Old Automatic Grade Crossing Bell

[Anonymous]

Around 1900, many grade crossings had installed a relay-activated warning bell. This was an actual bell-shaped bell mounted atop a wooden post.

Does anybody know what the warning bell sounded like?

1) clang clang clang like a train pulling into a station

2) ding ding ding like today's grade crossing signals, or

3) r-r-r-r-ring like an alarm bell.

Does anyone know where a working example of such a grade crossing bell might exist? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

There is a warning bell on CSXT's Old Main Line Subdivision (B&O). It has no lights or gates...just crossbucks and what looks like a streetcar gong on a post. It sounds like a modern grade crossing bell. It's located on Hood's Mill Road just west of Sykesville, Maryland. I know of no other like it on the former B&O.

[Modelcar]

No help, but what a neat description....

QM

[Anonymous]

Updating what I've discovered thus far---the terminology for this type of grade crossing device is "locomotive type" grade crossing bell. There's apparently one at the Orange Empire Museum in SoCal, and possibly another up around here in Los Gatos at a children's train ride.

[Anonymous]

I know of a crosing like this in Stoutland, Missouri. The main street crossing has just crossbucks and a bell. (On top of a metal pole/controlbox) It is Located on BNSF's Cuba Subdivision, which has / had many unusual crossing warning devices. One, in Rolla, Missouri, has no bell, just Two lights, one above the other on a pole about four feet tall. The top light flashes yellow at the pace of a normal crossing light. The bottom light Stays lit the entire time the train is passing and says "NO RIGHT TURN". The device on the other side is the same excexpt it reads, "NO LEFT TURN". One still has it's original SLSF identificition tag made out of laminated paper. The reason for the no turn signs is the crossing, Rolla Street, is located at an intersection. However, the signals' days are limited. BNSF is replacing most of the signals in Rolla, and these will be replaced by gates.

-Brian