Railroad Crossings of the FGAR P&A Subdivision

The FGAR P&A Subdivision is one of the Florida, Gulf, & Atlantic Railway's three mainlines, running from Pensacola, FL, to Chattahoochee, FL, in the Florida panhandle. It was originally built by the Pensacola & Atlantic Railroad (which was quickly made into a subsidiary of, and later absorbed by, the L&N railroad) back in the 1880s as an east/west rail-line across the Florida panhandle, a region which didn't initially have any such line. In 1891, the P&A got fully absorbed into the L&N, becoming its P&A Division. The railroad then remained with the L&N, up until the L&N was merged into the Seaboard System in 1982. The SBD also retained ownership of the line until 1986, when they merged with the Chessie System to form CSXT, who would continue to operate the line for the next few decades. In 2005, due to Hurricane Katrina, the Amtrak Sunset Limited, which had been operating across the P&A Sub, was "temporarily" discontinued east of New Orleans, and service has never resumed since, though the former Amtrak stations along the line still stand. In 2019, CSX reached an agreement with RailUSA to sell the line, along with most of the others they had in the Florida Panhandle, and the RailUSA-owned Florida, Gulf, & Atlantic was created to operated them. In later years, this line wasn't as major for CSX (hence why it got sold-off), and, as a result, retains a lot of older CSX, SBD, and L&N equipment still. It seems most of the crossings are 90s and 2000s CSX installs, though I didn't film too many of those. There are also still a lot of 80s SBD/CSX installs, and older L&N ones as well. There are a number of older cantilevers along the line as well, including a good few MI cantilevers from the SBD and a bunch of older FS/WCH cantilevers from the L&N, which is quite nice to see. There are also still a good few L&N double-mast installs as well, which are also always nice to see. There are also a few pedestrian signals along the line, which are generally rare in the southeastern US outside of a few parts of the Florida peninsula. I've only filmed nine crossings along the eastern line in general, all between Chipley and Sneads, so there probably isn't a massive variety being featured here, unfortunately. Still shows some nice stuff though. There doesn't appear to be any 8 inch lights left along the line, unfortunately, as it appears that back in the late-80s/early-90s, CSX went through and replaced all of the remaining ones with 3rd Gen MI 12x24s. There are still some older MI 12x20s along the line from the L&N though, as well as plenty of older (and at least some newer) WCH 12x24s and plenty of Safetran 12x24s as well, along with at least a couple pairs of Safetran 12x20s from the FGAR. A few of the lights have LEDs, with a mix of Dialight, Leotek, and WCH 2nd Generation LEDs from CSX and at least two pairs of GE Uniform Look LEDs from the FGAR as well, though I didn't film too many of these while I was down here. The gate mechanisms are a mix of GRS Type Ds from the L&N, older WCH gate mechs from the SBD and CSX (and a newer WCH gate mech from the FGAR), at least one pair of US&S Model 75 gate mechs in Chipley from the SBD (which I didn't get a chance to film, unfortunately), as well as plenty of Safetran gate mechs of varying ages, including at least a few 80s ones from the SBD and lots of 90s and 2000s ones from CSX, most of which I didn't film. There are also some Invensys Rail and Siemens gate mechs from CSX as well, of course. As far as bells go, there are a decent mix of mechanical bells and e-bells, though I didn't film too many of the latter. As far as mechanical bells go, it appears most of them are WCH 2nd Gens, with at least a good few WCH 1st Gens mixed in. There's also a decent number of MI bells and WRRS bells along the line as well, with at least one Federal Signal bell along the line in Chipley (which I did get to film). As far as e-bells go, it seems they're largely a mix of General Signals e-bells (seemingly mostly GS Type 2s with a few GS Type 1s mixed in) and NEG e-bells, with a few Safetran Type 3 e-bells mixed in, though I haven't filmed most of these. The FGAR has installed at least a couple of GS Type 3s since they took over the line, two of which I did film while visiting it. CSX did use some side-mounted NEGs to replace some of the older mechanical bells (such as ones from MI and WRRS) it appears though, usually on the older L&N-era cantilevers, which is unfortunate. All in all though, this is still a pretty nice line and I'm glad I got to film it. If you like my videos, feel free to leave me a tip on Ko-Fi! Any tips you give will be used to help cover the cost of gas on my trips. https://ko-fi.com/freebrickproductions