Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 12-22-21*

Signal on the far left: 3 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.
Signal on the far right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.
Signal on the near left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.
Signal on the near right: 4 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.

On December 22nd, Elliot and I got up, got breakfast, and went out to downtown Cary to get a trio of Amtraks that were supposed to be due soon. The Silver Star and Carolinian were both running late, but as the Carolinian was due to arrive first, I decided to try and catch it, and was successful in doing so. Here we see the Carolinian stop at the Cary, NC, station before continuing onto Raleigh with a P42DC.
Unfortunately, while this train was stopped, the Silver Star also arrived over on the S Line, so I kinda blew my chance at getting Academy Street #1. At least you can hear the WABCO bells on that crossing in this video.

While I would've preferred to have recorded the old SBD install behind me, this crossing is still fairly nice. Quad-gate crossings like this pretty much don't exist in Alabama, so it's always nice getting to film some when I get the chance.
It appears that this crossing was originally a 1980s NS install, but in the early 2000s, NS replaced almost everything but the far cantilever (and the front pair of mast lights on it) with the current Safetran equipment, save for the bell, to make this a quad-gate crossing along with the rest of the crossings on the route the Piedmont trains take. Originally, this crossing had a General Signals e-bell, though I don't know what type. Don't know if it had been on the old 80s NS signals here previously, or if it was installed along with the newer cantilever on this side, but either way, it was gone by 2007, having been replaced with the current Safetran Type 3. Since then, no changes appear to have occurred here, other than most of the gate arms having been replaced with newer vertically striped ones. The near-left signal does still retain its original gate arm though, which is pretty nice to see.
The bell here rings while the gates are down, which is somewhat uncommon on an NS install, but still neat to see. The near-right cantilever also is a bit unusual, given how the lights on it are positioned. The front mast lights are aimed more towards the parking lot to my back-right, while the left-hand pair of overhead lights are aimed at Amtrak's parking lot. As such, the right-hand pair of overhead lights are pretty much the only pair of "front lights" on the signal, as the other two pairs of front lights are acting more as side lights for the nearby parking lots. Interestingly enough, the left-hand pair of overhead lights used to face forwards, but they were re-aligned to face the parking lot between 2017 and 2018.
IMHO, this was a bit of a neat crossing, and I'm glad I was able to record it.