Railroad Crossings of the NS West End District

The NS West End District was the Southern Railway's mainline from Birmingham, AL to Columbus, MS. However, at some point, the line was truncated back to Parrish, AL, with the remaining bit of the line to Berry, AL, becoming the NS Berry Branch. It appears that more recently, NS has rolled this in with the NA District to become the NS NA/West End District, though I still kinda count them as two separate lines due to how they are mileposted.
Up until about 2011, this line daw at least a decent amount of traffic, although it'd steadily lost most of its traffic over the years. In 2011 however, this and the NA District were both rationalized by NS, getting rid of most of the remaining through traffic and dropping the speed limit of both lines to at most 25 MPH, as to avoid having to implement PTC along here (although such an upgrade had been started, with many of the control points featuring PTC antennas that went unused). Currently, there are only five trains that operate along this line: NS 320 and NS 329, the two daily mixed freights; NS 74G and NS 75G, as-needed coal trains that run between Parrish and Wilsonville, AL; and an evening local that works the line between Birmingham and Parrish.
The remaining segment of the NS West End District's rather short, only being about 41 miles long, with a total of just 16 signalized crossings left along it (with the westernmost one being in Cordova). While this line's been pretty decently modernized over the years, there's still plenty of older SOU masts left, along with three Safetran mechanical bells and three GS Type 1s. In fact, most of the bells along the line are GS Type 2s, with all of the Safetran Type 3s being confined to Birmingham. A few of the signals also have Safetran 12 inch lights installed by the SOU back in the 70s, and at least three of the crossings with gated signals along the line still retain at least one old SOU signal still standing at them. All of the lights along this line though are various ages of Safetran 12 inch lights, save for a "No Right Turn" signal at 21st Street in Birmingham that still features a RACO 8 inch light and a WCH 12x20 inch light. The line does still feature what has to be the oldest signal in service in the state though: an old Peerless Manufacturing Co. gateless mast in use at 7th Avenue in Birmingham. Also rather neat to see is the fact that the line's still fully incandescent (save for a few LED gate lights), something you don't really see all that often here in the US anymore.

[@theelginrailfan9489]

Nice compilation of videos!

[@freebrickproductions]

Thanks!

[@RailfanNS]

Great Video! Definitely a binge worthy video!

[@freebrickproductions]

Thanks!

[@deanhale3438]

As always, Great work! Thanks for posting this.

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Thanks!

[@titalulu6040]

1:12:46 Nice UP locomotive

[@iliketrains1233]

Aw man the 4017 really got tagged

[@danrailbro8980]

1:37:30 you were foaming at the railroad crossing LOL 😆

[@elu0502]

.

[@danrailbro8980]

@@elu0502 it's a joke

[@Nahtn]

First train takes forever, wow

[@Benito2006]

Nice video

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Thanks!

[@Cnw8701]

29:15, he wailed on that horn!

[@jamesformisano5968]

very good catches an text!

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Thanks!

[@ILoveTrains]

Great videos of the trains at the crossings!

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Thanks!

[@theelginrailfan9489]

1:37:17 the best

[@rickygonzalez3152]

28:12 You're lucky all of you guys made it, because the last 3 of you cars better not do that again!

[@SteelCitySirensandTrains]

Noice

[@freebrickproductions]

Thanks!