Eastern Railroad Discussion > NS Signal System Harrisburg to Pittsburgh

Changes coming.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/12/17/2012-30241/notice-of-application-for-approval-of-discontinuance-or-modification-of-a-railroad-signal-system

The following is how the route from Pittsburgh to Altoona will be affected:

This list includes the following intermediate signals:
Brickyard in Altoona
McGarvey's
Scotch Run Curve
Horseshoe Curve
McGinley's Curve (westbound distant to MG)
Padula Curve (westbound distant to UN)
Benny, Route 53 (westbound distant to MO)
Carney's Crossing (eastbound distant to MO)
Lilly
Ben's Creek
Portage
Wilmore
Summerhill(westbound distant to SO)
Mineral Point (eastbound distant to SO)
AO
Johnstown Station
SG
SQ
Seward
286.7 (New Florence, westound distant to CONPIT)
Lockport (eastbound distant to CONPIT)
Bolivar
296.4
298.3 (distant to PACK westbound)
Hillside (302.5, distant to PACK eastbound)
Ridgeview
Derry
310.2 (distant to TROBE westbound)
Beatty (distant to TROBE eastbound)
Donohoe
Penn
Shafton
Larimer
Ardara (westbound distant to TRAFF)
Braddock (eastbound distant to WING)
Edgewood (westbound distant to HOME)
350.2 (westbound distant to BLOOM, eastbound distant to HOME).

Not included on the list are the automatics at Allegrippus (MP 244, easbound
distant to MG).


Also listed on this list is 312.7, which is CP TROBE. I suspect this is a typo
for 321.7 at Greensburg (westbound distant to RADE).

Wow -- I may be naive here, so this means that all of those wayside signals will be removed? I guess I can see the point in a way, but seems like a loss of a nice failsafe (in addition to making it much less fun for railfans and photos!).

Plus, it seems a bit odd that they'd retire some of these signals that they just recently seemed to replace (Brickyard, Horseshoe, etc)?

Works well on the Fort Wayne Line and signals will still be at the crossovers.

robbie Wrote:
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> Wow -- I may be naive here, so this means that all
> of those wayside signals will be removed? I guess
> I can see the point in a way, but seems like a
> loss of a nice failsafe (in addition to making it
> much less fun for railfans and photos!).

The problem is that to be "failsafe" if you left both systems in, lets say because of a circuit board failure a lineside signal dropped to Stop, then no matter what the Cab Signals indicate you would have to stop and contact the Dispatcher for permission to pass the lineside signal indicating Stop and then proceed at Restricted Speed until the next Lineside signal had a more favorable indication, all the while the Cab Signals could be indicating Proceed.

No more signal calling at intermediates so less of a "heads up" for trains coming! I have heard them calling cabsignal indications but I suspect it's only for changes in indication.

I will start the reply with the statement that I do not operate trains, (so take everything from here forward with a grain of salt).

I work in the RR industry, and do not like the PTC regulation. I'm coming at it from a cost/benefit analysis.
That being said, I'd love to ask someone who operates long heavy trains to tell me if they agree with my opinion that TCS is better with waysides then without.

Say you are blasting along at 50 mph with a 10,000 tn train. The DS wants to cross you over at the next interlocking. Assuming a normal TCS with wayside signal installation, you visually see the aspect of the distant signal and have time to reduce speed before you cross the insulated joint and the automatic train stop gets you. In a TCS without wayside or distant signal system, your first warning of a conflict is when you bang across the IJ's which identify the track circuit. Then you are struggling to bring the speed down before getting a "penalty stop" (which must be fun on a 10k tn train). Which is more preferable?

All of that being said, it is my understanding that when this system is fully installed, the T&E guys will be able to see track conditions live from the cab.....which should be a great improvement from current conditions. The question is, "when will that technolgy be available, and when will it be accurate?.

Just my two cents.

Steve

TRACKENGR Wrote:
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> Say you are blasting along at 50 mph with a 10,000
> tn train. The DS wants to cross you over at the
> next interlocking. Assuming a normal TCS with
> wayside signal installation, you visually see the
> aspect of the distant signal and have time to
> reduce speed before you cross the insulated joint
> and the automatic train stop gets you. In a TCS
> without wayside or distant signal system, your
> first warning of a conflict is when you bang
> across the IJ's which identify the track circuit.
> Then you are struggling to bring the speed down
> before getting a "penalty stop" (which must be fun
> on a 10k tn train). Which is more preferable?

