A blog devoted to explaining the ins and outs of North American railroad signaling, past, present and future. This blog seeks to preserve through photo documentation the great diversity and technical ingenuity of 20th century signaling and interlocking hardware and technology. Related topics cover interlocking towers and railroad communications infrastructure.
Note, due to a web hosting failure some of the photos and links may be unavailable.
If you recall my musings on Tower Window Syndrome, you might recall that as towers age, their original windows are replaced by cheaper replacements from the local home improvement store or just plywood. The famous ZOO tower in Philadelphia wasn't the worst example of this, but it was an example as its once full compliment of windows was slowly reduced in size and number.
Over the last few years ZOO tower was given a brand new set of windows and a set of replica PRR keystones to boot. This seems strange for a tower is facing closure within the next decade or so unless someone at Amtrak is just really into historic preservation.
Well while talking with some folks at the Harrisburg Chapter NRHS I was informed that there are plans afoot to not only preserve ZOO as an ancillary railroad structure (like a signal maintainer base), but turn it into some sort of museum. I am not sure how far along these are, but it would explain the new windows and historic markings.
While certainly a possibility and also an amazing location near the actual Philadelphia ZOO where tourists could view the NEC, there would be a few hurdles creating marking from the Amtrak employee lot and providing a walkway across the active NY-PGH Subway track as well as additional fencing and whatnot for liability purposes. Still, the idea of a preserved ZOO with a restored 230 lever US&S interlocking machine and model board would be a fantastic end to a century of service.
I recently had to the privilege of riding Amtrak's second daily round trip to Roanoke, VA, allowing for single day excursions to the Star City. A similar second round trip was added to Amtrak's Norfolk, VA service and together these two trains represent the only scheduled Amtrak service on former Norfolk and Western trackage and therefore the only way for one to experience N&W signaling in person. An added benefit is that the reverse peak Roanoke train uses the shorter NEC morning/overnight trainsets with 2+1 seating Business Class section on the rear of the train which provides a railfan view. This would also be my first opportunity to survey the former Southern main line with a unobstructed rear view since Amtrak reversed their LD trainsets in 2015.
The first observation is that NS did not restricting signal capabilities to most of their interlocking signals during their most recent re-signaling protect in the mid-2010s. This allows a train to follow closely behind another in the same direction. Instead following movements need to wait for the leader to clear the block or get permission past the stop signal. Providing for Restricting likely adds a bit more signaling logic to establish direction of traffic. Another change from the former Southern arrangement was that equilateral turnouts have now been given an explicit straight and diverging routes even though both routes have the same speed. On the N&W there remained examples where both routes at the end of a double track segment could get a "straight" clear.
Equilateral turnout with "diverging" route and no restricting at RIVERMONT
Equilateral turnout with "diverging" route and no restricting at RIVERMONT
South of Lynchburg where the Regionals change between the former Southern and N&W Main Lines, there is an uncommon "full complete" Southern aspect system signal with three lamps with three lights each. The presence of a bottom head is due to the slow speed route to the double wye N&W connection in addition to a medium speed crossover route. It is unclear how approaching movements are informed of the difference between the two routes, but it is likely that *Y*, Approach Restricting, is employed. Although the next signal will not display a Restricting, the former Southern RR rule book listed *Y* as Approach Slow. In theory Approach could also be used. Regardless, this would be a good location to observe the scheduled Amtrak Roanoke movements.
Full complete Southern type signals on both tracks at MONTVILLE interlocking.
In downtown Roanoke there was quite the amazing track and signal complex. Although all of the N&W Position Lights and pneumatic point machines have been removed, the sheer quantity of appliances all visible from the Amtrak Station or public streets makes the location a must visit. Oh, there are also two N&W interlocking towers standing at either end of the corridor.
PARK ST tower visible past a variety of N&W pattern color light signals in downtown Roanoke.
The N&W signal system has a few speed indications, specially in the area of dwarf signals due to the use of PRR type position light dwarfs. Slow Approach (*Y*), shown below for the departing Amtrak trainset, is only able to be displayed on a dwarf signal and also happens to match the NORAC version. Placement of the yellow lamp in the center of a R/Y/G arrangement also allows for Y/G Approach Diverging and R/G Diverging Clear.
On the former N&W Blue Ridge Sub, we had to do a pull-in pass due to long PSR specials hanging out on the main tracks. At WEBSTER interlocking we pulled forward into an occupied block, waited for an opposing train of empty hoppers to pass by over a Diverging Clear, then reversed with a permission past the stop making it likely that the lower head Y on track #1 was for Y/Y Advance Approach and not R/Y Restricting as per the previous commend about lack of Restricting indications.
I'm sure I could go on, but those are the most relevant points from my first passenger train journey over signaled N&W trackage.
The problem with PTC and railroad safety regulation in general is that, despite having a lot of interest from transportation planners, advocates and enthusiasts, rail is still a pretty niche industry so when a "Think of the Children" type moment occurs there's not much in the way of interest groups to push back on ill conceived regulation or legislation. The Positive Train Control law is the poster child for this sort of bad lawmaking, but because rail has made itself so less salient than air or road transport, the complaints were falling on no ears. Well, it appears that this may be changing as some more main stream publications are picking up on the massive waste of resources PTC has been.
