Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 2-14-22*

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

After catching Q601 in Big Springs on the Lineville Sub, I chased it on over to this crossing in West Point on the AWP Sub. Here we see it passing through West Point on its way to New Orleans.

This crossing is a very nice one, featuring a rather classic install that I believe would've been installed by the A&WP back in the late-70s, and it's still pretty much entirely original. These signals honestly do look a lot like a classic late-70s SCL install, and I do honestly have a bit of a hard time believing they aren't, even though the SCL never owned this line and I believe the AWP had already been using 12 inch lights by this time. However, it appears that these signals directly replaced some older double-mast signals from the A&WP, so I think that they chose to use 8 inch lights here because of that.
This crossing is one that I've been wanting to get for a while, and I'm glad I've finally been able to do so. I'd wanted to get it on my trip to this part of the AWP Sub back in 2018, but sadly wasn't able to get it on this trip. Thankfully, it appears that these signals have remained almost entirely unchanged since that trip, outside of the gate lights on the far signal being replaced with NEG LED gate lights. Both Safetran mechanical bells here still sound very nice and healthy, so hopefully they'll remain around for a good while to come, along with the rest of the classic Safetran equipment here. Also nice to see that there is still an incandescent gate light here.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/R-Z/W ... est_Point/

*originally recorded on 8-10-25*

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

After catching M209 at GA 194, I decided to try and chase M605 over to West Point, taking advantage of the fact that they'd have to go through LaGrange first while we didn't. Thankfully, I wound-up beating M605 over here with plenty of time to spare, but soon found-out that they'd be meeting a northbound at Gabbettville as well. After a bit of waiting, I was able to catch my fourth train of the day: a northbound CSX mixed freight with an ES44AH leading an ES40DC on the head-end and a CM44AC working as the mid-train DPU.

It appears that since I last recorded this crossing back in 2022, CSX sadly replaced all of the gate lights on the closer signal here with a mix of two NEG LED gate lights and a RECO LED gate light. Thankfully, the rest of the classic late-70s A&WP equipment here still remains, including all of the 8 inch lights and both Safetran mechanical bells! NGL, these signals do still very much look like a late-70s SCL install to me, though I think the use of 8 inch lights here helped with that, lol.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/R-Z/ ... est_Point/