Nostalgia & History > Target signal??

I don't think this is what they meant when they coined the name "Target Signal".

UP mainline between Junction City and Harrisburg Oregon.

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If we can't have searchlights, these are the next best thing, and it's a win-win: UP gets their tri-colors and reliability, us fans get the pleasing circular face and some variety.

Thank goodness for circle tri-lights.

This triangle tri-lights were a Southern Pacific installation and unfortunately not what Union Pacific is installing when new signal installations occur. I believe these were only used after about 1985, but I don't know the exact date. I also believe Chicago & Northwestern was also a late user of these tri-tri-lights. There are very plentiful on the Metrolink Ventura County Line and Antelope Valley Line (at least the parts operating when the lines first opened in 1992) as these signals were installed by SP. There are common on the CTC project on the Cal-P Line (UP's Martinez Sub) between Oakland and Sacaramento as this was one of SP's last big signalling projects prior to the merger.

I think the poster was refering to what appears to be bullet strikes when he said target on the signal.

Back in the 1970s and 80s it was very difficult to keep signals (wayside signals and houses) in operation along the Palmdale - Colton cutoff through Phelan (Mojave Desert) due to shooting by "Gun Enthusiasts".

In the 1980s is was a similar problem to keep navigation lights on SP bridges over waterways in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. (to hit them took a lot better marksmanship that to hit a 8-foot wide signal house!).

Somewhere between an armed militia to defend our freedoms and felonious vandalism is where support for the right to bear arms starts waver.

Maybe someone with recent experience can comment on this.

There was an east bound (south) signal between Tunnel 26 & 27. It had a "P" on it for the Tunnel 27 overhead/roof.

Came out of 26 one day and the target was gone. Next trip the only thing left was the clear lens, no color and no housing. We had to flag through 27 because of the "P" and the brakeman wouldn't walk it (I didn't blame him) because of the parties that went on in the tunnel. On the land side, it goes way back from the track. We waited for a special agent to show up and walk the brakeman through. It wasn't too long after that one special agent was jumped and they took his gun, keys, radio.

Next trip down they had replaced the "H" head and target and it was surrounded by a huge expanded metal box.


Nudge