Where Old Signals Go to Live On

When railroads retire signals they are typically thrown in the scrap heap, sold off to railfans or sent down to the C&S shoppe to keep any of their surviving kin up and running.  For the general public the best they can hope is that a few of the signals will reemerge in someone's back yard or in a static display at a museum.  After all, what other use is a railroad signal than railroad signaling?  Well...as with everything in life there is a loophole to every rule.

Every so often a railroad will recycle its discarded signaling apparatus until the less vital world of grade crossing warning devices.  Now this isn't exactly common as traffic control signals have a much wider viewing angle and less complicated as they they only need to be visible for a couple hundred feet instead of a couple miles.  Still, grade crossing applications can give life to signals far beyond their typical sell by date.  

Perhaps one of the more (in)famous examples are track circuit fed warning lamps placed at a number of N&W private crossings in West Virgina.  These used surplus N&W amber PL-2 position light signals as track occupancy lights that extinguish when the circuit is shunted by an approaching train in the block.

Now I know some of you might be saying that I am cheating as those PL marker lamps may have been installed new, instead of used, but in a related use case the Cape May Seashore Line has employed surplus PL-3 lamps as so called "snitch lights" as the frequently rusty rail can make crossing activation a bit problematic.  Combated to a bare white bulb on the relay cabinet or the small white lens on the side of a crossing flasher, an amber PL-3 can be visible for miles, even in inclement weather.

In a more recent example, I came upon another recycled railroad signal in grade crossing service while documenting SEPTA's FORD interlocking in Norristown, PA.  A twin stack of GRS model FA modular drawf signals had been mounted low down on a vintage cantilever flasher mount at the Ford Street (Of course!) grade crossing. 

The extra pair of flashers had either been installed for pedestrians or because cars pulled up to the crossing would not be otherwise able to see the flashers above them.

Check out that hexagonal charm

I suspect this may have been a Reading innovation as I caught a similar pair of GRS FA Flashers on a yellow flashing "No Left Turn" device protecting the Bellevue Ave R3 West Trenton crossing in Langhorne, PA.  I am not sure if they were installed new or in the surplus bin, but you will be hard pressed to find an FA still in service as a railroad signal.

Yellow flashers all around

Of course the "No Right/Left turn" lamps like those seen above were also employed as railroad signals in such secondary roles as defect alarms, directional indicators, train order lamps and, as we see below, Take Siding indicators in low cost CTC installations.

East End Rowe, NM siding.

Perhaps the ultimate example of old signals living on in crossing applications is the B&O's reuse of semaphore signals as pedestrian crossing gate mechanisms.  I first noticed this phenomena while passing through Cumberland, MD on Amtrak's Capitol Limited and like the SEPTA signals above I did a double take as I was confronted with railroad signaling in a place I had not expected to see it.

Unfortunately the Cumberland examples were replaced before I could get good photos of them (how many times can a signal be replaced?), but fortunately I know of at least one other example of this type of signal reuse and it is transit accessible!

At the famous SEPTA Route 11 - CSX Philly Sub grade crossing, a pair of former B&O semaphores stand guard on the sidewalks stopping cyclists and pedestrians from crossing the tracks.   

 I wasn't joking.  The B&O (or Chessie System) literally replaced the semaphore blade with a red and white striped crossing gate and put it into service.

These are 90% as "good" as a in service signaling semaphore.  The train approaches the semaphore drops, the train leaves it goes back up again.  All that's missing is the / position so just pretend you're in manual block territory. 

Combine the semaphore crossing gates with old school cantilever flasher masts, frequent trolleys rumbling over an active railroad main line and a nearby B&O CPL signaled interlocking and you have perhaps the most interesting level crossing in the country.