespan, several changes occured. On the far signal, the front-left light was replaced with the current WCH 12x24 with a WCH 2nd Gen LED in it, and the front-right light on that same signal was upgraded with a Leotek EV Series LED to match. On the closer signal, the WABCO bell must've died and was replaced with the NEG e-bell, though this seems to have occured closer to 2019 and 2008 as it has an NEG label on the side of it. The lights also all had their backgrounds upgraded from 20 inch to 24 inch during this same time-frame, though thankfully the rest of the signal was pretty much left entirely alone.
Easily, of course, the best feature here would have to be the WABCO mechanical bell on this crossing, which I strongly suspect is the closest working one to my house. When the crossing first started, I'd actually thought it was either messed-up or had just somehow up and died after the first ring. However, it soon turned out that it was just extremely slow, letting out a ring once only every few seconds. CSX should probably see about trying to speed it up though, as I doubt it's supposed to be doing that. Either way though, I'm glad I was able to film another working WABCO bell, even if it is extremely slow.
Seen in the background behind the crossing is Georgia Power's Plant Bowen, which is still coal-fired and appears to get regular coal trains from CSX.

*originally recorded on 8-15-23*

Signal on the left: 1 Safetran 12x24 inch light with a Leotek EV Series LED, 1 WCH 12x24 inch light with a WCH 2nd Generation LED, 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, an NEG electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of US&S 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, 1 pair of US&S 12x20 inch lights, an NEG electronic bell, a US&S Model 75 gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After I got L810 in downtown Rockmart, I went on over to this crossing. They had to stop and work a large customer or two on the northeast side of Rockmart, however, so it took them close to four hours to get to this crossing. However, after waiting that long, I was able to shoot CSX L810 for the ninth time on this day.

As you can see, since I was last here, a few changes have occurred to this crossing. The first happened within about a year of my previous video here, when CSX replaced the very slow WABCO bell on the far signal with another NEG e-bell. It's a bit of a shame that that bell was replaced, but I guess it finally died. A bit strange as well, as I know a video Danny Harmon posted a little while after I'd filmed this crossing contained a clip of this crossing and in it you can hear the WABCO ringing noticeably faster, though I'm not entirely sure if that video was recorded before or after mine, lol. Either way, sometime between street view's last imagery here from May of 2022 and this video, CSX upgraded the front lights of the closer signal with more Leotek EV Series LEDs, though left the rear lights of the signal incandescent like on the other signal.
Thankfully, despite these two upgrades, this crossing still retains some neat older equipment. The closer signal still retains all of its original US&S light-heads, and also still retains its US&S Model 75 gate mechanism, which is the last one on the CSX Cartersville Sub. The Model 75 gate mech here seems to lower rather quickly now though, so CSX may want to look into that. The far signal also still retains its diagonally-striped gate arm, which is cool to see.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/R-Z/S ... ed_Bridge/