Railroaders' Nostalgia > Can we go on that signal?

Rantoul's discovery of a video of 75th Street tower (B&OCT, Chicago [IL]) generated some discussion and brought up a lot of memories.

In the ensuing discussion, I described the right way to pull iron and some other details of tower operation. All of that reminded me of a few other related details of mechanical interlocking operation.

Wabash2800 mentioned how the pipe connected semaphores flip up instead of moving slowly like an electric semaphore. Generally the signals were an easy pull.

One winter day, an eastbound Pennsy was at 71st Street ready to go. There were two home signals on the Panhandle Eastbound. The first was behind the switch for the wye to the Belt. The second was behind the tower, protecting the derail and Belt crossing (as seen in the picture). One very cold morning, there had been an ice storm overnight. The whole plant was working just fine when I signed the transfer. The pots had been burning all night and there was no ice in the switches and derails. We had a first-class signal maintainer who kept the pipelines straight and well-drained.

Two short rings on the Pennsy block phone. The rings were kind of wimpy, not the battery ringer at Beverly Jct or the forceful turns of the magneto from the 59th Street yardmaster. This was the phone booth at 71st Street. I rang off the phone. It was customary to answer, or ring off, a call with one short ring. That told the caller that it was time to put the phone up to his ear. Ringing on a block phone, especially someone with a battery ringer, could be really loud in the earpiece. Everyone listened before ringing and wouldn't if the line was busy. If somebody had the phone up to his ear, waiting, and somebody else rang, it could be uncomfortable and maybe even painful.

The voice on the phone was the Pennsy East Local ready to go at 71st Street. I told him to drop on down (come across 71st Street), I would get him going. I pulled off the first signal, then the derails and the second hoome signal...or at least I tried to. It pulled like a switch. I would get it up a couple of degrees and if I let up, it would fall again. Momentum shold have kept it moving with only a slight effort on my part. After a couple of tries, I pulled it like a switch: jerk, jerk, jerk. On the last jerk, the semaphore went all the way to vertical then kept on going, swinging in a lazy arc between about 150 and 210 degrees, diminishing until it came to rest pointing straight down. As the blade was passing vertical and beginning it's descent into becoming a lower quadrant semaphore, a huge sheet of ice fell off of the blade.

Usually, the towerman is not looking at the appliances being moved while pulling the levers, but this signal was just outside the window to my left. I was looking toward it for any visible reason that it would be such a hard pull. I just watched it swing and come to rest for a couple of seconds. The Pennsy block rang another two wimpy short rings. The voice at the other end asked "Can we go on that?"

I thought about it for a second. Would I need to go out and walk the plant and flag him? mmmm

Let's see. The aspect in words is vertical and the indication is proceed. The green light is a night signal (there used to be a difference) and this is daytime, so you don't need it. The blade sure is vertical, so let's call it good.

He told me that worked for him, too and off they went.

They went by the signal and I put the lever back into the machine. It didn't move the semaphore (the pin in the clevis conencting the pipe to the semaphore broke as I was trying to lift the blade full of ice), but it released the locking. Conveniently, it was the only route in the plant that had two home signals (as built, there were separate signals for the PRR-BRC wye and the BRC/WAB crossing on BOCT and PRR, but the BOCT inner signals were removed). I put a reminder (block...collar on the lever and wedge between the lever and latch handle) on the first home signal to protect the second home signal, called the maintainer, and continued running trains.

TAW

---

Good story, TAW!

Wow---you were allowed to make decisions without getting the Chief Disp, Terminal Trainmaster, Roadmaster, Signal Dept. and Supt. involved? Not in today's world!

CSX_ENG Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow---you were allowed to make decisions without
> getting the Chief Disp, Terminal Trainmaster,
> Roadmaster, Signal Dept. and Supt. involved? Not
> in today's world!

...was expected to

TAW

I am curious what year this took place as it look like the PC era?  I had a similar situation on the KCT during the early 90's.

mopacrr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am curious what year this took place as it look
> like the PC era?  I had a similar situation on
> the KCT during the early 90's.

Some time during winter 68-69

TAW

         Similar 'unlawful to make decisions' are appearing in every industry and service companies. Micro management to the hilt and the resulting presonnel who have no clue after a while on how to make a decision or when to make one. Shortly followed by ' don't want to '  either. A shame.

i really liked that 75th St video and as always the stories
of TAW ...