Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

*originally recorded on 6-26-25*

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a WCH mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 1 pair of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, 1 pair of Modern Industries 12x24 inch lights, a WCH mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and NEG LED gate lights.

After catching the Silver Meteor in Bostwick, we continued on up to this crossing just north of Green Cove Springs to see if we could catching the Auto Train here. However, when we got here, I found-out that the Silver Meteor had stopped between Bostwick and Green Cove Springs, meaning we had beat them to yet another crossing! Thankfully, they soon got going, and, after a bit of waiting, we were able to catch Amtrak 98 for the third and final time on this day, flying past on their way north to Jacksonville and, eventually, New York, NY.

This crossing is another great one, featuring an old double mast install from the ACL at it still! It appears that, in the late-70s, the SCL replaced the 4 inch mast on the closer signal with the current one, replacing the bell on this signal with the current WCH mechanical bell at about the same time. Then, in the early to mid-80s, the SBD replaced all of the lights here with MI 12x24 inch lights. At about the same time, it appears that the far signal also had its bell replaced with the current WCH mechanical bell, and the closer signal also had its original gate mech replaced with the current Safetran one. The crossing remained largely unchanged for a little while after, it seems, but then, in the early-2000s, CSX replaced the far signal's gate mast with the current one, replacing the gate mech at about the same time with the current Safetran one. At about the same time, it seems, CSX replaced all of the lights on the far signal with the current Safetran 12x24s, also replacing the front pair of lights on the closer signal with the current Safetran 12x24s at about the same time as well.
Thankfully, since then, the crossing here has pretty much remained entirely unchanged, which is nice to see. It's nice to get another old ACL-era double mast install recorded, especially since half of the original masts here are still around. It's also nice to see that the crossing still retains a WCH mechanical bell pair, both of which still sound fairly healthy, if a bit worn-out. The lights also have some nicely faded backgrounds on them as well, which I always like seeing. Hopefully this crossing remains unchanged for many more years to come (aside from the WCH bells here getting a bit of TLC, of course), but, either way, I'm glad I got to film it.