Eastern Railroad Discussion > Portsmouth N&W Signals, last Sunday

Portsmouth Ohio was my mom's hometown. My whole life I've been to Portsmouth too many times, both to visit family and friends and of course to railfan. My mom and many of her friends lived next to the Norfolk and Western mainline in various places so the N&W color position light signals meant something special to me as before I was able to read I could tell who's house we visiting by what signals we were near. It started in the 1980's but signals along US 23 on the Columbus District started to be replaced. In the last ten years things really picked up and most of my favourite signals bit the dust. A couple weeks ago I saw the post that Spring Lane was due up for a complete replacement http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,3577924,3577924#msg-3577924, I had to go see it one last time. After many failed attempts and false starts I had the day off on Sunday December 07 2014. Instead of waisting such a beautiful day on the Springfield (Ohio) Train Show I told my friend Robert that we were going to Portsmouth.
1) We started out at Waller Street, a place that I actually have never got a train going by the signals. Waller Street is a leftover from the very early days of railroading in Portsmouth. It was where the three of the railways that eventually became Norfolk and Western met in Portsmouth. It looks like NS is keeping it as a control point so over a hundred twenty years of history will have a small mark on the future.
2) My friend was concerned about the location of the Eastbound signals being around the curve.
3) Looking toward Waller Street from Lincoln Street. Lincoln Street is where one of my favourite signals is located up on the tower structure on the right. I remember feeling like a big boy when I was finally allowed to walk from Terry Duncan's porch up the crossing to check and see what aspect was on that signal. He lived in one of the houses on the lefthand side of the tracks and my mom lived next door at one time, back when Tenth Street was still lined with houses. This was a particular favourite place to visit when they lived there. We would all sit on the porch talk and watch trains.

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After getting something to eat we returned to Gallia Street where two trains were almost ready to depart.
4) Norfolk Southern has been using fuel trucks in the yard in Portsmouth for years and the Union Pacifics were still taking on fuel on train 258. 195 was doubling it's train together.
5) Gone in the replacement will be the dwarf signal that marks where the diamond for the B & O Portsmouth Sub would have been. The diamond was still in into late the 1970s but was taken out by the early eighties. The Portsmouth Industrial track of the Chessie System continued in use to serve a scrap yard on the east side of Gallia Street until being cut back to Sciotoville in the early 1990's.
6) We are standing approximately where the B & O would have crossed the N & W at Gallia Street as 195 is backing back into the yard. You can see the fuel truck on the left for 258. Above the whistle post you can see the back of the cantilever signal for the B & O and N & W to cross each other at Gallia Street.

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7) Norfolk and Western bought commercial power and stepped it down to 4kvs for their own transmission lines atop their codeline poles. The 4kv power was then ran through transformers for signals and other stuff. I wonder what the fate of this 'Dinosaur' at Gallia Street (as my friend called it) will be now?
8) Caught a little by surprise 258 took off before 195 so in the car and an easy catch passing under the cantilever for the Eastbound home signal for the Eastbound main at Gallia Street. At one time this would have had a B & O signal on it as well. When I was first starting to drive my Grandpa (on my dad's side) and I came down here to railfan one Winter day. We saw a manifest train take off on one track and immediately following it on the other track was long coal train. We were quite surprised to see the robot car and another set of units in the middle. My Grandpa said that the first half of the train went to Columbus and the second half would split off and go to Cincinnati, without stopping of course!
9) My friend Robert likes to take video instead of stills so we missed the headend of 258 passing through Spring Lane. Not too bad of a problem as I have pictures of the Westbound signal at clear there. One picture I did not have was of the Westward Signal on the Eastbound Main showing restricting, which is it's least restrictive aspect. When our family would come to Portsmouth we'd visit somebody, can't remember who now, on Spring Lane. I do remember that they were really nice people and I thought were totally cool because they had their washer and dryer out on their front porch. I also remember this same signal being lit up at night.

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10) Not only are the signals going away but also the last stretch of open wire codeline on the former N & W in Ohio. Oh yes, 195 is in the picture to if you look to the right of those wonderful N & W codeline poles.
11) You can see that 195 will cross over from the Eastbound Main to the Westbound. The Restrictive was also used for stuff to go toward Cincinnati at Vera. Still on the Westbound Main is the qualifier to display Approach Diverging for going toward Cincinnati at Vera.
12) S46 stops at the Eastbound home signal for Spring Lane before 195 has crossed over.

