If the age of the Safetran scallop shell is actually ending, what appears to be replacing it are little boxes and they all look just the same. Of course modular square box housing signals are nothing new with the GRS D Type seeing widespread use up through the 1980's along with offerings from Harmon and L&W (which I have touched on before). What's interesting is that the new era of "little boxes" appear a bit more homogenous than the last so if we are seeing an end to the scallop shell era, what comes next could be equally bland.
Above are new signals from Lindsay recently installed on the DART Silver Line. Lindsay had previously gotten the adjacent Texrail account and at the time I noted that its single color modular offerings still featured the GE logo, which put them in the lineage of Harmon. Well the new batch used on the Silver Line have swapped out the GE circle for the Lindsay swoosh (which itself is vaguely reminiscent of the original Harmon logo).
Now look at the new signal from Progress Rail that is being deployed on new projects by CSX. Looks awfully familiar to what Lindsay is selling. Keep in mind that little of these box designs would be protected by intellectual property apart from the logo so new market entrants are effectively free to copy what is in essence a cast aluminum box with a hinged door.
Of course this warrants comparison with Union Switch and Signal's attempt to enter this market segment 30 some odd years ago. While also a box, the lines are crisper and the design far less cluttered, which probably indicates an elevated price point. DART famously used blank US&S modules to increase the height of its mast style signals, but away from the public transport sector, the US&S boxes saw limited adoption.
Anyway with the scallop shell monopoly now broken, it will be interesting to see if we get additional "little box" suppliers or perhaps something more paradigm changing like LED searchlights.
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