Cab Signals Come to Boston's North Side

Well the mystery is over, it appears that at least some of the North Side MBTA lines (former Boston and Main) are not only getting the ACSES PTC system, but also the Rule 562 cab signaling arrangement that also comes with it.  Moreover it is triggering the replacement of searchlight signals that were considered safe only a year ago like those that used to be at WINCHESTER interlocking on the New Hampshire Route Main Line.  

At this point the cab signals are in service between some point north of North Station (likely SOMMERVILLE interlocking) and WINCHESTER interlocking in Winchester, MA.  While the MBTA has actually fitted some of its searchlights with 562 'C' boards, the ones in Winchester got the LED tri-light treatment. While this line segment had been recently re-signaled, the section between WINCHESTER and the Anderson Regional Transportation Center featured at least two locations with bi-directional, twin head searchlight masts that would display the rare Double Green Clear signal aspect. 

 The spread of Rule 562 across the MTBA North Side could mean the extinction of this once popular signal aspect.  The good news is that the joint Guilford freight trackage should preserve some populations of wayside intermediate signals and the MBTA has shown a willingness to preserve some legacy searchlights.  Fingers crossed.  I will hopefully be able to get up to the Boston area in the March 2021 time frame to document whatever remains.

DELRAY Tower to Close - Last North American Lever Frame

In the fading industrial mecca of Detroit the fickle hand of fate created an Iron Triangle of surviving manned interlocking towers.  Conrail BRIDGE, controlling the former NY Central drawbridge over the River Rogue as well as parts of the Detroit Line, NS ROUGE BRIDGE or Ecorse Jct, crossing of the former NY Central and Wabash and lastly DELRAY, crossing of the Conrail Detroit Line with the former C&O branch into the lakeside industrial zone. 

Named for the Delray section of Detroit, the tower eventually came under CSX ownership and would handle conflicting movements between Norfolk Southern, CSX and Conrail Shared assets.

 DELRAY's crown jewel was a 56 lever US&S Model S-8 Electro-Mechanical machine with 36 mechanical levers and 20 miniature electric levers.  Due to what I am sure was a conflict over who would pay for upgrades, DELRAY outlasted almost ever other mechanically based interlocking on the main line North American freight network, becoming the last tower with traditional levers after the closure of DOLTON JCT in 2017 and the last US&S Style S machine in operation after the closure of HALLETT in April 2019. 

Note that the last mechanically operated points in North America were retired in 2010 as DELRAY's machine had been upgraded to electric point operation many decades ago.  The lever colors pictured don't seem to match up with standard practice, but in addition to points and facing point locks, the frame also had to handle derails and one set of movable point frogs.  DELRAY was also well situated for the enthusiast community being located directly adjacent to a road crossing (although it was not located in the best of neighborhoods).

On November 16th, 2020, DELRAY will close.  While I am somewhat surprised that it managed to claim title to so many "lasts", that is more a function of several towers closing before their time. Some have claimed that it is CSX's last interlocking tower full stop, however there are a number of bridge cabins that still support operator positions, including the B&OCT drawbridge in Chicago that happens to be permanently raised yet still in control of the adjacent St. Charles Air Line bridge.  There is also the saga of F TOWER in Fostoria, that, depending on its exact circumstances, could be active yet unmanned, able to be opened on an "as needed" basis similar to HAROLD's zombie state. DELRAY is also not the last mechanically based main line tower on the freight network as JB Tower in West Chicago has likely claim on that title.

For a more in depth look at DELRAY including more recent lever room and relay room interior photos, check out this post on the Towns and Nature blog. The wiring looks like an absolute nightmare! I would highly urge anyone in the area to get their photos while their can, even after the closure date.  DELRAY's location in a rough urban neighborhood will make the tower a likely target for homeless, vandals and scrappers and thus a major liability headache for CSX, so I fear that demolition is inevitable.

 

Position Light Contributor Chris Meadows Killed in Hit and Run

Due to anonymity concerns I don't usually get to name the platoon of contributors who help me with my information gathering operations.  Other times they are simply friends or family I am able to browbeat into going on a photo mission for me.  One such friend was Chris Meadows and although he was not at all a railfan or rail industry professional, when IU tower in Indianapolis was faced with impending demolition, Chris went out of his way to get me some photos for no other reason than I asked.