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13, 14) I went part way up the levy that would have been behind where my mom lived on Spring Lane. The levy is good to watch trains but the cables in between the levy and the tracks get in the way of you are taking pictures.
15) Back at Gallia Street, we missed a couple lights so also missed S46 dropping the signal here. I did get a crappy picture of it going by Waller Street, but not worth posting here. We did wonder why loaded coal was going east.

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After this I started east because we could hear 233 on the radio. Much to my dismay I found that a Tudor's Biscuit World had opened up in New Boston. If I had know this we would have went there for lunch but it gives me a reason to return. I stopped at West Ave to show Robert how big the yard at Portsmouth used to be then went to signals at East Yard. We could hear that 233 was having difficulty getting a crossover to line at Wheelersburg so I headed that way, thinking we may be able to get it before it started moving. I guessed wrong and only got a crappy picture of 233 not worth posting here. One of the problems with doing the line east of Portsmouth is that it changes direction with the Ohio River so the sun angles are not what is expected.
16) Following 233 was what I think is 64A. I chose Sciotoville for it.
17) 64A passing a little remnant of the N & W, the telephone interface box with General Telephone.
18) 64A stopped at East Yard momentarily. What was cool was a westbound CSX came across the Limeville Bridge while we waited.
The fuel trucks ran out of fuel before 233 could be filled up but the dispatcher lined up the signal at Waller Street anyways. We waited for a while then went in search of food. Tudor's Biscuit World had already closed and I didn't want to eat in so we settled on Arby's which is back on Chillicothe Ave. I drove past Gallia Street on the way there just as 233 was coming out. By then it was dusk, I set my camera to video mode and panned 233 as it passed. I then noticed the Press OK to record! So much for that! I have a somewhat crappy picture taken with my spare still camera if anyone needs an action shot of 233 passing by the signals at Lincoln Street and an Approach on the signal at Waller. If you want it I can post it later.

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We got our sandwiches at Arbys and went over to Spring Lane.
19) I set up the tripod and took a shot of the signals at stop.
20) Almost immediately the Westbound signal went to Approach.
21) It's almost as good as video, the signal changing from Approach to Clear.

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22-24) Quite a surprise but 170 must have came into the yard with little or no work to do while we were in Arbys as it was what came through.

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25) I put away my tripod. My friend Robert paused because he wanted to make sure his SD card was in his bag. He said what is that crossing signal flashing for and here came 234 with little time to get the tripod set up.
26) 234 passing by Spring Lane at night.

We then headed for home via US 23 and OH SR 32.

I am going to miss these N & W signals in Portsmouth.

Thank you for looking!
Jim

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Great series of pictures Jim, thanks for posting!

Does anyone know the cut-in date for the new signals?

Dave Malohn

Liked the tall lattice work power poles.
Few of those in the midwest.

Thank you for the very interesting post.
John

An NS coal train symbol as 258? Interesting, haven't heard of that before.

GOOD stuff...!!! Thanks for sharing.

I'm glad people liked the post.

CP8888 Wrote:
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> Liked the tall lattice work power poles.
> Few of those in the midwest.

I always thought that these were put up in part by N & W as they carried the 4kv power for signals mentioned earlier. The top of course was Ohio Power which is now part of AEP.

Appalachianrails Wrote:
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> An NS coal train symbol as 258? Interesting,
> haven't heard of that before.

Yes, I was confused and unsure on that symbol. It could have possibly been T58 or Q58 but I know for sure the last two digits were 5 and 8.

Jim

Great series of photos before they are gone. The ones at night are always the best, I grew up on the Pokey MP397 Maitland, WV. 2 miles east of Welch tunnel. Back in the day the head end would stop directly behind the house waiting for the pushers to be added at Welch, an east bound head end never went past the road crossing at Maitland. The pushers were needed to get up the mountain to Elkhorn tunnel and into Bluefield yard.

What an excellent set of photos ! Thanks for all the hard work. Really enjoyed them.

Rich