Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 4-18-23*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of WRRS 8 inch lights, a WRRS mechanical bell, a WRRS gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 3 pairs of WRRS 8 inch lights, a dead WRRS mechanical bell, a WRRS gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.

On April 18th, I went down to Montgomery with the intent on trying to shoot the CSX Americus Branch. Unfortunately, after several hours of waiting, the local freight that worked it still hadn't shown-up yet. However, a friendly signal maintainer showed-up to test the crossing, and I was thankfully able to record this one, which I had been wanting to get for some time now.

This crossing is an absolutely excellent one, and, as mentioned just above, was one I'd really been wanting to shoot for quite some time now. The signals here were installed by the SCL back in about 1969 or maybe even 1970, and are pretty much entirely original. The only notable change here is that both of the gate arms and all of the gate lights were replaced at some point, but, otherwise, these classic RACO cantilevers are still entirely original, with both each even having a cats-eyed crossbuck! I suspect that this may straight-up be the last crossing in the southeastern US with more than one cats-eyed crossbuck, certainly when it comes to crossings that are still in service, anyways. The gate arms, although newer aluminum ones, also still feature the older diagonal striping, which I feel fits this classic SCL install quite well.
The WRRS bell on the closer signal is sadly dead, unfortunately, and the gate lights on the far side are mis-wired. The maintainer said he'd come back to fix these, so I wouldn't be too surprised if these have been corrected since. Either way though, I'm quite glad to have finally been able to record these absolutely classic & almost completely original SCL signals in action, even if it wasn't for a train.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/G-Q/M ... /Dalraida/