PATCO CENTER Tower Moves To The Pherphery

 As the prototype for the "modern" heavy rail rapid transit system, Philadelphia's PATCO (Port Authority Transit Corporation) Hi-Speed Line was naturally designed with state of the art signaling. However as a prototype it had a few features rooted firmly in the past. For example it had cab signals without wayside block signals, but it used PRR style 100hz pulse codes as opposed to the audio-frequency track circuits that would appear on the DC Metro and BART. One of PATCO's most visible links to traditional railroad operation was its signaling control where the full-line CTC was placed not in a command center or dispatch office, but a "tower" built and named for the PRR interlocking tower that had occupied the same location for the previous 40+ years. 

As built by the Pennsylvania Railroad, CENTER tower sat at the 3-way junction where trains from the Federal Street Terminal would fan out en-route to various points along the South Jersey shore from Long Beach Island to Cape May. Older than the wave of towers that accompanied with 1934 PRSL merger, CENTER featured a 66-lever EP machine and despite the drop in passenger traffic throughout the 1950's, still saw plenty of action from freight trains and lite engine moves to the PRSL's primary service facility at the old Federal Street complex.  

This would change in 1966 when construction on the PATCO Hi-Speed line commenced. The project would replace the PRSL's Broadway station and the associated trackwork controlled by the old CENTER. The resulting real estate was repurposed for Interstate 676 and all traces of the old CENTER tower was erased, however the spirit of CENTER would live on in the new PATCO Hi Speed Line. 

When completed, the PATCO Speedline consisted of the existing 1936 vintage Delaware River Joint Commission "Bridge Line" between Camden and downtown Philadelphia along with a brand new grade separated rapid transit line to the New Jersey suburb of Lindenwold.  The new and old parts of the line joined just east of the old PRSL Broadway station in a space that would have been physically within the territory of CENTER tower. As PATCO tried to re-use as much existing infrastructure as possible it was decided to build the CTC office at this junction point as it could directly interface with the existing signaling and telecom links from the Bridge Line and not have to somehow forward those signals all the way to Lindenwold. Because PATCO's design team were generally rail enthusiasts, they named their CTC office after the old PRR CENTER tower. 

Technically the structure did count as a traditional tower as the operating floor was located above a typical PATCO substation. In addition to the unit lever CTC machine, CENTER also supported traction power direction and remote customer service via "call for aid" telephones and CCTV. CENTER would serve PATCO well for over 50 years, however as the systems were upgraded over the decades, the rationale for its existence, supporting direct wire control cabling, would no longer apply. Instead CENTER would be physically isolated from the main PATCO offices and shoppes in Lindenwold and also located in what had become one of the most dangerous cities in America. With the building starting to age and the work-site unpopular with employees, PATCO eventually found the money to build a brand new state of the art control facility at Lindenwold.   

Although the original CENTER tower will be retained as a backup facility, much of the spirit of classic railroading that CENTER represented is likely to be lost.

L&W PRR Pedestal Signals Appear on the LIRR.

With cast iron PRR type "pedestal" position light signals from US&S long out of production, SEPTA appeared to be the first to purchase ersatz pedestal signals from independent signal manufacturer L&W back in 2019. These boxy LED equipped replacements have subsequently appeared on Amtrak around Philadelphia's PENN interlocking. Well it seems that despite their move towards reduced aspect signaling, the LIRR has purchased some as well with a prominent example now at DIVIDE interlocking.

 While not completely unexpected the LIRR is known to have a sizable stock of pedestal signals that it uses during re-signaling projects to take the place of gantry-mounted PLs until the cutover process. However the number of concurrent signal projects may have exhausted the supply necessitating the purchase of new L&W stock. 

Conrail Signs on the D&H

One of the few interesting things NS still does from a signal perspective is show respect for its former Southern and Conrail territories through the use of those railroads' traditional "station" signs. For the Southern that is a sea green with white lettering and on Conrail that is blue with block white lettering in the Conrail font. In fact NS is so supportive of these heritage signs that they have been spreading beyond their traditional territories with the Southern green signs now seen on the old N&W and more recently Conrail signs on the former D&H. 

