Menzler Road Railroad Crossing, Nashville, TN

originally recorded on 7-22-24

Signal on the left: 2 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs.
Signal on the right: 2 pairs of WCH 12x24 inch lights with WCH 2nd Generation LEDs and a Safetran Type 2 electronic bell.

After M513 came through, I wound-up having to wait for several more hours before eventually anything else would come through. Admittedly, I honestly probably should've tried for some of the WeGo Stars over on the NERR, as their main wasn't too far away, but I wanted to make sure I got this crossing. Thankfully, after about four hours of waiting, my patience would finally pay off, and I was able to get my fourth and final train of the day: CSX M574 slowly departing from Radnor Yard in Nashville (even coming to a complete stop on the crossing for about five minutes) with a pair of ES44AHs leading an ES40DC on the head-end and a third ES44AH working as the train's DPU. Interestingly, all of the locomotives on this train other than the leader had just come in on the M584 I'd caught earlier in the day.

This crossing is another nice little one, and is located on what's honestly a pretty quiet road in the evenings once the businesses located next to the crossing have closed-up shop for the evening. In fact, once they did, I don't think I saw a single other person pass through here.
Anyways, the signals here were originally a 1970s L&N install, replacing an older gateless install, with a mix of Modern Industries and Federal Signal 8 inch lights on them originally. It seems there may have also once been a third track here, as the far signal was also originally located further back.
It appears that in the late-90s or possibly the early-2000s, CSX replaced whatever mechanical bell was here with a GS e-bell (I suspect a Type 1). Then, sometime between 2009 and 2014, the GS e-bell was replaced with the current Safetran Type 2 e-bell. It wouldn't be too long after that this crossing would see its next change, however, as, sometime between 2014 and 2015, it seems (certainly no later than 2019), CSX would replace the far signal with a newer mast mounted closer to the two remaining tracks here. It appears that about this same time, CSX gave the crossing an LED upgrade, replacing the 8 inch lights with the current LED WCH 12x24s. (As a side note, you can actually see the replacement mast and foundation laying at this crossing next to the tracks on the 2014 street view imagery.) Thankfully, since then, nothing major appears to have changed to this crossing, which I believe is one of the last five or so gateless crossings on the CSX Nashville Terminal. I suspect the main reason it's managed to even survive, however is due to how quiet of a road it's located on. Regardless, I'm glad to see the old L&N signal still survives on the nearside of the crossing as well, hopefully CSX leaves it alone for many more years to come. Either way, I'm definitely glad I was finally able to record this crossing in action.

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Tennessee/G...

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