Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 7-26-24*

Signal on the far left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with GE Uniform Look LEDs, a General Signals Type 3 electronic bell, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the far right: 1 pair of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with GE Uniform Look LEDs, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the near left: 1 pair of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with GE Uniform Look LEDs, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the near right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with GE Uniform Look LEDs, a Siemens gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
This crossing is in a quiet zone. Trains do not usually blow their horns for this crossing.

After catching the autorack train, I hit the road again and went to this crossing in Mableton to record next. I wasn't entirely sure if there was anything that would be coming through soon, and the lack of nearby crossings definitely didn't help, so I set-up my camera and recorded while I documented. As I was documenting the far side of the crossing, however, about to walk over and ask the maintainers working on the nearby defect detector if anything was approaching, the crossing activated! The train turned-out to be NS 156 once again, having snuck-up on me, giving a few taps on the horn despite the quiet zone due to the workers at the defect detector. Thankfully, I did have my camera rolling, though all of the action shots I got of these signals for the site are sadly backlit.

This crossing is a pretty decent one, IMHO, even if the equipment here's boring. Previously, there had been a trio of SOU-era signals here two gated signals, one of which was replaced in the late-90s by a newer NS signal, and a gateless auxiliary signal. Although these had been well modernized by NS over the years, including having the lights replaced at least twice, they were still fully incandescent. However, in 2023, this crossing became a quiet zone, so NS upgraded the signals here to quad-gates as a result. Since this upgrade, however, nothing has changed to this crossing, it appears.
Admittedly, although I would've liked to have filmed the old signals here, I knew about this upgrade already and wanted to film it because of that. I ain't ever filmed too many quad-gate installs like this, so I'm glad to have gotten another one filmed. Interestingly, the bell here comes back on when the exit gates rise, but shuts-off again when the entrance gates begin to rise. Not sure why it does that, TBQH. I believe this is also the newest install I filmed on this trip.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Georgia/G-Q/M ... Nickajack/