Thomas Street (US 64 Business), Rocky Mount, NC

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 7-31-24*

Signal on the far left: a General Signals Type 1 electronic bell.
Signal on the near left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a Safetran gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a General Signals Type 1 electronic bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
This crossing is located in a quiet zone. Trains do not usually blow their horns at this crossing.

After I caught the local freight leaving, I stuck around and waited on the northbound Amtrak Carolinian since I knew that was coming next. After a little bit of waiting, here we see my fifth train of the day: AMTK 80 accelerating north out of its station stop in Rocky Mount.

This crossing is another nice one, featuring another neat one-way install at it. This crossing is another that was originally installed by the ACL back in the 1950s or so it seems, with the road here originally having been two-way. In the 1970s, it seems, the road got converted to a one-way road. As a result, the signal on the far side had all but the bell stripped from it, and a new left-hand gated signal was installed on the near side of the crossing by the SCL. It seems this signal may have had the lights and/or gate mech replaced on it in the late-70s with WCH ones, assuming it didn't have Federal Signal equipment of course. Though I suppose it's possible the gate mech was replaced in the 80s. Either way, in the late-90s, CSX replaced the bell on the bell-only signal here with the current GS Type 1 e-bell. The crossing then remained largely unchanged for around another decade or so, but then, sometime between 2007 and 2008, the right-hand gated signal was replaced with the current one. Interestingly the equipment on this signal seems to have largely been reused, given that the base on it's an older WCH one, and it was installed with the current GS Type 1 e-bell. The replacement lights on it were originally incandescent too. Then, sometime between 2008 and 2012, the left-hand gated signal was replaced by the current one, which was also originally incandescent. The signals here were left largely unchanged until sometime between 2017 and 2018, when CSX upgraded them to LED.
Thankfully, since then, no further changes appear to have occurred to this crossing. It's nice seeing that both GS Type 1s here are still around and still sounding rather healthy. It's also kinda neat to see that the old ACL signal on the far side is still around too, given that it was almost certainly gated given that it has a 5 inch mast. Admittedly, I'm kinda surprised that the SCL kept it around as an off-side bell-only signal when the road became one-way, but I suspect they probably wanted to keep it similar to the other one-way crossings in downtown Rocky Mount. Either way, I'm glad I was able to get this crossing recorded as well, even if it wasn't on the side with the bell-only signal.