Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 12-23-21*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 8 inch lights, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO gate lights.

On December 23rd, I left Cary, NC, and started on my way back home. Decided to take a bit more of a scenic route and rather than going via Knoxville and Chattanooga, I decided to go down via Charlotte and head back to the NS Charlotte District once more in northwestern South Carolina, to get a few crossings I wasn't able to earlier in the trip. While here, I wound-up running into dtrainsc35 productions and another railfan (whose name I can't recall at the moment, my apologies) and found-out that NS 265 was on its way. After a little while of waiting, 265 showed-up with of BNSF ES44C4s for power, running elephant-style.

This crossing is a pretty nice one, featuring a nice old late-70s Southern Railway install that is still largely original. It appears that at some point in the 2000s (or possibly between 2008 and 2012, street view images in the former year ain't the best), NS replaced the original gate mechanism on the far signal with the current Safetran one. Then, sometime between 2008 and 2012 (without a doubt), the original Safetran mechanical bell that was here was replaced with the current GS Type 2. The gate arms here were also replaced with vertically-striped ones at the time, almost certainly some of the earliest ones of those to be installed.
Thankfully though, this crossing still retains a full set of 8 inch lights, which I was very glad to see. The next crossing east also has a full set of them (and the next crossing after that features a pair as well), but sadly, an NS 238 was tied down over there blocking those crossings, so I wasn't able to get either of them on this trip. Was still able to get this one though, for which I'm rather grateful (especially since the last time I was here, 238 was tied down blocking this crossing as well).