Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 7-31-24*

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

After catching the CLNA for the second time, I went off and snagged some lunch since there seemed to be a lull in traffic on the A Line again. After lunch, I went for this crossing since it was the last one in Rocky Mount I wanted to film. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait too long before I got my seventh train of the day: a southbound CSX mixed freight (I forget the ID, I think it was CSX M4-something, I believe either M415 or M421?) came rolling through with a CM44AC leading an ES44AH on the head-end and another ES44AH working as the mid-train DPU.

This crossing is another nice one, featuring the third and final remaining one-way install in downtown Rocky Mount with an off-side bell-only signal. The signals here were originally an old ACL install from the 1950s, however, in the mid-90s (it seems), CSX replaced the gate mechs on the two gated signals here with a pair of Safetran ones. Then, in the late-90s, the bell on the closest signal here was replaced by the current GS Type 1 e-bell. The crossing remained largely unchanged for over decade after, but, sometime between 2012 and 2015, CSX replaced both gated signals here with the current (reused?) Safetran ones, which were originally incandescent, with the bell here being replaced by an NEG e-bell at the same time, though that NEG would eventually later be replaced by the current one. Finally, sometime between 2016 and 2019, CSX upgraded this crossing to LED.
Thankfully, since then, aside from maybe the NEG e-bell replacement, nothing too major has changed to this crossing. It's nice to get the third of these bell-only signals at the one-way crossings filmed, especially since I got to record this one on the side with the GS Type 1. These crossing do look a bit neat with the bell-only signals on the off-sides, so I'm glad I was able to snag them. For whatever reason, the bell-only signal here uses a much shorter mast than usual.