Let's Watch A UP Freight Train Cross 2 Railroad Crossings On Union Pacific's Altoona Subdivision

Описание: Recorded on Sunday July 6 2025

My 33rd YouTube video (29th of 2025)

Welcome to my first train video on this channel. I will little to never be making train videos for this channel, and this may be the only train video I'll ever make for this channel. So this whole thing started out with the east crossing on Osgood Avenue/40th Street in Stillwater MN getting an upgrade and a traffic light put up next to it as part of a road reconstruction project. This whole reconstruction project, the new traffic signals, and the installation of these crossing signals were just completed earlier this year, so these crossing signals are a brand new 2025 install by Union Pacific. Now, most railroad companies out there except for CSX and Union Pacific (at least from what I knew) use General Signals Type 3 electric bells. I know that Union Pacific and CSX still use NEG electric bells on their brand new crossing signal installations. So that's the only reason why this video was made, because I was really curious to know if Union Pacific was still using NEG electric bells for their new crossing signal installations, which it turned out they still do. But, I also know that to replace dead bells, Union Pacific sometimes uses General Signals Type 3 Electric bells, as I discovered that after chasing this train to film it again at Century Avenue in Oakdale/Maplewood MN. So this morning, I decided to drive to the first crossing featured in this video at Osgood Avenue/40th Street to see if I could catch a train at the brand new crossing to see it in action, along with the traffic light going into preemption (train) mode. Sure enough, within less than a half hour of waiting, I heard a train! After filming the train at Osgood Avenue/40th Street, since the train was traveling west towards St Paul, I decided to safely drive and chase the train to Oakdale MN to try to catch it there as well. So I drove to the MN Highway 120/Century Avenue crossing in Oakdale/Maplewood MN to film it again, and from the other side. I ended up passing the 2 leading locomotives between the bridge on Stillwater Boulevard/Stillwater Road in Lake Elmo and the Ideal Avenue/Helmo Avenue crossing in Oakdale. This really long train was 3 locomotives and 180 cars! At the Osgood Avenue crossing, the train took over 8 minutes to clear the crossing, and it took over 7 minutes to clear the crossing at Century Avenue, as it was traveling a little faster there. For whatever reason, the crossing signals at Osgood Avenue activated over 3.5 minutes before the train arrived at the crossing. The traffic light went into preemption (train) mode after the green light clearance phase almost 3 minutes before the train arrived at the crossing. I'm not sure why this crossing signal system is like that, as the minimum requirement by law is 20 seconds. I find the 3.5 minute before arrival time really weird, as trains seem to travel really slow through that crossing, probably because it's located right in the middle of a 180 degree curve on the tracks. I did notice that the train did start picking up speed toward the end of it crossing Osgood Avenue though. I've never seen a train at the Osgood Avenue crossing prior to the day this video was filmed, so trains could perhaps travel faster through that crossing than this one did, and that could be a reason why it took so long for the train to finally arrive at the crossing. I would like to note about the Osgood Avenue crossing that the original signals here as of the 2000s were a 2000s signal install by Union Pacific that lasted until somewhere between early 2022 and late 2023 when they were replaced with newer signals. Then those newer signals got replaced earlier this year with what is here now as part of turning the intersection just north of the crossing from a 3 way to a 4 way intersection. I also would like to note about the Century Avenue crossing that the bells on that crossing now have GS Type 3 electric bells. The signals on that crossing were first installed somewhere in 2010 or 2011 replacing old Raco cantilevered signals that were also gated, and with a mechanical bell on the signal for the traffic going north. Both of the new signals originally had either GS Type 2 Electric Bells or NEG Electric Bells as there are other videos on YouTube of that crossing prior to that, but they since got replaced with the General Signals Type 3 bells most likely because the old bells died. I even filmed a train at that crossing for one of my old, now deleted YouTube channels back in May 2019, and both of the old original bells were still on that crossing back then. This crossing also used to not have medians, and was not a quiet zone crossing. All 4 of the crossings in Oakdale (including this one) were upgraded with medians in September 2017 as part of the quiet zone ordinance that started in January 2018.

Train video end time at Osgood Avenue/40th Street: 5:57 AM

Train video end time at MN Highway 120/Century Avenue: 6:22 AM