Ten years ago I was provided with a amazing PDF document from the New York City Transit Authority that contained diagrams of every rail line, every rail yard and every interlocking on the Subway, Staten Island Railroad and even some railroad shotlines. The interlocking diagrams themselves had details from switch and signal numbers, details regarding the control panels and interlocking machines and even the date of details of the contracts that the signaling equipment was installed under.
Since then the NYCTA has been pushing hard to eliminate the last bastions of single interlocking towers with CTBC projects ongoing on the Flushing and Queens Boulevard Lines. As my document aged I attempted to get an updated copy, but was told that the NYCTA was annoyed that the first consolidated document had ever been created and that the information had been effectivly split up between all the various line managers. I don't know if that was true or not, the NYCTA culture thrives on control of information (often using "terrorism" as a justification), but while searching for some photos of the old E 180th St tower to fix a dead link I came upon a 2019 version of the same document.
Because nobody had metaphorically slipped me the new version "under the table" with a promise of confidentiality, I am just going to link both documents here so you all can see for yourself the extent of signaling heritage that has been lost on the NYCTA over the last ten years. Enjoy.
NYCTA Schematic Track and Interlocking Diagrams 2009
NYCTA Schematic Track and Interlocking Diagrams 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment