Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 8-1-24*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a WCH mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x20 inch lights with Leotek EV Series LEDs, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, a RECO LED gate light, an NEG LED gate light, and a RECO gate light.

After filming the Spring Street crossing timing out, I eventually decided to head to another crossing in Henderson, mistakenly thinking that L606 would be going further north on this day. However, after a few hours of waiting, Ethan and I soon realized they'd slipped-out southbound without us realizing, so we hit the road to head back towards Raleigh. Definitely a bit disappointing, as there were a few crossings I'd've liked to have been able to record on the run back south.
Thankfully, however, as I was passing through Wake Forest, I heard them working a customer there, so I hopped off of US 1 and made my way over to this crossing. After a little bit of waiting, CSX L606 came south through this crossing with the GP38-2 leading the GP40-2 for power.

This crossing is another nice one, featuring a late-70s SCL install at it. In the 1980s, it appears, the SBD replaced the bell on the far signal with the current 1st Gen WCH mechanical bell. Then, in the mid-1990s, the closer signal had its left-hand lights struck and replaced with the current ones, with the new left-rear light being a reused older 70s one. After that, in the early-2000s, CSX replaced the lights on the far signal with the current Safetran 12x24s, with the crossing remaining largely unchanged for a good few years after. Finally, however, sometime between 2016 and 2019, CSX would upgrade this crossing to LED, with thankfully no further major changes to it since.
This is a crossing I'm definitely glad I got to record, as I do quite like the mechanical bell pair here. Of course, I especially love seeing the classic SCL-era Safetran bell on the closer signal here, and I'm glad to see it (and the WCH) still sounds rather healthy, hopefully it's here for many more years to come. It's also nice to see that the closer signal still retains an older RECO incandescent gate light on the tip of its gate arm as well.