Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF Tri-Light Signals Up and Running Around Modesto

It seems that BNSF chose last night to fire up their new signal system between Riverbank and Denair on their mainline in the Northern San Joaquin Valley of California. I saw them working early last evening, using quartz-light towers, at a couple of locations with the old searchlight signals. Today, the searchlight signals are gone, and the new tri-light signals are turned, facing down the tracks, and lit. RIP Searchlights!

Are the searchlights between Escalon and Duffy still up, or did they do those too? What sort of replacement did they install for the three eastbound searchlights at the east end of Riverbank? Last time I was there a few months ago, they only had a single mast-mounted colorlight waiting to take over for the siding signal, but nothing for the main or yard lead.

And the tri-lights suck...before I could see the signal departing modesto, now I have to be right on top of it to see it...

Posted from BlackBerry

re: Escalon and EE Riverbank. Those have not been replaced yet.

Escalon has been tri-light, east end, middle, and west end, for a long time.....perhaps a year! The east end of Riverbank got tri-lights last night. The three new eastbound signals were planted just three or four feet west of the searchlights they replaced. The eastbound searchlights at at east Riverbank were always lit.....with the new tri-lights, only the signal for coming out of the yard is continuously lit, while the main and siding are approach lit. Strangely, all of the signals, both directions, at West Riverbank are still continuously lit. I don't know for sure if the searchlights west of West Escalon were replaced, but I presume so. I heard that the delay of getting all of these new tri-lights operational was the wait for a new computer for dispatching, and it's program, to be completed.

Actually it was between East Riverbank and West Modesto Empire ( MODEMP ). All the old search light signals on the Bakersfield sub have been retired and the PTC has been installed. I haven't been passed the West end of Riverbank for a few weeks now but I haven't seen and signal changes in the GTB's. So the old search lights should still be up. One more thing the old Santa Fe style signal bridge is still up between the Jensen over pass and Chuch ave. If your daring you can get a few shots of the signal bridge from the Jensen overpass.

Tri-lights at East Empire, and two intermediate location between East Empire and West Denair were activated, too. West Denair's tri-lights, and east of there were activated quite some time ago.