Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 10-14-23*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of Modern Industries 12x24 inch lights, 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a dead NEG electronic bell, an Invensys Rail gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, 2 pairs of Federal Signal 12x20 inch lights, a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After I caught L818 in Talladega, I went on down to Abanda to finally get this crossing filmed. Thankfully, the lighting here had moved to the north side, and, after about an hour of waiting, this CSX M202 came through with an ET44AH leading an ES44AH for power.

This crossing is a very nice one, and is easily one of the best on the Alabama portion of the Lineville Sub, IMHO. It appears that the SCL installed a pair of signals here in the mid-70s, possibly replacing something older. Getting ahead of myself here a little bit, but 2007 street view, the only imagery at this crossing, shows the closer signal with its original 1st Gen Safetran bell, while the far signal had what appears to have been a WRRS or 1st Gen WCH bell on it, and, if it's the former, I have no idea if it was original to the signals or even predated the signals here.
Either way, in the 1980s, I'm guessing the signal on the far side was wiped-out, so the SBD replaced it with the current one, though it seems the bell was reused from the signal it replaced. Then, in the mid-1990s, the mast lights on the closer signal were replaced with the current Safetran 12x24s by CSX. After that, the signals here remained largely unchanged for almost another decade, but further upgrades would come starting in the late-2000s. In the late-2000s/early-2010s, sometime after 2007, the bell on the closer signal was replaced with the current Safetran Type 3 e-bell. At about this same time or shortly afterwards, and almost certainly between 2011 and 2014, the gate mechanism on the far signal was replaced with the current Invensys Rail one. Then, sometime around then again or after, the bell on the far signal was replaced with the current NEG e-bell, with thankfully no major changes have occurred to these signals since.
Both signals here are rather nice, though I am quite glad I got to film on the north side, as I think the closer signal is the nicer of the two. This signal, despite the various upgrades over the years, has managed to retain not only its original gate mechanism, but also its original overhead lights. Even better is the fact that the overhead lights are all Federal Signal 12x20s which are still fully incandescent, the only ones on the Lineville Sub in Alabama. The far signal also still retains its original lights, which are nice to see as well, I think this is the only fully incandescent cantilever crossing left on the Lineville Sub in Alabama.
It's a bit of a shame that the NEG e-bell here has gone dead, as it'd make for a nice bell combo here. I noticed that sometime within the past year and a half or so, the speaker of that bell had fallen into the bell, as back in February of 2022, the bell was fine. No idea if the bell would've worked back then, but I suspect that might be why the NEG e-bell here died. All in all this is a great crossing, and hopefully CSX leaves it mostly unchanged for many more years to come (other than replacing the dead bell, of course). Either way, I'm certainly glad I got to record it.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Alabama/A-F/Abanda/AL77/