Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 2-12-22*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a General Signals Type 1 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG gate lights.

After the northbound intermodal train came through, I quickly hopped on over to the AWP Sub, as I knew there was a southbound Q220 waiting to meet a northbound here in LaGrange. When I got to this crossing, the northbound was already passing through, so I set-up here and waited for Q220. After a bit of waiting, Q220 began moving south, and I was able to get them here with a quartet of ES44AHs for power.

This crossing is another rather nice one, feature a nice old late-70s AWP install, which is still largely original. It appears that the only major change here was that, in the late-90s, CSX replaced the original Safetran mechanical bell on the closer signal with the current GS Type 1, which makes for a very nice bell combo. Since then, thankfully, no major changes have occured to this crossing.
Another nice thing about this crossing, other than the older Safetran equipment and the bell combo, is the fact that both signals still retain older diagonally-striped fiberglass gate arms, which are always nice to see. Even better, however, is that the closer signal even still retains a full set of NEG incandescent gate lights! These seem to be pretty rare to find on CSX crossings these days, so I'm glad these are still around and in good condition. The closer signal has also had one of the counterweight arms on it get damaged at some point, and the piece that broke off was still laying on the ground in front of it. As you can see, one of the bulbs on the far signal was also out at the time.
All in all, this was another great crossing and I'm glad I was able to record it as well.

*originally recorded on 8-8-25*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a General Signals Type 1 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After documenting the upgrade at Callaway Avenue, I snapped some photos of a new relay case at Douglas Avenue before going over to this crossing to document some small upgrades to it as well. As I thought I heard something that would be going south down the CSX A&WP Sub, I went ahead and set-up my camera here. After a few minutes of waiting, I was able to catch my sixth train of the day: CSX M210 with a pair of CM44ACs for power.

Apparently in March of 2022, literally the month after I last filmed this crossing, the closer signal had its older fiberglass gate arm snapped so it was replaced with the current aluminum one, with all of the gate lights being replaced at the same time with the current NEG LEDs. At about the same time, the other signal had its older fiberglass gate arm restriped with new vertical striping, and it appears that around this time or sometime after, the tip gate light on it was replaced with the current NEG LED gate light.
Thankfully, literally nothing else appears to have changed to this crossing since I last recorded it. And I do quite literally mean literally, as the exact same rear light on the far signal that was blown back in 2022 is also blown in this video. Not sure if CSX had fixed that dead bulb and it just so happened to blow again in time for this video, or if there's an issue with that signal's wiring. Given the lean of the closer signal, I wouldn't entirely rule-out the latter, TBH.
Either way, both the Safetran mechanical bell and GS Type 1 e-bell still remain here, which is great to see. Also nice to see that this crossing retains a full set of incandescent 70s Safetran 12x24s along with both signals still having their original late-70s Safetran gate mechs. Hopefully this classic A&WP equipment remains here for many more years to come, but, either way, I'm quite glad I got to rerecord this crossing with it all still here.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/G-Q/ ... e/Handley/