 

The specific instance I am making note of today is CP-597 in Afton, NY, an interlocking I previously discussed when it was under attack by a re-signaling project. If you really like your ancestry trivia we now have a former D&H interlocking location, that was amalgamated into Guilford's Main to Pennsylvania "Freight Main Line" with the new milepost 597, and today features NS color light signals with a Conrail station sign and CP designation (CP-597 vs Guilford's CPF-597). Wow, talk about a mixed bag, 

Fire at VALLEY JCT Tower

The Reading Company's late LEBANON VALLEY JCT interlocking tower was built in 1951 with CTC and direct wire control over most of the Reading Belt Line and eventually closed as a staffed interlocking station around 1987. It was used as a glorified relay hut for the next 15 or so years until its complete retirement from railroad use.  When I was able to profile the tower in late 2020 it had become unsecured at the hands of local vagrants and while this was a boon for documentation, I mentioned at the time that the structure was at grave risk of a downward spiral.  A year later the spiral had begun with evidence of both fire and vandalism inside. My prediction was demolition as an attractive nuisance due to the tower's robust brick and concrete construction, but apparently the roof and interior fittings of the operator's floor were made of wood and on Christmas eve 2025 the structure was gutted by fire. 

Photo courtesy Exeter Township Volunteer Fire Company

Demolition is likely inevitable, although the timeline is unclear due to the challenging location. (Amtrak's wooden SHORE tower suffered a fire about 5 years ago and still stands as of this post.) Regardless, anything of historic value that was not already removed was likely destroyed in the blaze.

 

VALLEY JCT joins a growing list of "robust" towers that have been demolished in recent years, many in far better condition. Just another reminder to not wait when it comes to documentary efforts. 

 

Amtrak Extends NEC Rule 562 From OAK to BUSH

Amtrak has recently activated Rule 562 cab signal operation between OAK and BUSH interlockings on the Aberdeen peninsula in Maryland retiring three intermediate wayside signal locations in the process. This follows a similar project between PRINCE and BACON interlockings that took place in 2018.  

The three wayside signal locations are the Milepost 65 signals just north of the Aberdeen station, the Milepost 67 signals near the defect detector in Short Lane and the Milepost 69 signals in Perryman.

This project has been anticipated for the better part of a decade, but according to my sources was waiting on a larger project to build a new interlocking or interlockings to improve routing around the Aberdeen station. It is possible that with both the Susquehanna River Bridge and Baltimore Tunnel replacement projects now underway, Amtrak lacked the spoons for a new Aberdeen interlocking.

PHOTOS: LEAMAN - The Place To Be

The Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line, today operated by Amtrak as their Harrisburg Line, is known for its many interlocking towers that survived well into the 21st Century and I have covered several of them on this blog. However there is one "place" that isn't quite a tower, although it has many of the trappings of one. While the PRR seemed to have an aversion to CTC, it still had a lot more signaling infrastructure than peer railroads with a particular focus on Manual Block System and its related component, the block station. What's a block station? Well its a location on the line that can host a block operator who in turn can perform those duties necessary for some (manual) block operation like transmitting train orders, displaying signals and throwing hand operated switches. Even on signaled PRR main lines one could find non-interlocked block stations open either 24/7 or part time.

Located at milepost 56.7 between PARK and CORK interlockings on the Main Line is the town of of Leaman Place. You might recognize the name for being the interchange point for the Strasburg Railroad. This segment of the Main Line was electrified in 1939 and at the time  featured 4 main tracks. Despite the 24 mile gap between the two interlocking stations, no intermediate crossovers were provided as most disruptions could be dealt with by relying on the "spare" main track (with the parallel Columbia Branch directly providing an additional two tracks of relief capacity for freight). However in 1948 tracks 2 and 3 were removed due to declining traffic and evidently this length of single track operation during maintenance or equipment failure had become an issue because in 1961 the PRR constructed the new LEAMAN block station at milepost 57.0 with a pair of main track crossovers protected by semi-automatic signals. Unlike similar hand throw block stations LEAMAN had no normal hours of operation and was only open as needed for single track operation.

