Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Not my footage, but here's what County Highway B near Stoughton looks like now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t_Pt6YIM6w

This has happened to a bunch of gateless crossings in the Stoughton, Edgerton and Milton area over the past 6 or 7 months. So much for these:

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/R-Z/Stoughton/B/

Even the regional RRs are doing away with 8" incandescent lights now.

Seems as though the FRA has struck again...

Seems as though those LEDs were going weird with the camera.

The FRA, or our ol' buddy "Tha Commish"?
Commish seems to be the one who beats it over making sure crossings have 12" LED lightheads.

Surprised while they took the time to do that upgrade, they couldn't at least straighten up the one signal while they were there as well. That looks somewhat crappy IMO.

SirKrunch wrote:The FRA, or our ol' buddy "Tha Commish"?
Commish seems to be the one who beats it over making sure crossings have 12" LED lightheads.

That'd be him. "Uncle Rodney," as Wisconsin railroaders knew him, was a big proponent of the latest and greatest in signaling equipment. He retired as state railroad commissioner a little while ago, so that may have given some older crossing signals, including the surviving wigwags, a reprieve for the time being.

He did do a lot of good in terms of train safety in upgrading wayside signaling systems, and there were some grade crossings that genuinely needed the upgrades. B is actually a pretty busy road. However, a few crossings with identical setups on this line (gateless mast signals with no sidelights and no bell) that were on rural roads that didn't even merit a painted median stripe got the upgrade. Low road traffic + 2 trains per day at 10 MPH = unnecessary upgrade if you ask me. They are planning to rebuild the track and increase the train speed to 30 MPH, but the volume will stay the same.