Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 12-14-21*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with GE Dotted LEDs, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with GE Dotted LEDs, a Safetran mechanical bell, a RACO gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

On December 14th, I went-out to go on a crawl across both North and South Carolina to try and record as many older crossings as I could, mainly because I wanted to try and get as many crossings with Teardrop bells as I could. The first few days I would be on my own, but I'd later meet-up with @Bigmindcreator TS up in Charlotte, NC, a few days into my trip and we'd stay the remaining nights together. On my way out to the Carolinas though, I decided to stop at this crossing on the NS Greenville District because it has a rare RACO gate mechanism. After a couple hours of waiting, this NS local freight came through running towards downtown Gainesville with an ex-Conrail SD40-2 leading an ex-N&W SD40-2.

This crossing is a bit of an interesting one, and I'm glad I got it recorded. I can't say entirely for sure, but it appears that this crossing was installed by the SOU back in the early to mid-70s. I'm not entirely sure what the original gate mech on the far signal would've been, but I suspect either an early to mid-70s Safetran or another RACO gate mech. In the 2000s (it appears), NS replaced the signal on the far side entirely and replaced the lights on the closer signal with the current Safetran 12x24s. Then, in about 2016 or so, NS upgraded almost all of the crossings along this line in the Georgia section, likely due to the fact that this line carries the Amtrak Crescent, to LED, including this one. Since then, it appears that no major changes have occurred to this crossing since then though, thankfully enough.
Interestingly enough, despite NS's LED of choice typically being GE Uniform Look LEDs, a few crossings out here in Georgia on the NS Greenville and East End District use GE Dotted LEDs instead for some reason. Georgia ain't the only place with NS crossings that have GE Dotted LEDs, as Elliot would later find a crossing up in NC with some.
Of course, the main star of the show here ain't the LEDs, but rather the rare RACO gate mechanism on the closer signal. This is one of only three currently confirmed locations of RACO gate mechs in the state (Ethan recorded one of the others and I got a tour of the third), as I thought this would be the only one I'd see on my trip and I wanted to be able to record one. I made sure to set-up on this side of the crossing, despite it being noticeably backlit because of this, though it would, thankfully, not turn-out to be the only one I'd see on this trip. I'm honestly not entirely sure why there's a RACO gate mech here, as, as I mentioned above, the signal its on honestly appears to be an early to mid-70s Safetran install from the SOU. Maybe the Southern Railway actually installed this signal as a knock-down replacement for a slightly older RACO signal and re-used the RACO gate mech onto it? Maybe it was just re-used by the SOU back when they installed these signals from another crossing? Honestly, without some kind of time machine, I doubt I'll be able to find-out for certain, but either way, I'm quite glad it's still here.