• Original crossbucks?

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England

Moderators: MEC407, NHN503

  by trainsinmaine
 
The thread about wig-wags leads me to another question. Back in the '70s, most New England railroad replaced the wooden crossbucks that had been made and painted by their own in-house maintenance shops with the generic metal crossing signs that are now seen all over the country. I'm wondering if there are any original hand-painted crossbucks still standing on any New England rail line. I know of one, at the MEC Somerset Branch's Old Norridgewock Road crossing in Madison, Maine.

The B&M used to have very attractive signage when I was a kid, with unique block lettering and a distinctive black base on the bottom of each white sign.

  by CSRR573
 
The CSRR has a good amount along their line

  by b&m 1566
 
Most of the crossings on the CSRR have been replaced. In fact I don't know of any crossings to be wood or even iron except for the one in the N. Conway Station where the crossing is round and not X'ed. However there are some old ones left on the Conway Branch. The only ones that I'm aware of currently are in Conway and in Madison. Just south of where the CSRR stops in Conway there is a iron crossbuck still standing next to the three abandoned CSRR passenger cars at the southend of the Conway rail yard; only half of it still there. There's another one (I can't tell if its wooden or iron) just south of the Conway, Madison town line; it's actually the last crossing before the tracks disappear and the ROW becomes a dirt road. The only other crossings that I know of is just in Chelmsford, MA between downtown and 495 there is an iron crossbuck in the woods. The cross buck is just to your right when heading from downtown to 495 just after the spot where the tracks use to cross the main road right there.

  by CSRR573
 
what about the one that is next to the "Twin Mountain" sign on the mountain Div.(dont know the road)And there are a few i think just before MP101 on the Mountain Div.

  by b&m 1566
 
I don't know to much about the line west of Faybans or east of Intervale because that is not there normal service track. Infact a CSRR employee the other day said the track from Intervale to Redstone and from Faybans to Hazen is still listed by the NHDOT as out of service track even though they go to those areas 3 to 4 times a year. I have been to Redstone twice and Hazens twice but not enought to know much about it. I know there are 3 major crossings west of Faybans and before Hazens that use to be protected with flashing lights but the lights have been removed since the line became out of service (offically Guilford never actually abandoned the line) in September of 1984. So yeah there could be some wood or iron crossbucks on the line but I don't know of any in the areas that the CSRR operates on a day to day operation.
Off topic a little bit... On the Conway Branch (between Mount Whitter and Ossippe) I miss the route 16 grade crossing with the missing light closest one to the road on the north bound side and on the south bound side the cross buck was twisted to the point that it was facing the track and not the road. Those might have been iron because they were all rusted out.