AZ State Highway 71 (Congress, AZ)

Here is something I forgot about. In the late 80's when I lived in Wickenburg, I used to travel to Congress, AZ about 15 miles NE of Wickenburg, and this is the only crossing there is as of 1/9/99. There were other streets, but they were closed by the railroad in 1998. These signals were installed around 1987-1988, replacing older signals with no gates and older crossbucks, and no cantilevers. This goes about 30 miles between other state highways from Congress to Agulia, AZ (Which too has a railroad crossing, which had older signals.)

My grandfather was taking these and was in a hurry to leave, and I was only there for about 1-2 minutes. Picture 3 is an old photo I found in my archives. These three pictures were taken sometime around 1988 or 1989.

Both cantilevers are from Safetran.

5/18/2000 Update:

Pictues 4 and 5 show that somehow the signal was destroyed, and another one was put in place very quickly. Look at how bad the lights are far apart. Even on repeated visits, this is never fixed. If I was a worker, I would never allow this.

The newer cantilever to go up is from Harmon. The older 1980s style cantilever is still Safetran.

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Here are pictures of a somewhat better camera. The light placement still hasn't changed.

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15	16
Pictures 15 and 16 show better track views than before. Pictures 10-16 were taken May 12, 2002.

3/7/2003 Update:

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The Safetran cantilever signal has been changed. The mast lights are still 12"x20", although I can't tell if they were the same ones on the last installation. The cantilever lights are 12"x24". All lights are incandescent.

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The other signal still isn't fixed yet. Pictures 17-21 were taken February 24, 2003 along the way to California.

8/20/2005 Update:

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I saw this train near the Date Creek crossing upon my descent from the Yarnell Hill on August 6, 2005. I beat it here, and got the signals active for the first time. The bells are General Signals Type 1.

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However, the train stopped short of the crossing, and made the signals time out. A van was on a side street when the train approached. Someone then came out, with a tire (probably for the van), and a few other people left with suitcases out of the locomotive, and took off in the van after about 20 minutes, therefore abandoning the locomotive. I told Gregg about this, and what happened is that the engineers time limit ran out, which is supposed to be 12 hours for operating a train. They probably went to Wickenburg to get a new engineer, or something, therefore, I abandoned the train, and continued to California.

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On August 8, after getting ahead of another train from the Date Creek crossing, I beat it here, and once again, it stopped short of the tracks, timing out the signals again. I feared that my quest would be over, luckilly it only stopped for 2 minutes, blew its horn, and continued to Wickenburg. By the way, the bells continue to ring when the gates go up.

CLICK THE ICON TO THE LEFT TO HEAR THE CROSSING IN ACTION.
(RECORDED AUGUST 6, 2005)

CLICK THE ICON TO THE LEFT TO HEAR THE CROSSING IN ACTION.
(RECORDED AUGUST 8, 2005)

12/20/2005 Update:

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On November 30, 2005. On a trip to Wickenburg, I caught a train going by here heading Northward. I decided to shoot from the other side of the tracks this time.
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Here it is!	Close-ups.		I never knew BNSF delivered mail?!

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The end of the train.	The gates rise.	The train continuing on towards the Date Creek crossing.

CLICK THE ICON TO THE LEFT TO HEAR THE CROSSING IN ACTION.
(RECORDED NOVEMBER 30, 2005)

4/11/2006 Update:

On March 31, 2006, on my way back home from leaving Blythe and Ripley, CA, I saw a train parked at the crossing. Less than 1 minute later, it begins to move. Unfortunately I didn't have the camcorder available, so I took these 5 pictures.

The train only blocked traffic for about 2 1/2 minutes or so.