Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 2-12-22*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, 2 pairs of Harmon 12x20 inch lights, a dead WCH mechanical bell, a WCH gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a WCH mechanical bell, a WCH gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

After I caught the southbound CSX intermodal, the area seemed to have gone dead again. However, after a few hours of waiting, another southbound got lined on the Lineville Sub, so I went over here for it. After a little while of waiting, this southbound intermodal train came through with a pair of BNSF ES44C4s for power. You can also hear the nearby defect detector going off at the start of the video.

This crossing is another rather nice one, featuring a pair of signals installed by the SCL back in the mid-70s, and they're still largely original. It appears that originally, these signals had a mix of 8 inch mast lights (I'm guessing all WCH 8 inch lights on the gated masts, and a pair of Harmon 8 inch lights on the cantilever), with the cantilever having the current set of Harmon 12x20 inch lights on the overhead. Sometime between 2008 and 2013, all of the 8 inch mast lights here were replaced with the current Safetran 12x24s. Interestingly enough, it appears that while the cantilever got LEDs for its new mast lights, the mast signal here got a set of incandescent lights. Not sure why they upgraded the crossing with both incandescents and LEDs, but it's certainly a bit interesting to see.
Of major note here, however, are the gate mechs, as this crossing features a pair of very early WCH gate mechs! These ones were originally called "Style 2" by Tommy on the site, but, upon closer inspection, it appears that these actually predate the worded ("Style 1") WCH gate mechs, as the ribs on the top of the gate mechs are the same design as what was used on the old FS gate mechs. These appear to have been made for a very short time, so that, along with their age, helps owe to their rarity. In fact, previously, I was only aware of a few examples of these on some former BN lines up in Illinois, so it's nice to know a few examples can be found down here in the SE as well. The crossing also features a pair of old diagonally striped fiberglass gate arms as well, which is nice to see, though, as you can see, they're rather heavily faded these days.
The gate arms aren't the only things that need a little TLC here either. As some of y'all may recall, my friend Ethan shot this crossing back in 2019. At the time, the bell on the cantilever signal still worked, but was noticeably dying. It appears that in the years since, the bell has unfortunately died, but CSX has yet to replace it. The closer signal's bell also noticeably struggles when the gates begin to lower, however, it did the same thing in Ethan's video from 2019, so I suspect it's caused by the gate mechs, rather than the bell itself. The front-right light on the closer signal is also noticeably dim too, so CSX probably needs to clean the reflector and/or replace the lens on it. All in all though, this is still a pretty nice crossing and I'm glad I got to record it.
As a side note, one thing thing I noticed on this trip was that, along the Lineville Sub, if a crossing features cantilevers, it doesn't feature any 8 inch lights anymore. Now, this is just simply due to upgrades CSX (and I think the SBD a bit) has done, but it's certainly a bit interesting to note, nonetheless. Believe that the three cantilever crossings in Talladega were the last ones along the Lineville to feature 8 inch mast lights as well.

*originally recorded on 8-10-25*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, 2 pairs of Harmon 12x20 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, an NEG electronic bell, a WCH gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a WCH mechanical bell, a WCH gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After catching C040, we went over to this crossing to get another train. After a while of waiting, I was able to get my sixth train of the day: a southbound CSX ethanol train with an ES44AH leading an ES40DC on the head-end and another ES40DC working as the train's DPU.
You can also hear the LaGrange DD reading-out for the train towards the start of the video as well.

This crossing definitely looks a bit different from when I filmed it back in 2022. Since that video, CSX upgraded the remaining incandescent lights on this crossing to LED. While it's a bit of a shame to see the Harmon 12x20s on the cantilever be upgraded, it was probably needed for the mast signal here given how dim the front-right light was at the time of that video. The LED upgrade wasn't the only upgrade here either, as the cantilever also had its dead bell replaced with the current NEG e-bell, and both signals had their extremely worn-out looking diagonally striped fiberglass gate arms replaced with some new vertically striped aluminum ones. Most of the gate lights here were also replaced with new NEG LED gate lights as a result, which probably isn't too surprising. Thankfully, both signals here still retain their original early WCH gate mechs, which are great to see! Also quite nice to see that the mast signal here also still retains its WCH mechanical bell, and that it's still going fairly strong. Hopefully these remain here for many more years to come, but I'm glad I was able to get a couple of videos of them, TBH.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/G-Q/LaGrange/Murphy/