NS Ashville Cantilever is Kaput

I have seen photos of the great Southern RR cantilever signal in downtown Ashville, NC being cut down for scrap. With modern style ABS signals in the flood affected area now turned out of service it appears that Hurricane Helene has done what NS failed to do with a previous FRA petition failed to do and end the heritage signaling on at least part of the former Southern S-Line. 

Let's be clear, the only reason the S-Line still had much of its former Southern RR signaling was because declines in coal traffic had ended through trains on the line and NS was trying to actively discontinue the signaling system. Much of the line was still operating under Rule 271 (aka TWC/ABS) with a lot of the signaling dating from around 1980 in the late Southern era with generally more modern signal structures, but split ABS masts following the right-hand-rule.

Although NS appears to be scrapping the Southern-era signals on the hurricane damaged portions of the line around Ashville and into Tennessee, it is unclear if the FRA will re-visit the abandonment or if some sort of bog standard NS Rule 261 setup will replace it.  Also, the parts of the line not damaged by flooding will probably remain unchanged as the State of NC is making noise about passenger service on the route which will come with Federal $ for a resignaling project.

Harrisburg Power Office Is Now Mostly Up and Running

When we last checked in on the Harrisburg Power Director's office about a year ago in 2024, the Big Board had been fully illuminated and most of the Westinghouse "Visicode" SCADA equipment had been reactivated with the help of modern technology simulating the presence of the field equipment like substations and such. However, because the 1930's PRR electrification projects had been funded with depression era WPA loans, the PRR had to spread the wealth and about half the office used GE "Code Selector" hardware that was more complex in operation and not as well documented. 

Well between March and September 2024, members of the Harrisburg Chapter NRHS managed to locate the documentation for the GE gear (it was sitting on a storage shelf) and were then able to restore most of the GE panels to operation, which is especially useful that represents the bulk of what was still operational on the old PRR Main Line up through 2013. The GE gear brings the added fun of step switches being used to store digits instead of all-relay registers for the Westinghouse part of the office.

As if step-switches weren't enough, between September 2024 and March 2025, the team also reconnected the alarm lamps and bell which further adds to the effect.

Still to be addressed are the metering circuits along with programmed simulation elements that would allow visitors to participate in directing flows of 25hz power to virtual train movements. Still, the Harrisburg power office  is mostly complete in terms of being "a thing that functions as it once did" so watch out for planned opening dates as the chapter is still trying to figure out how to manage regular hours.