Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 7-16-22*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a US&S Teardrop bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

In mid-July, I went up to the Columbus, OH, area with a few friends of mine from Jasper for TrotCon. On July 16th, I decided to meet-up with another friend of mine in the fandom who was at the convention, Train2589, and we went up to Marion to get this Teardrop on the CSX Columbus Subdivision filmed. After a bit of waiting, this southbound mixed freight came through with a CM44AC pulling on the head-end and an ET44AH as the mid-train DPU.

This crossing is a very nice one, and is also the first crossing I've ever filmed in the state of Ohio. Originally, there was a pair of gated C&O signals here, it appears, but in the early-2000s, CSX replaced both signals here with the current ones. Thankfully, the US&S Teardrop bell that the C&O had installed here was re-used onto the newer signals. The crossing then remained relatively unchanged until 2016, when CSX gave this crossing an LED upgrade alongside the rest of the crossings on the CSX Columbus Subdivision. Thankfully, since then, no major changes have occurred here, with really the only more noteworthy change is the far signal getting a set of NEG LED gate lights on it.
Interestingly enough, when CSX installed the current signals here, they re-used some mid-90s equipment at it. The far signal appears to be an early-2000s CSX signal, but has light-heads on it from the mid-90s. However, funnily enough, the closer signal appears to be a mid-90s signal that was re-used here, but is also the one with light-heads from the early-2000s!
Also not entirely sure why they re-used the US&S Teardrop here, though I suspect it may be due to being next to the Marion, OH, depot. Either way, I'm quite glad they did, and I'm glad to see it's still going very strong here. This is the first ex-C&O Teardrop I've filmed in service (all of the others I've filmed in service prior to this have been ex-SAL and ex-ACL, save for the ex-NC&StL one in Nashville, though I suspect the one I own is ex-CofG), and it's also one of the only two surviving C&O Teardrops that I'm personally aware of (with the other being the only known operational Teardrop bell in Kentucky), so that's neat to see as well. Hopefully it remains around here for many more years to come, but either way, I'm glad I was able to record it, and start-off another state with a Teardrop bell crossing.
It appears there was also some kind of railfan event going on here this day as well, as there were a bunch of other railfans hanging out at the depot in Marion. When this train started to get close, several of them ran over here for their photos and/or videos they were recording of it, and you can see a good few of 'em around the crossing at the start of the video.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Ohio/L-Q/Marion/Center1/