More Connecticut River Corridor News

 Although my last update on the Connecticut Valley Corridor was only back in March, I have some additional updates from a follow up trip in October. The most significant are alterations to SPRING interlocking in Springfield, MA. The root cause for altering SPRING is to create an interlocked connection between Boston Line Track 2A and the Amtrak Springfield Line trackage. This route was previously used by the old Vermonter and Inland Route Regionals and required the use of hand throw switches to the east of the station. Without a connection at SPRING, Track 2A is only purpose is to serve as an emergency berth for the daily Lake Shore Limited round trip. The new switch allows Track 2A to be used for both CT Rail Hartford Line trains and Amtrak Springfield Shuttles and also creates additional storage space for increased CT Rail or Regional service. 

Of course there always has to be a downside and unfortunately the changes at SPRING will also cause the elimination of what is arguably the last vintage signal on the Amtrak Springfield Line.  Station track #8 is still governed by a US&S N-2 dwarf, possibly dating back to the New Haven era.  Moreover station track #6 is governed by an uncommon US&S modular dwarf stack that was installed in the early-2000's to replace an H-5 searchlight.  Both will be replaced by Safetran modular cube dwarfs that infected the Springfield line back in 2004.

The bad news doesn't stop there as the New Englande Central re-signaling project continues unabated. It currently appears that new standard sized ABS blocks are in service between Walpole and Claremont, replacing the old B&M large block CTC. This also implies that the new signaling at Claremont has been activated. New interlocking huts have been dropped at both the south end of the Walpole siding and the Bellows Falls diamond. At the north end of the Walpole siding the new interlocking retained the southbound searchlight mast, so it remains to be see if there are any searchlit survivors in the Bellows Falls area. I unfortunately neglected to inspect the controlled point south of Bellows Falls, but it is on my list for a visit in the Spring.

A Video Guide to French "Poste d'Aiguillage"

Getting information on interlocking tower / signalboxes outside the anglosphere can be a bit difficult not only due to the language barrier, but also cultural difference about railfanning and content creation.  While I found a comprehensive site on German towers many years ago, similar resources for French signaling had yet to pop up on my radar. This is rather unfortunate as I believe that France has a strong tradition of staffed towers and electro-mechanical era power interlocking machines.It also doesn't hurt that the standard SNCF model board design gives off strong PRR vibes.

Anyway, when doing a quick Youtube search on "Poste d'Aiguillage" I found a somewhat recent public information film detailing the many styles of French interlocking machine, running the gammut from mechanical lever frames to VDU area interlockings. It even gives a shout out to a North American pattern Taylor (GRS) machine. You can watch the whole thing for yourself below.  Enjoy!

 

 

 

There Unitl it Wasn't: Nova's VN Tower

In the early years of my "keep track of towers" hobby, one Class 1 tower stood out for the sheer improbability of its survival. For well over a decade, a wooden tower in absolutely deplorable condition, standing along side a main line in an accessible area with no discernable railroad use managed to not only avoid demolition, but also the all too common risk of fire. I am talking about VN tower in Nova, Ohio on the CSX New Castle Sub. When it was finally demolished in 2013, VN Tower had outlived Amtrak's Three Rivers passenger service that operated on the same line by 8 years.

The story of VN and its longevity is wrapped up in the story of CSX's somewhat neglected B&O Main Line between Washington and Chicago. VN tower was the first significant town east of the Big Four junction in Greenwich, OH and served as an ABS crossover point with control over some adjacent sidings. Similar in style to other wooden B&O towers and painted in B&O beige, VN tower itself closed in the 1980's with the crossovers also being retired leaving just the tower and a pair of B&P CPL ABS signals. (The lack of crossover capacity on the New Castle Sub would in part doom Amtrak's Three Rivers as it frequently wound up stuck behind slow moving freight trains).