A recent article from the right leaning pro free market publication Reason actually puts the annual cost of maintaining the PTC system at a staggering $850 million per year to maintain. To put that in context, that is the cost of a starter light rail system that is pretty much being set on fire instead of being used to perhaps build a light rail system. The article is quoted below, but just keep the $14 billion install cost and ~1 billion annual costs in the back of your pocket when someone trots out the old "safety is worth any cost" argument.
Railroads
spent a decade and billions of dollars fulfilling a costly federal
mandate, at the expense of addressing less eye-catching causes of
rail-related deaths.
Reason.com by Christian Britschki June 28, 2022
The
latest Amtrak crash near Mendon, Missouri, that left four dead and many
more injured contains a tragic lesson about Congress' misaligned rail
safety priorities.
The
accident occurred yesterday when an eight-car passenger train traveling
from Los Angeles to Chicago derailed at a grade crossing after striking
a truck that was obstructing the tracks. Three passengers and the
driver of the truck died, and 150 were taken to nearby hospitals.
The
grade crossing was "uncontrolled," meaning that it had no crossing
guard arms, warning lights, or other safety features that are typically
employed to prevent accidents at road-rail intersections. Accidents at
grade crossings are a large portion of rail-related deaths.
According
to safety data from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), 236 of
the 896 rail-related fatalities in 2021 happened at highway grade
crossings. Of those, 33 involved Amtrak trains. The vast bulk of the
other deaths involved trespassers on railroad property getting struck by
trains. There were also 168 suicides by rail in 2021, which the FRA
reports separately.
This
particular grade crossing has apparently been on the radar of both
state officials (who had a plan to install safety improvements) and
neighbors. In the wake of yesterday's accident, one farmer who lives
close to the crossing complained to local media about the lack of safety
features and the steep climbs that made it hard to see down the tracks.
Despite
the frequency of fatal grade-crossing incidents, the major rail safety
push over the past decade has been to prevent train-on-train collisions,
high-speed derailments, and other exceedingly rare high-casualty
events.
In
September 2008, a passenger train in California collided with a Union
Pacific freight train, killing 25 people and injuring 135.
A
month later, Congress passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act that
mandated railroads adopt Positive Train Control (PTC), an expensive
suite of automation and communications technology that can automatically
slow speeding trains down.
A
common feature of federal safety legislation is that it adopts a very
expensive solution to solving the last, most media-salient incident
while ignoring more modest safety improvements that could prevent the
more ordinary tragedies that capture less attention.
The PTC mandate was no exception.
It
cost railroads an estimated $14 billion (about $2 billion of which was
covered by federal grants and loans) over a decade [OK?] to comply with
the PTC mandate, which was eventually fulfilled in 2020. The
cost-benefit analysis of positive train control has never looked
favorable.
The
FRA estimated that the technology would provide about $90 million in
safety benefits each year while costing $850 million to maintain. An
earlier estimate by the agency found that it would have prevented seven
fatalities over the course of a decade. (The infrastructure law passed
by Congress last year does, to its credit, create a grant program to
help pay for much-needed grade crossing removals, which probably should
have been prioritized sooner.)
That
the money spent on PTC provided little return in terms of safety
improvements is only one problem with the mandate. Each dollar that went
to the technology was one that couldn't have been spent on more
efficacious safety improvements.
According
to local ABC affiliate KMBC, Missouri officials estimated the costs of
improving the Mendon crossing at $400,000. So it's possible it could
have been improved long ago but for an expensive PTC mandate.
Just remember that Safetyism is a bi-partisan affair. The PTC law was signed by GW Bush from a Democratic congress and subsequent Republican administrations did nothing to attempt to get rid of it. Some might say PTC has been most successful policy to kneecap passenger rail that nobody has ever heard of.
On the southern end of the NEC two increasingly rare interlockings with US&S A-5 pneumatic point machines are facing their final weeks or months. The first is PAUL interlocking, formerly UNION JCT at the northern end of Baltimore Penn Station. The plant, with 11 switches, is slated for reconstruction as part of a larger Penn Station redevelopment project that will see the construction of a new platform and the relocation of station operations from the historic 1911 structure to a new Amshack across the right of way. The existing building will then be converted into a hotel. The new platform is progressing rapidly and new pre-fab turnouts with the new M3 electric machines are on site.
The interlocking on the south side of the station, CHARLES, was converted to electric point machines a bit over 20 years ago.
A bit closer to Washington, DC, the new HANSON interlocking project intended to replace the existing LANDOVER interlocking is also nearing some kind of completion after nearly 3 years of construction. The new 3 track crossover is located just north of the existing LANDOVER plant and will provide access to track #1 south of the New Carrollton Station as well as some additional 80mph high speed crossover moves. The good news is that LANDOVER interlocking will remain, but the bad news is that it will only cover the current 91 switch combining the 1F and 2F Landover Line tracks. All 5 pneumatic point machines will be retired.
Both of these interlockings are challenging to document due to overhead bridges with catenary shields. Any plans to do so should likely be done quickly.
