*originally recorded on 3-31-22*
Signal on the left: 3 pairs of Modern Industries 12x24 inch lights, a Modern Industries mechanical bell, a WABCO Model 75 gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of Modern Industries 12x24 inch lights, an NEG electronic bell, a WABCO Model 75 gate mechanism, and RECO LED gate lights.
On March 31st, I got up only to find that I was still tired, and I was also under a tornado watch as some strong/severe storms were rolling through, so I went back to bed and slept in a little while longer, before relaxing at the hotel a bit. I was originally gonna try to get TA-Local out in Quincy again on this day, but I figured I'd already missed it by the time I got out, so I just hung around here and waited for TA-East to come back in to Tallahassee.
After a while of waiting, eventually TA-East came rolling back into the yard here with one of the FGAR's new ex-FEC SD70M-2s running long-hood forwards with a small handful of cars. It turns out that TA-Local didn't run on this day (which I kinda suspected), but more on that later.
This crossing is a fairly nice one though, and one I'd wanted to record since I first documented it a few days prior. The signals here appear to be a mid-70s SCL install, located just south of the Florida State University. In the 1980s, it appears that the SBD replaced all of the lights here with the current MI 12x24s. The crossing then remained unchanged until sometime between 2016 and 2019. During this timeframe, the roads around here were redone (at least partially to provide new housing and some new parks, at least a fair bit of which appears to be FSU related), which caused the lights on the far signal to get re-aimed & remounted. At around this same time, the bell that had been on the closer signal (which appears to have been an FS or 1st Gen WCH bell) was sadly replaced with the current NEG e-bell. Since CSX sold off the line in 2019 however, it doesn't appear any major changes appear to have occurred to these signals.
Honestly, I do quite like this crossing, partially due to where it's located and also the equipment it has. The lights here are all pretty nicely faded, especially the rear pairs here, which seem to be almost completely white at this point. The MI bell is also nice to see, as you don't see too many of those on SCL installs in my experience. There's another one here in Tallahassee, over at Adams Street, which I wanted to record, but sadly wasn't able to on this trip (again, more on that later). It was also nice to be able to record another pair of WABCO Model 75s, given how non-existent they are in northern Alabama and the immediately surrounding areas.
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