This week Chris was killed by a hit and run driver in a fat tired Bro SUV  while biking around Indianapolis.  Although not a rail enthusiast Chris preferred public transport and bicycle transportation and was a consummate urbanist.  Chris' passion was reading and writing and had been a long time contributor to the e-Reading news website Teleread.org.  I made his acquaintance years ago in a fiction group and the work and enthusiasm he put into his interests was a positive force in the lives of those around him.   Chris and I have different hobbies, but we both engaged in non-market driven, hyper niche reporting because if we don't do it nobody else will as all the real money seems to be in promoting conspiracy theories 😢

Unfortunately I didn't get to use the photos Chris got for me back in May of 2019.  I figured I was going to do an "IU Tower Demolished" post, but the event happened without fanfare or demo photos and they just sat on my drive.  Nevertheless they are still an important part of the historical record so I am sharing them below.

 

 

The last days of IU, May 2019

2020 has been a very challenging year for a large number of reasons.  If there is one takeaway it's keep yourself safe.  If you're taking some risks getting some rail photos, keep your head on a swivel.  If you're following all the rules riding your bike downtown it's not going to stop some dude bro from rolling coal right over you.  Stay alert, be prepared, have a plan and let your friends and family know how much you care about them.

 

BART Going with CTBC

 You might have missed it due to COVID news coverage, but back in January 2020, whomever it is that runs BART decided to use some new taxpayer funding to replace the "50 year old" audio frequency cab signal system with CBTC.  While BART does indeed have some extreme capacity constraints funneling 4 lines down a two track trunk between Oakland and Southern San Francisco, as that very city has seen with its MUNI Metro Subway, CBTC is not all its tracked up to be.

This is being brought to you by the same team that sold a $400 million combination railcar and re-signaling package to the Baltimore Metro. Hitachi purchased the Italian railcar manufacturer Breda and the Italian signal provider Ansaldo, which itself was the parent of Union Switch and Signal.  I guess because Hitachi figured that Japanese engineering was better than that of Italy it has gone in with a full re-branding even though I doubt any of the actual work is being carried out in Japan. Like the DC Metro, BART has a core system that is approaching 50 years in age and likely was looking at a full signal equipment replacement similar to that which WMATA carried out after the 2009 signaling related collision.  Although BART has seen many expansions over the years, its core system was and likely still is based on GRS relays and Wee-Zee bond technology. 

 While BART may be hoping for those 30 trains per hour, the reality will likely be less as at a certain point trains become dwell time limited.  It's not that passengers can't all shuffle on and off in 30 seconds, its that they will likely not do it reliably and even a small disruption at peak capacity will result a standing wave traffic jam.  Hopefully, because Bay Area, there will be some sort of backup system as you know every wanna be hacker looking to make a name for themselves will be looking for ways to disrupt the system and anything that uses wireless is ripe for disruption.  If cab signal circuits will remain in service as a backup or on outer portions of the system where such equipment is not life expired, remains to be seen.  The BART system was already pretty useless to railfan with dull signals and rolling stock hostile to look ahead or behind views.  The new D type cars were posed to reverse this trend so get your photos and videos of the current signaling and train control before it vanishes.

Decision 2020

 With all the election talk going on there was one take noticeably absent from the public discourse.  That would be who should one vote for if their number one concern is railway signaling.  Of course this is probably an uncommon point of view, but thanks to the law of large numbers and the internet generally supporting long tail interests, I might as well take a crack at it because I am in need of some filler content. 

 In 2016 the major issue affecting the historical quality and interestingness in the United States was the PTC requirement.  The $15 billion unfunded mandate was signed into law by a Republican president in 2008 with a 2015 deadline and then kicked down the road when the initial date proved unworkable. The law doesn't ban old signals or even require their replacement, but it does require new hardware and testing and at that point it was suddenly cheaper just to replace the whole kit and caboodle. In 2016 Donald Trump was presented as the pro-business, anti-regulation candidate and therefore presented a chance that the PTC requirement would be eliminated.

Four years later Trump has gone on crusades against efficient light bulbs and non-toxic detergent, but not only has the PTC mandate been left untouched, the Trump controlled FRA was at various points threatening popular commuter rail systems with shutdown if they did not waste more money on it.  The truth of the matter is that in 2020 the PTC issue is pretty much dead because there is almost nothing left to save.  Historic signaling has been burned like a California wildfire and with nothing left to lose there is only someone to blame and that would be the Trump Administration.

