Nostalgia & History > Train Order Office Annunciators

We're looking at putting annunciators -- visual and/or audible signals indicating an approaching train -- in the train order offices on our HO scale model of Tehahchapi in the San Diego Model Railroad Museum.  Can anybody describe what some of the common arrangments for shoiwing an approaching train in offices on western single track train order railroads, like the SP between Mojave and Burbank Junction, or the Coast Line?  I know that the expression "on the bell" was commonly used to refer to a train that was approaching a train order office or interlocking plant.  Was a bell that "dinged" once when the approach block was occupied, like the ones for OS blocks in a CTC machine, a common arrangement?

"Back in the day," I only hung out in a couple of offices with any kind of annunciator.  The ones at Summit in Cajon Pass were just signal bulbs connected across the track circuit that went out when a train was in the block.  There was no audible sgnal when the block became occupied.  I recall agent Fred Zickler seemed to have perfected the ability to nod off in the operator's chair between trains and wake up whenever one of the lights went out to call the dispatcher with "Summit, coming west [or east]."

At Colton Tower, there was a buzzer for Santa Fe eastbounds passing through Highgrove that had to be canceled by a button on the interlocking cabinet.  There was also a buzzer on the SP for trains coming east out of Bloomington, but it buzzed for few seconds and stopped, and didn't have to be acknowledged.  Both these audible signals were tripped when the corresponding track light on the interlocking machine lit up.

We have an SP train order signal control box that was salvaged from an office somewhere between Oxnard and Burbank Junction on the  Coast Line (Montalvo, perhaps?).   I've attached a picture of it.  We've installed it at Caliente, even though it was obviously originally intended for a light-type signal, and Caliente has a semaphore-type signal with a servo motor to move the blades.  

It has annunciator lights as well as a cutoff switch with a Dymo label that says "If you have no relief, please put the annunciator cut off switch to off position."  Presumably, this is because a bell or buzzer would ring when the annunciator was tripped and could only be stopped by pressing the corresponding "cancel" button.  Is that likely the case?  Which would have been typical for that sort of installation -- as buzzer or a bell? 

Would the cancel button extinguish the light as well as stop the audible signal?  Also, was the east annunciatior for trains approaching from the east or for eastward trains approaching from the west?  The eastward T.O. signal clears to the left, so one whould think that eastward was to the operator's left, and an approaching eastward train would be coming from the right, as is the case in our installation.  And was the annunciator wired so that it would only be tripped by an approaching train, and not a train that was headed away from the office in the same block?

I'm interested in anything that anybody can tell me about how annunciator lights, bells and buzzers were set up in typical train order offices, especially in single track territory on the SP.  Also, if anybody has a set of levers for mounting in a desk, like the ones used in train order offices to control semaphore-type signals, we might be interested in buying them and trying to fit them into one of our offices.

D F W

 

---

It was usually set up with a buzzer in one direction and a bell in the other so the operator could tell just by the sound. Then you would push that button and it would stop the bell or buzzer but the light would stay on until the train left the block. 

It would go something like this:

Operator: "Surf coming west"

Dispatcher:  " No more for the Extra 6511 West"

The operator would then clear the TO signal if no orders were to be delivered.  If he had orders it would continue:

Operator: Clear the Extra 6511 West with  (one)  figure  1 order, Number fifty four, figure 54.

Dispatcher: Okay at 5:45 PM,  EAN.

Operator:  Okay at  5:45 PM, EAN.

Then the operator would go and hang the orders, leaving the TO board red. After the train went by, the operator would say, "Surf"
The dispatcher would say "Surf".
Operator: OS the Extra 6511 West, by at  6:05 PM.
Dispatcher: By at 6:05 PM.


Nudge



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/17 06:39 by spnudge.

There was such variety that you would need to know what the arrangement was at each station you are representing in order to be completely accurate. The arrangement nudge described was one of many.

Yes, interlocking stations had a bell. At some, the bell was just a DING like in a CTC machine. In many, it was a big gong - CLANG. Two places I worked had a Really Big (12-18") gong BONG! The operator could be outside and hear it.At Harvey Tower on the B&OCT, the operator could probably hear it even if he had died in the chair. Some that had been modernized to work with adjacent CTC systems had a buzzer. Unlike the system nudge described, they only sounded for a second or so BZZZZT.

Some stations just had a light for each direction. Some stations had small semaphores, like a motor car block indicator, or actually motor car indicators, with no audible alert except hearing the semaphore move to 90 or -45 - CLICK. (That would be in interesting modeling project.)

There were also some stations that had nothing except the operator watching out the window (a primary reason for an operator's bay window in a station). At such places, the clues the operator had were hearing the train blowing for distant crossings or block signals visible from the chair. That was common for MILW stations (at least those that I worked), where the operator would announce "East in the colors" when the visible block signal dropped from green to yellow.

