Passenger Trains > Interlocking Towers

Hi,

A few years ago I was riding on the Coast Starlight from
Portland to Los Angeles. As we pulled out of the Portland
station approaching the Steel Bridge, I noticed a tall
wooden building on the right. Doing a bit of research and
asking some people, I discoverd that the building was an
"Interlocking Tower" used to throw switches back in the days
before long distance automation. On the way back I noticed there
was another tower in Los Angeles and in Oakland. The Oakland tower
is gone and I believe the Portland one is also. I'm not sure
about the Los Angeles one (I think it was called Mission Tower).
Other than in some railroad museum, are there any more of these
towers still standing (would anyone have a picture of one?)? And
are any of them still in use or is everything controlled by
automation from Omaha and Texas (I think the BNSF dispatchers are
in Dallas)? Any attempt to preserve these historic monuments to
a by-gone era?


Howard Dean
Alameda, CA

Zoo Tower in Philadelphia (across the tracks from the Philadelphia Zoo) operates 24/7.

photo link for heritage members:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/22520950/21354270OngcslnOeP

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(I think the BNSF dispatchers are in Dallas)

The BNSF dispatch center is in Fort Worth (confusion of Dallas and Fort Worth by outsiders is a touchy subject; after all, we are as far apart as Washington DC and Baltimore, and the two cities are very different).

However, BNSF also has dispatch centers, joint with UP, in Houston, Kansas City, and San Bernardino (the latter of which essentially controls all of the LA Basin and Cajon Pass) to allow better coordination of movements in these complex areas where both railroads cross each other numerous times, and have a lot of trackage rights on each other.

There are still active interlocking towers in several areas, with the heaviest concentration being in Chicago, but their numbers continue to dwindle. Toledo had seven when I moved here, now there are just three and two of those are likely to close next year.

Most of the active towers are in cities, but there are a notable few on CSX out in the boondocks where automation simply hasn't caught up yet. These locations include Hancock, WV and Newton Falls, OH on the former B&O main line and at least one (West Keyser, WV; I can't remember if M&K Junction is still open or not) on the Mountain Division east of Grafton.

I know there's an on-line listing of active interlocking towers, though I can't recall the URL. It ought to turn up via Googling. Beware, though, that some of the towers on that list are bridge operator locations or consoles within yard offices, and that it may not be completely up to date.

The towers most likely to survive the longest are those that govern extremely complicated locations, like "Zoo" in Philly and "F" in Fostoria, Ohio, or that would otherwise offer no real advantage from automation. An example of the latter is Ann Arbor's Hallett Tower in Toledo, whose operator also dispatches the entire railroad, so that position is not going to be eliminated by automating the tower; Hallett will be the last active tower in Toledo.

Mission and Terminal Towers still stand on their original sites at LAUS and Redondo and Hobart haven't been moved or demo'ed yet. Dayton Tower in Taylor Yard was preserved by Metrolink a few blocks north of its site, still within view of the same mainline. In Sacramento Elvas Tower awaits its fate.

The Portland interlocking tower is still there, I was just inside it the other day, which even has the original control panel. This tower was discontinued in 90s when automatic switches were installed. This interlocking tower not only operated switches to the passenger tracks, but also the freight tracks that crossed the mainline from the old yards towards downtown (a diamond)

I can't get into details, but there is a possibility that the switch tower may be used once again, for switching!

hmd929 Wrote:

> A few years ago I was riding on the Coast
> Starlight from Portland to Los Angeles.
> As we pulled out of the Portland station
> approaching the Steel Bridge, I noticed a
> tall wooden building on the right.

That would have been VC tower, which was brick. See:

http://www.pnwc-nrhs.org/pnw-trains/VC-tower.html

> On the way back I noticed there was another tower in Los Angeles and in
> Oakland. The Oakland tower is gone and I believe the Portland one is also.

Depending on how few years ago it was, the Oakland Tower you saw was either West Oakland, demolished in 1996, or Magnolia, disassembled this year.

> Any attempt to preserve these historic monuments to
> a by-gone era?

In the Bay Area, tower preservation efforts run the gamut from stunning to tragic. In the stunning catagory is Santa Clara Tower, preserved on its original site just north of the Santa Clara depot. The tower is a classic SP design, and the South Bay Historical Railroad Society (SBHRS, not to be confused with SBRHS of 3751 fame) has done an outstanding job of cosmetic restoration. Last I heard, they were still rehabbing the machine.

At the other end of the scale was Santa Clara's neighbor to the north, College Park Tower. It was supposed to be preserved at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, but the structure succumbed to a fire before anything was done with it.

In between, you have Oakland 16th St., which is boarded up and unpreserved, Magnolia, in the process of being preserved, and Oakland Pier Tower, which is now a visitors center near its original site along the shoreline. The tower looks good from the outside, but so far as I can tell, nothing remains of the original interior.

A little further afield, Davis Tower still stands beside the depot at Davis, CA. I don't know who owns the building or what the plans are for it, but it certainly looks like someone is taking care of it. Elvas Tower in Sacramento is boarded up awaiting preservation by the California State Railroad Museum. It's been waiting since it closed at the end of October 1999...

The only "manned interlockings" left in California are operator's cabins for movable bridges. To find active interlocking towers not associated with bridges, it appears that you now have to venture east all the way to East St. Louis, IL. (Are Lenox Tower, Willows Tower, or HN Cabin still active in that city?) Anyone know of anything further west that's still active?


The site toledopatch was talking about is probably Jon Roma's "North American Railroad Interlocking Towers and Cabins" site:

http://zippy.cso.uiuc.edu/~roma/towers/

There have been a few closings that aren't reflected in his "active" list - all the non-bridge towers in Texas are closed now so far as I know.

