Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 12-16-21*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a WCH mechanical bell, a GRS gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a GRS gate mechanism, and RECO gate lights.

On December 16th, I got up and went out to the NS Charlotte District to do some railfanning. This was the first train that I caught: an eastbound mixed freight with an AC44C6M leading a Dash-9 on the head-end and another Dash-9 paired-up with an ES44AC as the mid-train DPUs.

This was the first crossing I decided to record today, and it's a very nice one. The signals here are a late-SOU install from the early 80s, and are still largely original (not entirely sure if the lights are original or not, but I believe they are). Between 2009 and 2012, however, the original Safetran mechanical bell here was replaced with a General Signals e-bell (I'm guessing a Type 2). Then, sometime between 2012 and 2016, the bell here was replaced yet again, this time with the current WCH mechanical bell replacing the e-bell! Always rather neat to see this when it happens, and I'm glad they did it, especially since I believe this is now the only crossing along the line (certainly at least this part of it) with 8 inch lights and a mechanical bell.
Of course, the stars of the show here are the gate mechs, which are both still some GRS ones! Not entirely sure how these have managed to survive here, as NS went through and replaced many of their signals with GRS (or WRRS) gate mechs on their mainline back around 2010 or so, but they have, for which I'm rather glad to see. Doubly so in this instance, given that this is a pretty decently busy NS mainline, so I'm kinda surprised that they chose to leave them here. Hopefully these classic signals remain here for a good while longer, but either way, I'm glad I was able to get them when I did.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/South_Carolin ... dar_Crest/