ALTO Tower Preservation Plans At Risk

It has been a decade since ALTO tower in Altoona, PA closed and after a conversation with persons directly involved in the process I have come to learn that the likelihood of its preservation seems increasingly remote. The good news is that there are currently no plans to demolish the tower by Norfolk Southern, however the previously touted move the tower in its entirety to the Railroaders Museum about a half mile to the east are unlikely to ever come to fruition due to the structural condition of ALTO tower itself. 

 

Immediately after the tower's closure there were two competing plans about how to preserve it. The first was to move the tower in its entirety in a similar process to the recent move of WB tower in Brunswick, MD. The second plan was to gut the tower of all internal components, strip off all of the architectural ornamentation and then reconstruct the tower from scratch. One of the advocates for the second plan expressed that his motivation to sacrifice the 1915 structure was due to it being fatally compromised by termites and requiring asbestos remediation. All up, full preservation and relocation of the 1915 structure would cost multiple times construction of a duplicate fitted out with the internal components and external ornamentation. It would also avoid the fate of MO tower about 10 miles down the Main Line in Cresson, PA that literally fell apart during a late 1990's effort to relocate the structure to a nearby railfan park due to compromise of the 100 year old wooden structure.

Nevertheless, higher-ups at the Altoona Railroadsers Museum decided on the full preservation plan and drew up a phone book sized document about the tower and the process (with more than a few of my photos included I might add). At this point the sizable cost of the preservation plan became a barrier to implementation along with whatever roadblocks NS would be inclined to throw up. In the following decade the tower has started to lose interior items to theft with the bank of glass timers being an early casualty. Although it is more secure than some of its peers, the wooden structure remains vulnerable to vandalism and fire. BTW I attempted to gain a PDF digital copy of the preservation document from the the individual I was speaking to, but he never followed up after I gave him my contact information. Hopefully he will become aware of my interest and reach out.

Let me be clear. I am not saying that ALTO tower is doomed to demolition or fire. It is immediately adjacent to a major roadway and could still be saved according to the 2012 plan. The point of this report is to provide the community with an update/explanation after the well known preservation plans seemed to go nowhere. I don't have independent verification of the claims expressed to me or independent analysis regarding the best course of action. The better option is absolutely relocation of the 1915 structure, but we should all be clear eyed about that not being possible. It's also unfortunate that the ideal option of preserving ALTO in situ appears to have never been on the table due to NS and liability paranoia.

A New Source for Railfan Window Videos

While trying to gather information for my recent SEPTA Unilens post, I discovered a newish railfan video channel with a large amount of up to date of front facing video content that can help with signaling research. Retired  Railfan Horn Guy has been crisscrossing the country shooting a mix of front window and standard videos with special emphasis on SEPTA and, more recently, Caltrain. The latter is particularly useful given the impending demise of forward facing views on that line.

The guy is based on Long Island so naturally there is LIRR content, but he doesn't seem to have the same level of access as some of the other LIRR specific video channels that I suspect have insider access. Anyway, its a fantastic channel and good resource to bookmark.

SEPTA Sours on Unilens Dwarfs

In yet another chapter of the rail industry's love-hate relationship with the Safetran Unilens signal, over the last few years SEPTA has been systemically replacing its Unilens signals with L&W LED searchlights similar to those being employed by Amtrak in the Chicago, New Orleans and Albany terminal areas. Although I am in the Philly area and perform various SEPTA excursions I only just noticed the change since they were limited to the former Reading Company lines I haven't ridden lately. Below is an example of a compact Unilens "high" mast at JENKIN interlocking since 2006 that was converted from Unilens to LED searchlight at some point over the last 2 years.

Track 2 LED searchlight high dwarf at JENKIN in 2003

Track 2 LED searchlight high dwarf at JENKIN in 2010

Combing through some SEPTA territory railfan window videos I can confirm that the majority of Unilens signals have now been replaced by LED searchlights. including those at NEWTOWN JCT, TABOR JCT, the Fox Chase sidings and Norristown Elm St. Because of SEPTA's use of reduced aspect signals, new searchlights won't get much opportunity to demonstrate their full rage of colors and the clipped flashing might be a little irritating while displaying "cab speed" indications.

LED Searchlights at Albany Union Station

For those of you who might be encountering the Unilens saga for the first time, the Unilens was created as a solid state replacement for the traditional electro-mechanical searchlight. It makes use of plastic light pipes (think big fiber optics) to deliver light from up to 4 lamps to a single lens assembly. While this might sound like a great solution, apparently the product suffers from expensive propritary incandescent bulbs and degradation of the light pipe that reduces output over time as well as giving green indications a yellow cast.  While some of SEPTA's Unilens dwarfs were approaching 20 years in service, some, like those at Norristown, had been installed less than 10 years ago. It's entirely possible that the long term costs of operating the type became just too much. It will be interesting to see if LED searchlight technology migrates to the Class 1's, which still seem wedded to the Unilens for restricted clearance applications.

Steppin' Out - PRR Stepped PL Mountings

 The typical view of Pennsylvania Railroad position light signals mounted on a steel angle iron signal bridge is one where two heads are mounted on a short pole that is in turn attached to the signal bridge structure. 

But what if I were to turn this view...about its vertical axis.

Do you see it yet?  How about now...

As is now obvious, the original PRR concept for mounting the then new position light signals was to place the lower head on its own little mounting mast, forward of the upper head. In the above example at the late CP-PENN, this provides all around maintainer access to the both signal heads to replace bulbs or clean the lenses, although period signal bridges would have afforded this access only to the upper head. As time went on, the more common single pole mounting became standard. Still, the earlier step-mounted position lights were left in place.

Above we can see the eastbound signals at the late CP-GRAY with an original configuration step mounted PL in the center, a modified step mounted signal with a Safetran lower head on the right and a standard mount PL on the left.This reflects the PRR Main Line 2x2 Rule 251 configuration that was later altered by Conrail to double track Rule 261.

With most of the PRR position lights now removed from Class 1 service, the best place to catch stepped position lights is on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between Philadelphia and Wilmington. The above example are the northbound signals at HOOK interlocking in Macrus Hook, PA. The stepped signals seen below are the southbound signals at BALDWIN interlocking in Eddystone, PA.

Like the previously discussed compact position light mounting, the stepped mounting is another one of those things you might never have noticed until it was pointed out.