Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 5-19-21*

Signal on the left: 5 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights and a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights and a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell.

After catching the local freight at 27th Street #2, I decided to try and chase it across the Ensley Branch to see if I could get them here. Luckily enough, they had to stop and throw a switch before going across the crossing, so I was able to set-up in time to film them passing through this crossing.

This one's another pretty decent crossing, featuring a nice gateless install. It appears that originally, the signals here had been an SOU install, but in the 2000s, NS upgraded most of the equipment at this crossing. When this happened, the far signal was replaced entirely with the current cantilever while the closer signal had its lights upgraded to Safetran 12x20 inch lights and the bell (assuming this signal at the time had one) was replaced with the current GS Type 2 e-bell. The relay case was also replaced at that time.
The crossing then remained unchanged until sometime between 2009 and 2013, when the closer signal had its lights upgraded to 12x24 inch (dunno if the heads were replaced at this time or just the backgrounds). Since then, no major changes have occurred to this crossing.
As you can see, one of the bulbs on the closer signal was also out when I filmed this, though it seems the rest were working fine. 16th Street #3 and 16th Street #4 can also be seen just beyond this crossing, and this is probably the closest I've seen multiple crossings on the same road that weren't connected with each other somehow. I'm honestly kinda surprised that they all aren't, or at least that 16th Street #2 & #3 aren't.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/Birmingham/16_2