While the coal industry is completely collapsing even with Trump's support, from a signaling perspective a complete coal collapse would actually be beneficial as past a certain point there would be no business case to upgrade the last patches of N&W/C&O signaling in the coal regions of the east.  As we have seen in Florida and Michigan, CSX short line spin-offs have preserved large amount of classic Seaboard and Chessie signaling.  It's a shame coal didn't collapse a decade ago as it would have likely saved much of the historic West Virginia signaling scene.

The last major signaling related issue I want to discuss is the ability to document signaling from passing passenger trains, which requires A) passenger services and B) traditional rolling stock.  In terms of A, Amtrak has been brought to its knees with Trump connected CEO's axing both private cars and rare millage excursions.  The failure of the recent stimulus talks has now cut Amtrak LD services to tri-weekly.  In term of B, nothing has been done to toe the line in terms of American style crash resistance requirements and more and more European style rolling stock is showing up on the American rail network.  I will give Trump credit for working with congress to ban the Chinese rolling stock company, CRRC, but the regulatory environment is not helping the case for front or rear facing windows on passenger rolling stock. 

In 2020 the choice is clear.  "Amtrak" Joe Biden literally cannot make things any worse in terms of PTC or crappy rolling stock, but he will most certainly increase passenger rail funding which means more trains on more lines and more kinds of signals.  They might not be the most interesting *cough*Denver RTD*cough*, but at least it's something and uses traditional cab signaling.   

Fall 2020 Signaling News

 After a long period of not much going on I recently uncovered a bunch of signaling new, little of it good.  First off, the last pure ATSF signal bridge on the BNSF 3-track raceway out of LA is being replaced by a traffic light cantilever.  The signal bridge, which supports 6, two head US&S H-2 searchlights, is located in Riverside and sees joint UP, BNSF operation.  Although the ATSF bridge was modernized with new concrete footings and the signal location was equipped for PTC, something still managed to upset the powers that be.  Other searchlit locations on the San Bernardino sub appear to be unaffected.

Moving over to the east, the ex.NKP KM interlocking in Vermillion, OH is in the midst of a slow motion re-signaling as its US&S elephant ears are being replaced a mix of current NS signals and an a non-Darth traffic light that appears to have been pulled from the parts bin.  The replacement mast was dropped off on or before mid-2019 and has been recently installed so if you live in the area document the old mast while you can.

Finally, after many many years and false starts, new signals are going up on the BNSF/ATSF/Southwest Chief Rtaon pass route to replace the elderly semaphores.  I guess this is good for the future of the Chief, but bad for the future of semaphores :-(  The photo I have is from Colmor, but I have to assume this is part of a general re-signaling effort.

The only bit of good news I have today is that at this point in time, the main PLs at ARSENAL interlocking have survived the major SEPTA track project of May 2020 that installed a new interlocking south of University City station.  So there's that. 🤷

Data Infrastructure Increasingly Substitutes for Radio Comms

I have been reading reports that as PTC systems are being certified for operation, their data transmission facilities are being used to transmit various mandatory directives such as Track Warrants, Temporary Speed Restrictions and Work Limits. Moreover, company issued electronic devices are also being used to send the same type of "paperwork" in various electronic formats. Previously read over open channel VHF radio to be copied and repeated by the crews, the new methods keeps the information off the air with the radio link only being used to confirm delivery.

 

Although a loss for the scanner community, delivery of what I will call "train orders" has used closed communications channels since the first telegraph line was established to replace a pure timetable system. Hand and telephone delivery have always represented a small, but durable portion of train order transmission since radio communications became a thing in the 1970's. Closed communications channels have long been the norm in Europe using a dedicated GSM-R band set up for the purpose.

I would still anticipate policies on train order transmission to evolve as one of the greatest benefits of open channel communications is the situational awareness provided to all manner of right of way workers and train crews who may wind up at the wrong place at the wrong time. There are countless stories of accidents averted because someone was tipped off to an unsafe situation through radio chatter and is also one of the reasons signal calling remains a thing.

It will be also interesting to see how the scanner community adapts and if PTC deciding will become a thing like ATCS decoding. Although not as open as analogue VHF, there are no FRA requirements to encrypt PTC data, only requirements to authenticate safety critical data. What the industry has decided to do remains to be determined, but with locomotives needing to be able to operate across the national network it is highly likely that industry will seek to minimize the certificate management problems. It is also likely they will just do a bad job resulting in security that is easily exploitable.