Nostalgia & History > Telltales and pantographs

It used to be, when people walked the roof walks on the cars, that there were telltales strung before low clearance places to remind the people on top that they shouldn't be on top.

What did they do with an electrified railway like the MILW line? Seems to me those nice weighted tails would wrap around a pantograph horn and yank the whole thing right off the locomotive.

That's OK. The roof-walking brakeman were electrocuted first. :-)

Marty Bernard

MILW trolley wire was 26' 2" if I remember correctly. It was designed to allow a brakeman on the roof while the train was in operation. There were places that it was lower, such as 22' when crossing a street railway, since that was the standard height of wire for street railways.

Now, I don't know if they changed their minds about letting people topside when the wire was hot. But their original intent was to allow the standard practice.

like the tennis pro who got her hair tangled up in her racket, then got pissed cuz it interfered with her play?

Steve Donaldson
Pacific Grove, CA

Street railways typically used 19' high wire. That 22' at MILW crossings was to maintain clearances for the MILW. City streetcar poles wouldn't reach much higher and maintain adequate contact pressure on the wire.

No electrified railroad that I know of used telltales on electrified tracks. The Reading Co. had tell tales on the un-electrified tracks at Wayne Jct, but none on tracks with wire, the R Co. also prohibited riding on top of cars on electrified tracks. The PRR had 26' wire in yards and on some freight lines and would allow employees to ride on top of Plate B or C cars in areas marked with an illuminated diamond shaped sign that said "High Wire", but in areas not marked and on the main lines riding on top of equipment was prohibited. Under Penn Central the practice of riding on top of cars was banned altogether, and they started the practice of cutting off the side ladders to prevent access to the top of the cars.

An interesting source of issue was the operation of steam engines in electrified zones. Employees had to be very careful where and when the climbed up on the coal pile or the back of the tender as in some places the wire could be low enough for a gotcha. Guys working on Ballast cars, Welded rail trains, and the old gate style tie cars had to pay attention as well, the danger is ever present.

The MILW did not use telltales at all in electrified territories. I don't remember seeing them in photos of the Rocky Mountain and Coast Divisions pre electrification in the 1909-1914 time period. Maybe someone can produce one.

By the time the CM&PS built west 100% air brakes were the norm and the need for brakemen to occupy car roofs to control train speed on mountain grades was over.

Trolley heights were reduced in tunnels to the point no one could stand on the roof and clear the trolley. When standing on the roof of a boxcar to pass signals to the engineer around the curve when still a pup brakeman it is best to listen to listen to your tiny voice as you start your arm motion. The 3300vdc contact point was about 3" up your forearm from the wrist at the top of a back up move circular arc. Think of all the babble TO readers might have missed had I not listened to my little voice one night in Missoula. Portable radios? They came much later after the wires were down.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/14 13:24 by fbe.

I've attached a couple of memos from R. Beowouks, head of the electrical department at the MILW, to various people.

One is regarding clearance (or lack thereof) between coal chutes and the 100KV feed wiring and 3KV track wiring. Presumably this was taken care of in some way, though of course eventually the coaling equipment was removed, I believe.

The other one is to an engineer at GE, discussing tests on "warning signals". I admit you can't tell from this memo what a "warning signal" is, but an earlier memo described the "standard warning signal" as a wire strung across the ROW, with a number of weighted lines depending therefrom, which would strike a trainman on the top of a car and suggest that something far harder was coming along soon to strike him. Nowhere does the MILW seem to use the term "telltale" for this device, but it seems pretty obvious that that is what they were describing.

Now, I suspect what happened is they eventually decided that having people on top the car wasn't a wonderful idea; but at the time of these memos, they were still considering that it would happen.

It occurs to me that it has been just about exactly 99 years now since the MILW turned on the switch for the first time.

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>Now, I suspect what happened is they eventually decided that having people on top the car wasn't a wonderful idea;

Correct, although "eventually" didn't come about until c1968. The disappearance of roof walks and high ladders had more to do with the advent of long drawbar, cushion underframe cars on all the RRs rather than just the Milw's trolley wire clearance concerns.

Bottom line, if you knew where the 3000/3300 vdc line was you would always be below all low overhead obstructions. An employee could not stand outside the wire since it mostly was centered over the walkway and pull backs moved from side to side based upon the curvature of the rail.

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lwilton Wrote:
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> One is regarding clearance (or lack thereof)
> between coal chutes and the 100KV feed wiring and
> 3KV track wiring. Presumably this was taken care
> of in some way, though of course eventually the
> coaling equipment was removed, I believe.

Infrastructure to support steam locomotives would have lasted for a long time after the electrification was turned on. Steam was still used on branch lines, ferry moves, and parts of the old Montana RR that weren't dismantled.

Here are a couple film clips showing steam in Montana Canyon, taken from the 1930 movie Danger Lights. Clearly the infrastructure was still in place, even though these particular instances were probably staged for the movie.

Also, in the first clip there is a rider on top, near the middle of the train, and, what appears to be a remnants of the Montana Railroad can be seen to the right in the first scene and in the background in the final scene, with a coal burning engine in the foreground.

