I wanted to add flashing crossbucks to a dangerous grade crossing in the town of Bridgeville.  A search for good looking crossbucks, in both appearance and scale size, revealed ones from Berkshire Junction and NJ International.  I wanted to activate the crossbucks with across-the-track infrared detection as the lighting in the train room is not very good and I also operate in a night scene.  A Berkshire Junction crossbuck package deal came with this type of detection, a flashing circuit and the crossbucks themselves which made it a very logical choice.  So I went with the ones from NJI instead - go figure.  That meant building or buying a separate detection and flashing circuit.   I also thought of having a bell sound when the lights came one.

First up was doing some touch-up on the NJI #2095 crossbucks when they arrived.  A little tab of black paint on the light hoods and a straitening of the wires going down the outside of the pole on one was all that was needed.   The sign on one was a little crooked but not enough to mess with. They worked out of the box on 9 volts using the attached resistor.  Feeding the crossbuck wires through the extruded foam and door base, as shown on the left,  is not that hard if you use a hooked piece of piano wire to pull them thru. I rested the crossbucks on washers glued at ground level which added some stability since the ground scenery was already done in that area.

Even before the crossbucks arrived, I started looking for an IR detector circuit that would look across the tracks on the east and west approaches for the arrival of a train.  I decided to scratch build a circuit that was designed by Rob Paisley.  Initial testing on the bench, shown on the left,  showed good results an I am waiting on the arrival of  3mm detection devices as they are smaller and easier to hide in trees or bushes than the ones I've seen at the local Radio Shack.

We now have working crossbucks thanks to the alternating flashing circuit board from Ngineering.  It's a very small board but the flashing rate is adjustable if needed.  At this point activation is via a switch on the control panel as I'm still awaiting parts for the detection circuit.

So what to do while your waiting, how about adding a bell and its circuit.  Also a design by Rob Pasley. My 2 year old grandson loves the sound of the bell, which also necessitated a kill switch on the control panel.

The 3mm IR emitter and phototransistor detection devices arrived.  I bend the leads at 90-degress and put some shrink tubing hoods on them.  The blue showing will be painted black.

The sensors are being held in place with tweezers until I get them adjusted across the tracks.  The LED on the circuit board will go out when they are aligned to each other.  Initial testing will have them set around coupler height. 

Where did the detectors go?  They are hiding in the bushes and trees on each side of the track. 

I decided to combine the pieces of this project onto one "board" instead of spreading them under the layout as I initially did.  Left to right; bell, bell circuit, flasher circuit, IR detection board, woo-woo sound module and connection block.

Note: The IR detectors get overwhelmed if there is bright morning sunlight coming in one window in the layout room.  I cut a very small piece of floppy disk recording material that I can use as a screen in front of the IR phototransistor during that time of day.  It filters out the bright ambient light but the infrared gets past.