Mallory Station Road, Franklin, TN

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 7-11-24*

Signal on the left: 3.5 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and 1 WCH 12x24 inch light with a Leotek EV Series LED.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, 2 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs, and a Safetran Type 3 electronic bell.

On July 11th, I made my way back up to the Nashville area to film some more crossings, hoping to be able to catch L696 again especially. Unfortunately, once again, L696 had run earlier than expected, so I missed the northbound run. Regardless, I made it to this crossing and got set-up. Thankfully this time, I was able to catch CSX L696 here for my first train of the day, with an SD50-3 leading a GP40-2 for power!

This crossing is another nice one, featuring another pair of gateless cantilevers at it. The signals here were installed by CSX back in the 1990s, and were fairly original up to the late-2000s. Sometime between 2007 and 2013, all of the incandescent lights here were upgraded with WCH 2nd Gen LEDs, and the original WCH mechanical bell was replaced with the current Safetran Type 3 e-bell. The crossing then continued to remain largely unchanged until sometime after 2022, when CSX replaced most of the LEDs in the mast lights here with the current Leotek EV Series LEDs. Thankfully, nothing else had changed here, though I wouldn't be too surprised if the remaining WCH 2nd Gen LEDs get replaced, given that most of them have had their arrays come out of their gaskets as well.
Easily my favorite feature about this crossing is the Safetran Type 3 here. CSX really only used these back in the 2000s and early-2010s, but even then, that was very much primarily on the new installs at the time. As such, they're pretty hard to find on older installs (though can be found if you know where to look), and also pretty hard to find on gateless signals, on CSX's trackage, so I'm glad to see this one is still around. This one's also the only Safetran Type 3 e-bell on the entire Nashville Sub, which probably ain't too surprising. Hopefully it remains around for many more years to come, but, either way, I'm glad I got it recorded.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/A-F ... y_Station/