Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 7-28-24*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a WCH mechanical bell, a WCH gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a WCH gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After I got lunch, nothing else seemed to be in the area, so I slowly made my way north back towards Fayetteville, occasionally briefly stopping to see if anything was close. After swinging by the crossing in Rex, I'd decided continue north to Fayetteville, having decided to just go for the trio of gateless crossings in the downtown. As I was approaching this crossing, however, I heard something quickly approaching, going south. As such, I hopped-out and threw down my camera, and, within a few minutes, I was able to catch my third train of the day: CSX C317 with an ES40DC leading an AC44CW for power. Admittedly, being from the Tennessee Valley, I'm very much not used to seein' coal trains without DPUs, especially these days.

This crossing is another nice one, featuring a 1980s CSX install that's still fairly original. In the late-2010s, this crossing was given a full LED upgrade alongside the vast majority of the other CSX crossings in North Carolina (really all of them outside of a good few on the Norlina Sub and one crossing on the Aberdeen Sub). Thankfully, since then, no other major changes have occurred to this crossing, and it has remained fully original outside of its LEDs. Always do enjoy filming 80s CSX installs like this with their original light heads, bells, and gate mechs, even if I do prefer it when they're still incandescent. They really do just look nice.