The only station that didn't have an interlocking machine when I worked Tehachapi was San Fernando. I never managed to show up at San Fernando when it was open.

TAW
 

Wow!  Great piece of railroading history on the SPRR with that TO/Annunciator box.  Having worked Burbank Jct., Gemco, Oxnard and Santa Barbara on the SP, as well as visiting and managing stations at Santa Susana, Ventura and Goleta, I can't say where such a box might have come from except maybe Oxnard when the old semaphore type TO signal was removed and replaced by a light type signal (if it ever was).  Montalvo never had a box like this.  Santa Fe Pasadena had the semaphore type TO signal removed that was replaced with a light type TO signal.  I'm wondering if the box came from that location.  There was not 24 hour operator coverage at that location either, which would prompt the message on the box about turning the annunciators off if no relief was coming in.

Nudge has the procedure down pretty well with regards to the operator and dispatcher scenario.  Every station I worked on the SPRR had a different arrangement.  Some with bells that would go "DING...clunk" with a light in the corresponding direction lighting up, others with a buzzer that the operator had to cancel, others with interlocking where the lights would just light up with a soft "ding".

Pete Baumhefner

Wallace ( Freeport, Illinois) had a bell that rang once when a westbound passed the siding switch at Seward, Illinois (approx 5 miles east of Wallace) and Eleroy for when an eastbound passed.  It was a single ding like a regular CTC sounding bell.  

​It's been 30 years since I've been in an active RR tower/crossing etc.  Hard to believe how much things have changed.

Dave

johncarr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I never got to Lang until after it had been shut
> down after the Palmdale Colton was completed. The
> station at Ravenue was torn down before I learned
> to drive.

That brings up another common kind of annunciator - the OSer. The OSer was an annunciator on the dispatcher phone, used as an aid in figuring time and planning. Lang and Ravenna had a buzzer that sounded as a train passed, each one had a code of long and short sounds. I don't remember the code for either of them. The code was not the office call, which would have made more sense. Since nobody saw the train, it could not be used as evidence of a train passing (for train orders and lineups). The other kind was a microphone on a pole or a closed station. Spatch could hear trains passing. There was no identifier, so yo9u had to get used to the ambient sounds. Fairchile WA was next to an air base full of B52s. Latah Jct WA was on a bridge with no ambient sound at all and nothing to reflect the sound of the train, so all that could be heard was the engines passing the mic. South Jct. OR had a nearby dog that seemed to bark incessantly 24 hours a day. Maybe it was two similar-sounding dogs working shifts.I don't know if dogs have an hours of service law - maybe there were three shifts of them.

TAW

On the SP as the TO signals that were changed to light type, they installed a rubber stamp type board. In places like Oxnard, they also incorporated the APB into the board.. Santa Barb had the wait signals incorporated when it was put  in at the depot. Surf also had the S-M controls on the same board. 

When there wasn't an operator on duty, both of the TO signals were in the green position.  They never turned out the TO light.

Loved working with train orders in ABS. It made you think and kept you busy beside operating the locomotive.  There were times you would get hung out to dry and a few times you would sneak over a siding or two to keep things moving. It was called being creative and  you had the ABS to protect you.  You would NEVER do that in dark territory.  

Miss those days.  You knew which dispatchers were good and would get you over the road. On the other hand, they knew who the hogheads were and who would go and not drag their feet. 


Nudge



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/17 17:34 by spnudge.

Thanks to everybody who responded to this. 

Just to keep the overall noise level down, I think we're likely to go with a bell that dings once for an approaching train, or a bell in one direction and a short buzzer in the other as Nudge suggested.   Annunciators that kept buzzing or ringing until acknowledged could easily resut in a cacaphony that would drive people crazy.  We're in a big building, but there are five rain order offices in our 8000 saure foot two-level space and the sounds of bells and buzzers carry and echo off the walls. 

I assume most bell and buzzer circuits were not interlocked to keep the bell for the approach in the opposite direction from ringing when a departing train tripped the circuit.  Also that most indicators lit up for an approaching train rather than going out as the indicators connected directly across the track circuit at Summit in Cajon Pass I described in my orifinal message did.

I'd love to find at least a couple of block indicators like the one in the Tehachapi depot/museum to install in at least one office.  Also, I'm still keeping an eye out for any desktop-type levers like the ones used for semaphore-type train order signals that might be for sale.

Thanks to all those who replied!
D F W

I recall there was a shack at the west end of the Southern Pacific yard in Sparks, Nev. in the 60s where a switchman would be alterted to eastbound trains passing West Reno so he could line the train into the yard.  I think he called it "the scatter" or something like that.  Anyone recall that?
JBOmaha

Thanks for sharing your question. If you need to know how to modify a bell so it will only ding once instead of ding-ding-ding-ding. Let me know, and I'll share it here.

​Victor A. Baird
​http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/17 19:49 by wabash2800.