For reference, here's what Magnolia Tower in Oakland, CA looked like a few years ago, after the siding was peeled off, and before it was disassembled.

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I was in the Oakland Pier Tower around 2002. There was nothing mentioned inside then that it even was a SP tower, nor is there anything outside.

Jeff

What happened to Redwood Tower, Radum Tower, Niles Tower, Fruitvale Tower, Shellmound Tower in the Bay Area and The Main Line Tower, Dayton Avenue Tower and the top end of "A" Yard shanty in LA?

4merroad4man Wrote:

> What happened to

> Niles Tower

Burned by vandals and demolished.

> Fruitvale Tower, Shellmound Tower

Both demolished.

> Dayton Avenue Tower

Metrolink relocated this one some years ago and painted it. Last I saw, it was boarded up and standing near the entrance to their maintenance facility near the former site of Taylor Yard.

Back in 1971 I visited State Line Tower near Hammond Ind. (went there on the South Shore). It was reportedly the largest active mechanical ("Armstrong") interlocker in North America at the time. Does anyone in ChicagoLand know its current status? Most of the railroads that it controlled are now "fallen flags"

The famous "tower 55" in Fort Worth, TX is still standing and apparently in use but not as an interlocking tower. I believe the old PRR "Alto" tower is still in use on the NS Pittsburgh Line in Altoona, PA but I'm not sure how much longer. Harris tower, just west of the Harrisburg Amtrak station is not in use and is being preserved by the Harrisburg chapter of the NRHS.

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Back in 1971 I visited State Line Tower near
> Hammond Ind. (went there on the South Shore). It
> was reportedly the largest active mechanical
> ("Armstrong") interlocker in North America at the
> time. Does anyone in ChicagoLand know its current
> status? Most of the railroads that it controlled
> are now "fallen flags"

gone. Closed in Aug 2000, demolished 10-31-00. Most of it's controls were gone
by the time closed, since so many of the lines that crossed there were abandoned,
and many of the connections between them not needed any more. But it still had a
heck of an interlocking machine (200+ levers if I remember correctly)

"Most of the active towers are in cities, but there are a notable few on CSX out in the boondocks where automation simply hasn't caught up yet. These locations include Hancock, WV and Newton Falls, OH on the former B&O main line and at least one (West Keyser, WV; I can't remember if M&K Junction is still open or not) on the Mountain Division east of Grafton."

MK tower at Rowlesburg is still active yes.

"I know there's an on-line listing of active interlocking towers, though I can't recall the URL. It ought to turn up via Googling. Beware, though, that some of the towers on that list are bridge operator locations or consoles within yard offices, and that it may not be completely up to date."

The URL is http://zippy.cso.uiuc.edu/~roma/towers/

The site has neglected the closing of many towers as well as forgetting to include some still active towers, sometimes even both as in the case of DI tower in Cincinatti. BTW, a tower dosen't have to be a tower to be a tower. A better definition is Interlocking Station. The site also dosen't list rapid transit towers or towers on the PATH which is an FRA railroad.

"The towers most likely to survive the longest are those that govern extremely complicated locations, like "Zoo" in Philly and "F" in Fostoria, Ohio, or that would otherwise offer no real advantage from automation."

HA! You'd be surprised! Most of the most complicated terminals have already been de-towered. Penn Station...Grand Central...Boston South and North Stations...half of Chicago Union Terminal...LA Union...etc, etc, etc. Hell, SEPTA even closed BROAD (although it has killed their on time preformance). BTW, don't have faith in ZOO, most of the old ZOO has been remoted to CTEC-6. ZOO only controls Harrisburg Line stuff now.

Most of the towers that survive in the future will be "technical towers" like CANAL and BRIELLE in New Jersey which are out of the way bridge cabins that aren't worth remoting. F Tower and EAST CONWAY will live on for a while longer cause they were recently updated with video game style interlocking machines. Although this sort of upgrade didn't save NEW HAVEN WEST (SS75). Having a yard or movable bridge really helps a tower because you'd probably need someone there anyway. The real bastion of towers in this country will be the Large Island Rail Road. instead of centralizing ther dispatching center like Metro North, the LIRR has really invested in their tower system with each tower acting like a dispatching desk. Some remote interlockings can even be controled by multiple towers. The LIRR is looking to computerize JAY and HALL, but the towers will not close. Tower operators will still make the movements, but they will be aided by centralized supervision thinking strateigically.

You are all welcome to browse through my archive of tower photos.

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/Towers/

Howard,
In the "heyday", bay area interlocking towers numbered more than 40. Several years ago, a comprehensive list of these towers, with descriptions of their territory, was assembled by 'Stash' and Key Route Ken Shattock. The list (in several parts) is in the files section of the 'BayArea_RailHistory' Yahoo group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BayArea_RailHistory/files/Miscellaneous%20/

It's difficult today to imagine the level of railroad operations back then. Signor's 'Southern Pacific's Western Division' points out that the Oakland pier terminal averaged over 760 mainline, local and local electric trains in a 24 hour period in 1920. Add that immense number into the east bay scenario at the time, with extensive switching moves, street running and crossings/interchanges with Western Pacific and the Santa Fe, as well as Key System interurban and streetcar movements....wow.

~Robert

mbrotzman Wrote:
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> You are all welcome to browse through my archive
> of tower photos.
>
> http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/Towers/

You call those "Arsenal Tower photos"?

THIS is an Arsenal Tower Photo:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/28536790/28673959aDFxiHdTUs

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