Stephen Street, Lemont, IL

[freebrickproductions]

*originally recorded on 11-24-25*

Signal on the left: 3 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran mechanical bell, a Safetran gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 5 pairs of Safetran 12x24 inch lights, a Safetran Hybrid bell, a Siemens gate mechanism, RECO LED gate lights, and an NEG LED gate light.

After documenting some of the traffic lights around this crossing, I continued waiting for a train to eventually come through. After a while of waiting, I was finally able to catch my first train of the day: the southbound Amtrak Texas Eagle with a lone P42DC pulling it for power! Definitely nice to catch another P42DC leading again, it'd been a few months since I last caught one leading.

This crossing is honestly an excellent one, and is easily one of my favorites I filmed on this trip in Illinois. The signals here were originally installed by the ICG in the late-70s, it appears. Then, in the early to mid-90s, The IC replaced all of the lights here with the current Safetran 12x24s, and the gate mech on the closer signal was replaced at about the same time with an 80s-style Safetran one. It also appears that about the same time, or at least shortly after later-on in the 90s, the IC replaced the bell on the closer signal with the current Safetran Hybrid bell. The crossing then remained largely unchanged for a couple of decades, but then, finally, sometime between 2024 and 2025, CN sadly replaced the gate mech on the closer signal with the current Siemens one.
Thankfully, this crossing has otherwise remained largely unchanged since the 1990s, which is great to see! It's nice to see that this crossing still has a pair of older Safetran cantilevers at it, with the far signal still retaining its original gate mech as well. Even better, the crossing is still fully incandescent, which is something that's getting pretty rare of a CN-owned crossing these days, especially for one with cantilevers like this! Of course, the stars of the show here are easily the bells, with this crossing still retaining a rare-ish Safetran mechanical bell/Safetran Hybrid bell combo at it! Per TommyBNSF's video of this crossing from back in 2020, both bells used to shut-off when the gates lowered and started back-up when the gates began to rise, which I suspect dates back to the IC. While the Safetran mechanical bell here still does that, the Safetran Hybrid bell here now rings the entire time the signals are on, which I suspect is due to the gate mech on the closer signal being replaced within the past year or so. Either way, both bells still sound nice and healthy, which is great to see, and it's nice to get an incandescent CN crossing filmed that still has some mechanical bells. Hopefully these classic signals remain unchanged for many more years to come, but, either way, I'm quite glad I was able to film this crossing on this trip.

https://www.rxrsignals.com/Illinois/L-Q/Lemont/Stephen/