Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Recorded on 4-16-22. I went out to the UP Kansas Sub after lunch to catch some trains for this year's Easter Weekend. The first crossing I filmed at was one that I previously filmed at last week, but I wasn't happy with how the vid turned out. Fortunately I was able to get a proper video of this crossing in action. The first train I caught here was a westbound manifest. Crossing itself is a 90s UP install with various changes that I will get into later. There's no doubt these signals replaced a pair of older MoPac era signals with Walpar cantilevers since there are a couple of crossings along the Kansas Sub that retain them (which I have filmed some of those crossings already). Originally this crossing had a pair of wch mechanical bells which managed to survived into 2011 before UP replaced the one on the closest signal with a wch e bell in 2012. The far signal's mechanical bell got replaced sometime between the last streetview from 2012-2014 as it got replaced with the current wch e bell. Speaking of the far signal, sometime in 2016 UP added an extra pair of side lights that are pointed toward the turn lane on the westbound lane of K-32 for traffic that are turning left onto 88th St from K-32. Crossing remained unchanged until sometime around 2021 when the closest signal's wch e bell got replaced with the current gs type 3 e bell. I assumed that bell died at some point. Interestingly enough, the closest signal's cantilever has some wch clear leds with some Electro-Tech leds mixed in while the mast lights are GE dotted leds which replaced a pair of Electro-Tech leds in wch frames that used to be incandescent (no surprise there), while the lights on the far signal are all Electro-Tech. Those lights replaced the original incandescent lights this crossing once had. The traffic light mounted on the light pole before the crossing isn't a preemption signal. This crossing doesn't have a preemption sequence unfortunately. The reason there is that traffic light is so that cars that are traveling north on 88th St aren't sitting on the tracks while the light is red incase of a train approaching. It keeps cars (and semi trucks) from getting hit since there are industries located behind me.