LEAMAN consisted of a pair of center locked hand operated crossovers and a pair of position light signals oriented in the normal direction of travel. As this was not an interlocking, no reverse direction signals were not installed. A rather robust operator's shelter was provided and outfitted with  station signs, climate control and telecommunications. 

This sort of hand operated crossover layout was not uncommon on other double track ABS main lines with the requisite "shelter" typically taking the form of a wayside telephone booth that would allow crews to call the dispatcher to pick up their movement authority to run through the single track area or to report clear of it. However LEAMAN was unique in that its signals and electric switch locks were tied to a small control panel inside the operator's shelter and not accessible to road crews. 

Caught on Camera - NORAC's Missing Signal Aspect

If you are looking at older versions of the NORAC signal aspect chart you might notice something a bit odd. Most of the common signals indication have a dwarf option for situations with restricted clearance like tunnels or terminal areas. Because of the understandable choice to limit dwarf signals to 1 or 2 elements, some uncommon aspects like R/Y/G Medium Approach Medium are omitted, however until 2018 NORAC also omitted a far more popular signal, Rule 285 "Approach". For those of you who have been living in a cave, Approach, also known as "Caution" in the UK, is "the yellow light" in railroad signaling. A signal so basic that it appears in elementary school books on how trains work. How Rule 285 was neglected in dwarf form is an interesting story of path dependence. 

The story begins with the lamp color yellow performing double duty as for the Restricting indication. When shown alone on a dwarf signal, yellow Restricting, not Approach, so Approach has to be something else. Well, we have two lamps so why not make Approach Y/R? Well dwarf signals are most often used in terminals, terminals are slow so dwarfs really need a Slow Approach indication.  Single lamp *Y* flashing yellow exists and is the preferred option, but back in the day flashing relays were expensive and unreliable so we should probably have a fixed version of Slow Approach. This is where the fateful choice was made. R/Y Slow Approach could have worked. If the Red lamps burns out the signal becomes a Restricting, but the rules boffins likely didn't want R/Y Restricting on a high signal to be confused with R/Y Slow Approach on a dwarf signal because that mistake would likely result in an accident. Therefore dwarf R/Y was given to Restricting, Y/R was given to Slow Approach and Rule 285 Approach was out of luck.

Slow Approach on Track 1 east at CP-97 instead of Approach.

For the sake of correctness NORAC did offer Rule 285 Approach in the form of a PRR pedestal or a B&O dwarf CPL, but these were never options in color light territory or after position light signals began to be phased out. So what was a railroad to do when it needed Rule 285 in a restricted clearance situation? First option was to use Slow Approach, one loses 15mph within interlocking limits, but outside of interlocking limits the rule becomes "regular" approach with a Medium speed limit. The second option was to use Y/*R* Medium Approach, this bumps the speed passing the signal up from Slow to Medium, but ultimately suffers from the same drawback as Slow Approach in that trains can't come at either of these substitutes on a Clear, trains have to hit an Approach Medium or an Approach Slow first. From my field observations Medium Approach was the preferred alternative and could be displayed on either a 2 or 3 lamp modular stack by lighting the yellow lamp and flashing the red below it.

To be fair, the Seaboard system used by CSX also exhibits this problem despite using only using lunar for Restricting with dwarf Y/R for Slow Approach and R/Y for Medium Approach. By forgoing a flashing medium approach CSX lost its latitude for an "easy" dwarf approach aspect. However it was ultimately NORAC that cracked first and in 2018 they adopted *Y*/R as the dwarf option for "straight" Rule 285 Approach. While this now leaves Rule 282a Advance Approach out in the cold, Approach Medium is pretty much a lossless substitute. Of course these sorts of changes can take some time to filter down and it was only recently where I managed to catch one in the wild at SEPTA's WAYNE JCT where a dwarf has replaced a high signal at the end of a platform.

With this change the ball lands back in CSX's court. Will they make some basic changes to its system like adopting *Y* Advance Approach in addition to *Y*/R dwarf Approach?  Or will they keep looking for more "Canadian Combinations".