A blog devoted to explaining the ins and outs of North American railroad signaling, past, present and future. This blog seeks to preserve through photo documentation the great diversity and technical ingenuity of 20th century signaling and interlocking hardware and technology. Related topics cover interlocking towers and railroad communications infrastructure.
Note, due to a web hosting failure some of the photos and links may be unavailable.
I wanted to call attention to a new web-based North American style CTC simulation game. It's still in beta and pretty much limited to a single layout, but it is a long overdue addition to the dispatching simulator market that pretty much consists of the increasingly long in the tooth Train Dispatcher 3 and the UK focused SimSig. You can find and play the game at http://randallhook.com/games/railroad-dispatcher/
As someone who has operated a real US&S style CTC machine, the simulation isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than nothing. Currently the largest deficiency is the lack of delay between toggling a unit lever and coding the action to the field. On a direct wire machine the switches will take a second or two to throw and of course over a code line the machine will click and clunk for quite some time before confirmation of the state change is received.
It will be interesting to see if things like blocking devices are added or if additional styles of panel are supported as various railroads could use their own conventions for indication lamp colors and such. Anyway, I'd advice everybody to give the game a play through and give the developer, randy Hook, some constructive feedback.
I have once again completed my annual trek to the heart of New York Central territory via Amtrak's Empire service. The good news is that between the division post at CP-75 and the start of Rule 562 at the new CP-138 south of Albany, no additional re-signaling has taken place. The double track project is complete to Schenectady and the new station there ha been completed along with the re-signaling of CP-159 and CP-160 which I reported in 2018.
While non-Darth Vader target signals with 'C' boards are a positive, the whole setup still feels a bit off with blinding LED signals and OSHA approved aluminum masts. One addition is the brand new CP-149 that provides a mid-point crossover between CP-157 and CP-145. ACSES transponders are also in place.
I also noticed that the CPO-1 on the old D&H Colonie Sub had been removed which is about time seeing as according to Google Street View that happened sometime around 2016. For those of you who don't know this was the interlocking in the middle of I-787 in downtown Albany. It was replaced by a new CPO-2 about a mile to the north.
Even the gantry was cut down.
I visited CP-SK at the east end of Selkirk yard and was able to confirm that it was still in it's late Conrail configuration with no signs of any impending re-signaling. Some Conrail target masts have been replaced by CSX Darth Vader signals, but a slim majority are still of the classic touch. A new CP-12 had been constructed immediately to the west of CP-SK since my last visit a good 10 years ago, but in an interesting twist Conrail signal rules appeared to still be in effect throughout with Seaboard rules starting at the west end of the yard complex.
R/R/Y is still Restricting at CP-SK
I might have issues getting back to the Capitol Region in the future, but I'm pretty satisfied with the coverage I was able to get over the last 14 or so years with the multiple re-signaling efforts.
I don't tend to seek out railroad compilation videos, even historic. They typically consist of about 10-20 cuts of some freight train passing with various "heritage" units on grainy VHS. Any signal or interlocking content is fleeting and involves sorting through a lot of cruft. Well after a recent content drop in the later two months of 2018, the Railroad Media Archive has become a major exception to the rule. I first noticed it earlier in the year when it posted 17 minutes of color 8 or 16mm film from a PRR cab ride between Columbus and Cincinnati on a route that is now mostly a rail train. Signals and interlockings are definitely the focus and one can really see how properly focused PRR Amber Position Lights really pop. At Cincinatti the person even got some footage in the still active Tower A.
There is also posted two explicit interlocking tower videos that have all sorts of interior video demonstrations of interlocking machines including one off-brand pistol grip machine from the B&O/EL Sterling tower that I had even never seen before. The operation of the machine even comes with sync sound! A real feat in the age of film. There are a whole bunch of other towers covered with demonstrations of CTC machines, table interlockers, mechanical lever plants and even the GRS N-X machine at F Tower in Fostoria.
There is another video that exclusively deals with the old NS tower in Lima Ohio, including a demo of the US&S Style S machine there.
Finally this guy seemed to be in the right place at the right time, even up into the 1990's with video of SO interlocking in South Fork PA just before the tower was closed and a ride in a Capitol Limited dome car as is traversed the Conrail raceway into Chicago between HICK tower and ENGLEWOOD with all of the old school PRR and NYC signaling still in place.
Like I said, you won't be disappointed. Check out all this guy's stuff. Be warned, it might make you a little sad to see how much amazing retro technology has been lost since just the 1990's :-(
From the title you might think I am here to plug the Chicago Rail Junctions website, but surprisingly I am not! The prolific Industrial Scenery blog has a "minor" section devoted to Chicago area rail junctions with all sorts of historic background and photos with maps, diagrams, Google Earth views and tower interiors. All you have to do is hit up the "towerJunction" label to get pretty much an unending supply of junction histories.
Some of the photos are old, some of the photos are new, but a lot of them seem to be from Facebook groups that the Googable web has very little insight into. I highly recommend this site and although Junctions are only a small part I still haven't reached the end of the archive xD
