Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 6-14-21*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with GE Uniform Look LEDs, a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell, a Siemens gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with GE Uniform Look LEDs, a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After catching NS 201 in Cherokee, I raced up the branch line to see if I could get NS A83 on it, as I'd wanted to record this crossing for a while. Thankfully, as I got here, A83 was still just shoving back into the interchange yard with Cherokee Nitrogen, to drop off a cut of tank cars. As such, I got set-up and waited for them to pull back out. After a little while, A83 pulled back through this crossing with the same pair of SD40-2s I'd recorded on it last week (and NS 3314 leading once again), though at the end, you can see the conductor receiving some paperwork for the tank cars they'd need to pull from the plant's yard, which caused them to shove back in once again after I'd already shut-off my camera. Not the worst thing though, as I was able to get a few more shots of the train on this branch.

This crossing's certainly quite a neat one, despite featuring a modern NS install from about 2015 or so, replacing a pair of crossbucks. The closer signal is quite neat, featuring the lights and gate mech (and bell) on separate masts, with the gate mast being quite tall due to the length of the gate arm. I suspect this unusual arrangement was done due to the fact that the crossing is at a relatively sharp angle, with Cherokee Nitrogen's driveway coming off from the left right at the crossing, necessitating a long, angled gate arm. However, due to the driveway, NS had to install side-lights for it, so I'm guessing they didn't want to have to worry about the gate arm striking them. No idea why they chose to put the closer signal's bell all the way up at the top of the taller mast, but that's really NS's call to make, I suppose. There's also two ENS signs on the closer signal as well, which is certainly a bit unusual.
The other signal, though, isn't as interesting, being a pretty typical gated NS signal from around then, though it appears that one of the original RECO LED gate lights died and got replaced with an NEG LED gate light.
Either way though, I'm quite glad to finally have been able to get this rather neat crossing checked off from my "to record" list.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/Cherokee/Cross/