CSX Philly Sub Resignaling and Other News

Well since the CSX re-signaling crews of doom finished running roughshod over the B&O CPLs in Baltimore they have no moved northward onto the Philly Sub where, once again, a previous re-signaling about 13 years ago should have saved at least some of the CPLs from extinction, but it seems that CSX is intent on leaving no interesting signal unsanitized.  It was actually in the last round of re-signaling on the line that I even wrote a post on how CSX used to take the time and effort to leave the existing signal hardware in situ, but not any more as I guess Chinese manufacturing has made a throw away society much more practical.

The project is currently most noticeable at Rossville where Darth Vaders are already in place to knock down a classic CPL bracket mast, but the spray paint and footings are in place all the way up the line to the Ankin siding on the east bank of the Susquehanna.  Fortunately I have been able to put the documentation effort in high gear collecting photos from Rosedale autos, the Van Bibber siding and the intermediates in the Aberdeen area.  Previously I had covered the Ankin and Singerly sidings so I actually have almost a full documentary record of the CPLs on this route. If you travel up and down I-95 it may be worth your time to take a short side trip and try to catch a train passing one of these vanishing beauties as massive derailments and explosions probably wont delay the work for long.

In other news the long awaited Darth Vaders have made their appearance at Selma, NC where Amtrak's Carolinian turns off the A-Line and onto the Southern H-Line.  The A-Line has seen much re-signaling south of Rocky Mount with new bases present between there and Petersburg.  I was unable to make my annual May survey of the line, but I have several sets of A-Line photos now and I hope to get at least one more come October.

Over on the PRR main line the fall of PRR PL's is a drip, not a flood thanks to Conrail's 1990's re-signaling and NS's policy on preserving useful signals.  This time one of the iconic PL masts at CP-CONPIT are being replaced by a Vader mast.  CP-CONPIT was already split between position and color lights with three of each, but it appears that something has gone wrong with the westbound track 1 mast necessitating its replacement.  The real loss here is the Rule 562 'C' lamp that makes use of a PL-3 unit instead of a newer marker as were installed in the Conrail era.  Those 'C' lamps probably date from the first PRR main line application of 562 operation on the Conemaugh Line.

To end with a scrap of good news it looks like someone at Canadian Pacific failed to get the Darth Vader memo and is continuing to install their home brew brand of 21st Century searchlights.  Bad news is its all the way in Canada instead of D&H territory where we still await word on if CP will emulate CSX or NS regarding the fate of their new-install searchlights masts at unresignaled interlockings.