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.
In a recent post I made a quick comment about CSX replacing former Conrail type signals on the former Big Four main line near Quincy, OH. Well it seems that someone in the area took the initiative to grab some photos of the string of Conrail tri-light signals between Quincy and Sydney, OH that are under threat. It also confirms that CP-153 at Quincy marks the boundary between Seaboard and Conrail signaling rules.
The local fan covered the intermediates at MP 155, MP 159 and the next interlocking, CP-163. The whole Indy line is a crazy quilt of old signals, new signals, Conrail Rules and Seaboard rules. At this movement all I can say is that the line is currently at Quincy and moving westward.
It's been a good while since my last Reading and Northern update and although there's been nothing earth shattering I was recently tipped off to a cheat code when it comes to exploring the generally less accessible northern division between Scranton and Jim Thorpe. With the general collapse of any other interesting signaling in the region I have been been putting additional time and effort into getting photos of the R&N's newly installed CTC signaling between Reading and Jim Thorpe. However while the R&N inherited some interesting bits of signaling from the Conrail era, most of it reachable either by boat or long hikes along 20 miles of inaccessible right of way in the Lehigh River Gorge. My Plan A was to try and grab a seat on one of the many R&N passenger excursions however the summer 2020 one was cancelled by Covid and the recently announced one in May 2023 quickly sold out.
However one of my fantastic readers linked me to a speeder enthusiast's Youtube channel that included a 2022 speeder trip from Reading all the way to Pitson Yard north of Scranton, which is pretty much the entire R&N CTC'd main line. This basically provided all the signal status information you need for either fact of existence or for planning more involved photo trips. Part 1 covers Tamaqua through White Haven in a very respectable 90 minutes with part 2 White Haven to Pitson.
If you don't want to spend 3 hours watching the videos the TLDR is between CP-COAL and CP-WHITE HAVEN the LVRR signaling has been replaced by square Safetran CL-10 modules in a target/tri-light configuration. Between White Haven and Glenn Summit is where the LVRR searchlights appear and finally between Glenn Summit and CP-DUPONT is the land of 1980's non-modular GRS traffic lights.
Aside from closing the gap between the Hometown viaduct and Jim Thorpe, I'm not sure how much more the R&N is planning to expand its CTC, but whatever they do I'll be sure to report on it here. Meanwhile I will continue to gather R&N signal photos for additional less current events type posts.
Amtrak recently filed with the FRA to replace its Rule 261 signaling between BRIDGE interlocking in south Baltimore and GROVE interlocking near Odenton with Rule 562 cab signals without fixed wayside signals. A recent article from Trains Magazine provides some insight on why Amtrak has chosen this particular stretch to convert. Part of the prep work for the B&P Tunnel replacement involves a new high speed turnout at WINANS interlocking south of the Halethorpe MARC station. When Halethorpe gained high level platforms in 2013 it forced all northbound stopping trains to switch over to Track A at WINANS, resulting in a 2 mile long 45mph cab signal restriction for the standard speed turnout. The 80mph high speed turnout will mitigate this source of delay.
WINANS Interlocking Medium Speed turnout.
Converting to the 80mph turnout, as well as any signaling work to support the new tunnel at BRIDGE will require signal changes and Amtrak has decided to perform a general signaling conversion from Rule 261 to Rule 562. I suspect these these changes will be lumped in with the tunnel project and thus paid for with B&P tunnel money. Artful use of adjacent state funded capitol projects to pay for state of good repair items is a common trick among the cash starved rail public transit sector.
4x2 Signal Bridge at GWYNN
The 562 project will eliminate the 2 4-track automatic signal locations between BRIDGE and WINANS and 3 3-track automatic signal locations between BRIDGE and GROVE. Of course just because Amtrak has filed to carry out these changes doesn't mean they will happen tomorrow. In 2018 I reported on a similar NEC Rule 562 application to convert the segment between OAK and BUSH. I recently found out this application was related to a similar externally funded capitol improvement projects to install high level platforms and Metropark style crossovers for the Aberdeen, MD station. As of 2023 this project has yet to break ground.
It looks like the derailment in East Palistine, Ohio is causing another full blown safety panic of the type that brought us Positive Train Control. Some of the more benign proposals are calling for increased regulation of equipment defect detectors such as those that scan for overheated axle bearings. Like everything the devil is in the details and treating detectors exactly like other FRA regulated safety devices such as signaling systems and grade crossing protection would be a mistake that would take an automation technology that railroads don't really have a problem with, into a high cost headache that would become an actual target for cost reductions.
Let's be absolutely clear. Hotbox detectors (HBD) and the response to their alarms have not been impacted by investor demands or Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). The frequency, placement and procedures associated with defect detection have not substantially changed for the past 40 years. Conrail spaced HBD's every 20 miles with supplementary dragging equipment detectors every 10. NS kept those exact same detector locations since Conrail was taken over in 1999. The Southern Railway preferred a 10 mile detector spacing and on former Southern parts of NS that detector spacing has also remained unchanged since its operations were merged with the N&W in the late 80's. Speaking of the N&W, their detector spacing was every 15 miles and has also remained unchanged. Long story short the derailment was not caused by corporate cost cutting.
The risk of strict regulation, similar to that applied to signals, is that ay change to a detector would require costly certification processes and/or regulatory approval. For example Amtrak and other railroads must go through a full regulatory process, including public hearings to, apply a software update to their PTC system. Detectors on the other hand display a far greater range of context specific innovation with secondary features like train speed, axle counts and time/temperate enouncements. Regulating all of these features like signals would create a race to the minimum standard as regulated features would have to be rigorously maintained and certified. Don't think this is fanciful prediction either as believe it or not there do exist FRA regulated detectors in situations where they form part of the signaling system.
Some examples like the CP-BANKS, shown above near the Rockville Bridge on the former Conrail Pittsburgh Line, have interlocked high car detection. As part of the interlocking, even changing the readout recording would have required costly re-certification and as a result the CP-BANKS detector retained its Conrail readout some 20 years after Conrail's absorption by NS. Other examples might include the propensity for all automatic signal locations on some western roads to have an breakaway style dragging equipment detector stick. If those are linked to the signal system (instead of radio readout) it would explain why this type of protection has persisted on select western lines and no others.
Regulated standards are important, but requiring a public heating to adjust alarm thresholds or change a broadcast recording (no matter how much I would love to hear KCS and Guilford over the air in 40 years) is liable to trigger loophole abuse in an area was uncontroversial.
