Saginaw Rd. #2 (Midland, MI)

Older style cantilevers exist here with those nasty looking GRS 8" lights. Once again, the usual General Signals electronic bells can be found here. The white area in between the lights and the STOP ON RED SIGNAL sign is another crossing ID sign in addition to the CSX sign located in picture 4 below. This crossing is 100 feet from 20th St., 1000 feet from Saginaw 3, and about 3000 feet from Saginaw 1.

Picture 5 shows a side view of these lights. Picture 6 shows the only 2 lights out of 18 that aren't GRS. Also note that the two lights in front stick straight out ala Griswold, while the two in back curve down like the traditional signals you find today.

Pictures 7 and 8 show more views of the signals. In picture 8 between the lights says RACO MINNEAPOLIS, a company that's long gone now. Picture 9 shows the views of Saginaw 2 and Saginaw/20th St.

More views. Pictures 1 and 11 almost look the same, but picture 11 is slightly closer than picture 1 is.

I finally got them in action on January 15, 2005 at around 8 AM EST. All 16 lights worked just fine, even the GRS lights. I got to hear the electronic bells, and they were General Signals Type 1 (the popular type found in Arizona). These pictures were taken by Gregg.

Picture 13 shows the private Saginaw crossing in action as well. Those also have General Signals Type 1 electronic bells.

Here are a some camcorder images taken right from the videos that will become Railroad Signals 2005 available at the end of the year (yeah, I know, it's a very long time away). The GRS lights seemed to do their jobs pretty well.

Train #2610 was sitting here activating the crossings when we got here. Our plan was that we were going to chase it to Saginaw, and possibly get it at the Waldo 2 crossing, but we learned that it stayed until around 5 PM EST! I'm glad we didn't wait.

The train goes slowly (approximately 10 MPH) inside DOW's private territories. Later on, we though it was coming out, and it, in fact was switching, activating these signals for a very long time (no one waited while the train was too far away).

We stayed there too long however, and the DOW security found us. Nothing happened, but it isn't something that they don't see very often I guess. They just didn't want us going into private areas. So that lets you know that I'm no exception.

After the train finished, our car was in the right lane, and was constantly getting honked for not moving. Sometimes people just don't appreciate railfans. Why didn't they go around us? Instead, the car had to be turned around so that I could be picked up.

Here's the view of the private crossing, as the train disappears into DOW. The cantilever signals went off first, then a few seconds later, these turned off. There's an automatic fence that closes behind the train so that tresspassers don't go into DOW territory.

More notes: When the signals activated a second time, both signals were on for about 10 minutes, and when the train go too far away, both crossings shut off at the same time. Kind of weird in my book.

Also, in the past, DOW used to allow tours inside. I was planning on going to a tour to get the rest of the crossing signals inside the plant (there is at least one more), but thanks to the September 11 attacks, they've stopped the tours indefinitely.