Until 1999, the CSX east-west route to Chicago had played a distant second to Conrail's Chicago and Fort Wayne Lines. While the Conrail split turbocharged the western end of this service lane with new signals and a second track, the eastern end of the route had significant numbers of staffed interlocking towers and single direction Rule D-251 track. The line segment between New Castle, PA and Greenwich, OH was no different with a few CTC islands and a staffed tower in Newton Falls. With investment and eyeballs fixed elsewhere for most of this period VN tower just managed to avoid the wreckers ball.

Through 2000's, the decaying tower with its intact lever frame became a local railfan landmark with photos frequently appearing on the major photo archives. VN stayed in this state for so long that people began to speculate that it still had some use, the tower was privately owned or that some local manager was protecting it. In 2011 CSX finished re-signaling the New Castle Sub, banishing the CPL signals and pole line, still VN hung om, now exhibiting a pronounced lean. With other towers, such as HN, being demolished, VN's popularity increased as a photo location due to the well lit east-west orientation of the track.

VN was demolished on November 22, 2013 and the Nova, OH crossing where it had been located went from a must-see for area railfans to a complete afterthought. With all traces of the tower removed and without anything else of note nearby, there weren't many "here's the pile of rubble that used to be VN" photos. VN's demolition over Thanksgiving also made it less salient than other tower demolitions that year so it escaped my notice and coverage. Today I hope to rectify that situation, although the Akron Railroad Club has had a memorial page for VN tower up for the better part of a decade. That site reports that the lever frame and related components were sent to a museum in Utah for some sort of tower related exhibit.

Hidden Gems - Cleveland Line PRR ABS Signals

The whirlwind of PTC motivated re-signaling has wiped out vintage ABS and CTC systems all across the country including most of the main line PRR position lights. However in one tiny corner of Pennsylvania not only exists a remnant population of PRR position lights, but position lights in a single direction ABS configuration. The Cleveland Line between CP-ROCHESTER (Conway Yard) and Alliance, Ohio serves as a backup route for the far more popular Fort Wayne Line. Due to the low traffic volumes is it PTC exempt, which explains how the PRR era signals have hung on. All together there are 6 PL signal locations on the dual track ABS segment between Rochester, PA and Yellow Creek, OH and today I will cover them all in an eastbound direction using photos that were taken over three trips in 2021, 2022 and 2023. 

The first location is at milepost 22 at the east end of Wellsville, OH. It consists of one eastbound PL mast and a new westbound Darth Vader mast that was installed in the late 2010s when CP-YELLOW CREEK was re-signaled. It is located just outside the flood wall and is lit full time with PL signal 221 displaying clear by default and signal 222 Approach.

The next location is at milepost 19 right behind the football stadium of Westgate Middle School in the town of East Liverpool, OH. It consists of two single head PL masts, both continuously lit with a Clear signal indication.

The location is also notable for the presence of 1940's vintage Carnegie steel rail and a somewhat ad hoc run of signal wire between the cabinet and rails.

In the East End section of East Liverpool at the site of the closed Virginia Ave railroad crossing we find the milepost 16 location with another pair of PL masts. This time signal 164 displays Approach by default due to a pair of interlockings, VEZ and MIDLAND, at either end of a single track section a few miles to the east to the east. Because the track #1 does not encounter a diverging route at VEZ interlocking the corresponding PL mast needed no modification and was therefore not replaced. The short single track section seems to have been installed due to the risk of RoW erosion by the Ohio River, but also acts as a "Conrail Crossover". The eastbound 164 signal is also significantly taller than the opposite 165 mast.

The relay cabinets associated with the signals display both US&S and Wabco logos.

Seeing as VEZ and MIDLAND took out the following two ABS locations, the next automatic signal location is across the PA border, just east of te town of Midland and directly adjacent to state route 68 at milepost 8.6. It consists of an eastbound position light and westbound Darth Vader which are lit full time with Clear the default indication eastbound and Approach the default westbound. They are co-located with the Midland hotbox, dragging equipment and high car detector.