-John

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Pantograph collector bars were (are) several feet wide (varies from RR to RR based on the amount of side-to-side stagger ("zig zag") on the contact wire to equalize wear on the collector bars. If telltales were used and hung down on either side of the cat wire, they would snag the pantographes. So in addition to the immediate area of the catenary contact wire ... at least 2 feet or more would have to be clear on each side of the cat. Rolling stock is 10+ feet wide, so if you eliminate the "middle 5 feet or so in which telltales could not exist, you end up with the "outer" 2 feet or so on each side, which would put someone on top a freight care standing really close to the edge of the roof corner!

I cannot find an outright prohibition against riding the tops of cars in electrified territory, but the Special Instructions during the 1950's included this:

"The wires on the trolley and transmission poles and supports carry high voltage. Contact with them either by person or equipment is liable to cause fatal injury or damage to property. ..."

"Freight trainmen will not be required to ride on top of train in electrified territory unless some real emergency condition exists, which, in the judgment of the conductor of the train, would require some special attention from some member of the crew located on top of the car. These instructions are not to be considered as relieving trainmen from the necessity of getting on top of cars while switching operations are carried on when conditions require. However, in no case must trainmen get on top of car where, on account of lack of clearance, there is danger of contacting any part of energized trolley system."

In other words, riding the top of cars in electrified territory is not only accepted, but required; unless you get toasted, in which case your widow will be notified that you violated the rules?

-John

When I hired out in 1969 there were no radios in the yard in Deer Lodge or Butte. Not with the switchmen, the foreman or even in the locomotives. In Missoula both engines had radios but none on the ground. I suspect Harlo was a radio free zone with the E57B.

Every day the Deer Lodge switch engine spotted the LP sawmill up the hill behind the store rooms. The track was snakey and in order to get hand signs from the foreman on the point to the engineer on the rear all of the ground people took positions high on the sides of boxcars or chip cars. They were in no danger of electrocution but their position was more to maintain a secure grip on top grab iron against slack action rather than fear of electrocution.

In Missoula the DFE or 266 trains commonly had to set out long cuts of empty cars on the siding to supply customers in Missoula, Bonner and Schilling. These cuts could go half a mile or more and the siding was not straight. Even with three men on the ground signals had to be passed for the length of the cars including any already there and from the north side to the south side so the engineer could see. At least the head brakeman had to be on the roofwalk near enough to contact the live trolley if he raised his arms to pass signals.

It was all part of the job. After one week of unpaid student trips in Deer Lodge yard and three student trips between Deer Lodge, Alberton and Avery also without pay the newly hired employee was expected to understand the dangers and risks of the new career.

It must have worked since I never heard of any operating employees getting electrocuted or loosing any limbs while on the job.

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Rocky Mountain Division conductors at Avery in 1972 carried pack sets when working trains in the yard. I don't recall if they took the pack sets with them on the road trip to Alberton.

Best regards,

Rob L.

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Where was the substation in Avery? From your picture I'm guessing it was up against the hill somewhere on the north side of the yard a little west of 'downtown' and the station building. But I can't find any remnants there using Google Earth. There is a fenced rectangle about in the middle of town that might be the foundation plot -- or it might also be the town cemetery.

Rob,

You have a photo of the one and only pack set radio in Avery. This was privately owned by Engineer Fritz Therriault who purchased it when he was stationed in Avery while working on the helpers. It was very expensive in it's day, something like $1500 when a brand new VW Beetle cost just a couple of hundred dollars more. It seemed to work well with Fritz and his assigned fireman on the helpers.

Politically this radio was another matter. The conductors were leary about radios on the ground and the chance it would lead to smaller crews. The railroad was more than happy to set up a payroll deduction plan so you might buy an acceptable model from them but there was no way they were goingto buy any for employees or even terminals like Avery or even Deer Lodge. Smaller hand held portables were even more expensive and only officials had them.

That is Bilk Baker in the photo with the Therriault radio. He might be a brakeman on a train crew getting ready to cut in the helpers or he might be with Fritz on a work train. Fritz could bunk with his father HaroldTherriault who lived across the river so he was not adverse to working Avery jobs now and then.

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So look at the satellite view and find the depot still standing. To the east of that there is the fish pond. The next property east is the substation grounds. The road ran nearly against the back wall on the north side and the mainline was a few strides from the front side. I suspect the road is now about where the transformers were inside the substation.

There was no town cemetery I know of. Residents were buried down the river in St Maries or over the mountain in Mullan, Kellogg or Wallace.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/14 09:49 by fbe.

lwilton Wrote:
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> Where was the substation in Avery?

You can tell from this photo. As you say, no trace now.

Best regards,

Rob L.

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So what am I seeing there?

I think I see a section house off to the left against the hill (which seems to have been preserved, maybe as a bed and breakfast these days?).

I see a siding building with the Avery sign, which appears to have been replaced with a similar brick building. I'm guessing this was the freight house?

Then behind that the station building (which according to Wikipedia has a freight house on the west end, so what was the building in front of it).

And finally the substation, which not only has a sloped roof for snow, but seems to have an addition of some sort on the west end, perhaps attached to the transformer room.

If all of the main buildings were in 'downtown' Avery, I assume the yard shown on topo maps as being just around the bend on the west end must have been just yard tracks and no buildings?

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