16th Avenue #1, Nashville, TN

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 1-2-23*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, a Safetran Type 2 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, a Modern Industries mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

On January 2nd, I went up to Tennessee for another day trip. The first stops I made were to check-out some older traffic lights and pedestrian signals in Nashville, then I went over to this crossing to wait for CSX M531. After a little while of waiting, M531 came through with a CM44AC pulling on the head-end and an ES44AH working as the mid-train DPU.

This crossing is a rather nice one, featuring a 1970s L&N install. It appears that originally, all of the lights here were 8 inch with Federal Signal 8 inch lights on the closer signal, and Modern Industries 8 inch lights on the far signal. Later on in the 70s or in the 80s, it seems that the mast lights on both signals were replaced with WCH 8 inch lights, though it's a bit hard to tell. The crossing then remained unchanged until around the mid-2000s, when several upgrades occurred here. The far signal had the left-hand mast light replaced with a Safetran 12x24 inch light, and its bell was replaced with the Safetran Type 2 e-bell. At about this same time, it seems, both signals also had their gate mechs replaced with the current Safetran ones. Then, sometime between 2011 and 2014, the closer signal also had its mast lights replaced with more Safetran 12x24 inch lights. Finally, sometime in about mid-2015 (between May and July of that year), this crossing had all of its lights replaced with the current WCH 12x24 inch lights with LEDs. Since then, thankfully, no major changes appear to have occurred here, outside of the far signal getting its gate lights upgraded to LED at some point.
As mentioned above, this crossing is a rather nice one. Both of the old L&N-era Federal Signal(?) cantilevers are still here, and still look quite nice. The closer one also still features its original Modern Industries mechanical bell, which still sounds very healthy, thankfully. This bell had been dead previously, but I'm glad to see CSX chose to fix it rather than replace it. One of the mast lights on the closer signal has also been hit and is twisted as a result, likely due to the construction work going on around this crossing. I imagine CSX will fix that before too long, but hopefully the crossing remains largely unchanged for many more years to come otherwise. Either way, I'm glad I got to get this crossing filmed finally.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/G-Q/Nashville/16_1/