Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 7-14-23*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a General Signals Type 2 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights, a General Signals Type 3 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO gate lights.

After seeing the bell replacement in Decatur, I continued on over to the Shoals for lunch, deciding to head to a Five Guys in Florence. On the way, I did see NS had a meet lined at Wheeler, IIRC, though I decided not to try for any of the trains meeting there (though I probably should've). After getting lunch, I went down to Muscle Shoals where NS 320 was already leaving, so I continued on down to this crossing for it. When I'd originally set-up, the lighting was on this side of the crossing and the rain hadn't reached Russellville yet. Unfortunately, the rain came before 320 got here and the lighting moved to the other side of the crossing shortly before 320 came through. Not helping matters was the fact that, since I didn't set-up my umbrella (don't entirely recall why, might've been wind-related), I was concerned that raindrops would get on the lens so I wound-up staring directly into the camera lens at some point. Oh well, at least I've been able to get a better video here since.
Anyways, here we get to see NS 320 on its journey south to Birmingham on this day, with an AC44C6M leading an ES44DC on the head-end and another ES44DC working as the DPU.

This crossing's a pretty decent little one, with a nice bell combo at it of a GS Type 2 and a GS Type 3. It appears that this crossing featured a late-SOU install with two gated mast signals both with Safetran 12x24 inch lights, GRS Type D gate mechs, and Safetran mechanical bells. Unfortunately, in about 2011 or so, NS replaced the signals here with the current ones, due to having the GRS gate mechs. Then, sometime between 2015 and 2020, the bell on the closer signal was replaced with the current GS Type 3 e-bell, and the signals basically haven't majorly changed since. Still a somewhat neat crossing though, even if the signals are fairly modern. The far signal appears to feature a longer gate arm on it as well.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/R-Z/R ... /Franklin/

Was able to get a better video here from the other side on 8-4-23: