CP-ROCHESTER Gutted

This might be a few weeks old, but I just wanted to report that the famous CP-ROCHESTER was pretty much completely removed, replaced by a new CP-BRIGHT and CP-BRIDGEWATER.  Located in Rochester, PA and not the home of Eastman Kodak, CP-ROCHESTER was the junction between the Conrail Fort Wayne Line, Cleveland Line and Youngstown Line and comprised a complete 4-track crossover with a 2 to 1 track compression on the other side of the Beaver River Bridge on the Cleveland Line.

CP-ROCHESTER was done in by being situated across multiple curves and also because it contained curved turnouts, a real maintenance headache.  It was replaced by CP-BRIGHT, a three 3-to-4 track crossover located on tangent track nearer to the New Brighton Flyover, formerly exclusive to the Youngstown Line. Although CP-BRIGHT and CP-ROCHESTER operated in tandem for a time as the tracks between them could be used to hold trains entering Conway Yard, NS ultimately removed all but one crossover and one turnout from CP-ROCHESTER that were used to provide access to the Cleveland Line.

ROCHESTER tower, a rare General Railway Signal plant on the Pensy, had been demolished by Conrail in the early 90's, but the position light signals, equipped with Rule 562 'C' lamps for the Fort Wayne Line and still configured for PRR era Rule 251 operation, had remained in place until 2019.