Having routinely operated trains in cab signal territory with no wayside automatics, you still get ample warning time to reduce train speed. There were very few "short blocks" in CS without waysides. If you are qualified on the territory, you know instinctively where the signals should drop if you are going to do anything other than proceed on a clear indication.

We would routinely get diverging indications in the cab well before the associated interlockings, and there was no "struggle" involved in complying. Even with auto train stop enabled (such as in territory where Locomotive Speed Limiter was required), the timer keeps tacking on additional time as long as your speed is dropping at a rate that allows compliance with the corresponding indication. The bulk of cab signal territory does not involve speed enforcement, and likely won't until PTC is activated.

From my own personal experience, I've encountered far more cases of having to "get on 'em" while operating WITH wayside automatics, than without.

mp109 Wrote:
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> No more signal calling at intermediates so less of
> a "heads up" for trains coming! I have heard them
> calling cabsignal indications but I suspect it's
> only for changes in indication.

It will be back to the way Conrail did it, as far as radio chatter on the Pittsburgh Line....Aside from necessary chatter between the crew and Dispatcher, crews normally only responded to defect detectors over the radio and not signals.....When NS and CSX took over Conrail is when signal calling over the radio became the norm.....Dave W.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/12 03:43 by dwi189.

NS is eliminating signals harrisburg to pit (not the interlocking signals). This of course has been standard practice since the 40's/50's on the sang hollow extension of the conemaugh line. With the addition of PTS and the LSL (locomotive speed limiter) this allows 'enforced speed regulation' from the standard track circuits (implemented in the cab portion of PTS). When CR extended the cab signaling to Cleveland in late 90's and NS completed it, there also were no intermediate signals, but of course the engineer could 'speed' by simply acknowledgeing the signals. Now that NS has most of the locomotives equipped with PTS and LSL this speeding is eliminated. The technology has existed since the 40's or earlier and the only addition is LSL and the enforcement that it allows. Should allow the engineer to know the track conditons ahead much better.

SOO6617 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lets say because of a circuit
> board failure a lineside signal dropped to Stop,
> then no matter what the Cab Signals indicate you
> would have to stop and contact the Dispatcher for
> permission to pass the lineside signal indicating
> Stop and then proceed at Restricted Speed until
> the next Lineside signal had a more favorable
> indication, all the while the Cab Signals could be
> indicating Proceed.


Not quite true. A red at an automatic is a Stop and Proceed or Restricted Proceed, depending on the rule in effect. Neither requires dispatcher permission to pass. Restricted Proceed doesn't even require a full stop.

I was a bit surprised about this in light of NS's recent signal replacements on the hill west of Altoona (and elsewhere), but they surely will be able to dismantle those new signals and re-use the components elsewhere, and until these plans are approved, the railroad needs to have a functioning signal system.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/12 06:32 by toledopatch.

I'm surprised they would actually bother to do this given how much money has been spent to slowly replace the failing PRR signal bridges along the line in recent years with brand new aluminum cantilevers (or simple color light masts). Even the threat of PTC has not caused any other large railroads to give up on wayside block signals so there can't be a huge cost savings with eliminating them. I would understand it if NS were gearing up for a general re-signaling of the entire line, interlockings included, and were simply interested in not installed new automatics. Most of the replaced automatic signals have not actually had the existing signaling logic altered and because to this day no railroad has performed a Rule 562 conversion outside of a CTC resignaling project it is looking likely that NS is planning to replace all of the Conrail era equipment. This would also mean the remaining 251 trackage between ALTO and SO would be changed to bi-directional operation.


It still makes me wonder if this were in the cards why NS didn't allow the existing signaling to run down a bit more like CSX did on the former B&O Main Line before its complete resignaling over the last two years. For example why did they replace the automatics between ALTO and MG when they could have gotten a head start switching that over to 562? It will be interesting to see what NS actually does both on the Pittsburgh Line and on the Port Road where something similar is also proposed. For example on the Port Road eliminating the automatic at MINNICK would require them to get Amtrak to install 'C' boards at PERRY interlocking along with a way for Amtrak to display them. Is that really worth the "savings"? How many years of bulb replacement will be equivalent to pulling down the brand new 3-track signal bridge at Cove? It's better to get blanket Regulatory approval in hand and then decide to keep a few autos or use the Amtrak system with wayside distant signals.