New Pittsburgh Line Interlockings

Norfolk Southern's ability to extort the state of Pennsylvania to add additional passenger frequencies on the old Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line is resulting in a slew capacity expansion projects in the form of "new" interlockings and additional tracks. I use the quotes as some of the interlockings are actually restorations of those that existed within living memory, but were removed for the sake of efficiency. 

Restoration of the old SG and NY interlockings.

The first phase of this work is underway at the set of the old SG interlocking west of Johnstown. The new crossovers will allow Amtrak trains to use both sides of the single island platform that serves tracks 2 and 3. Currently if track #2 is unavailable, trains must use main track #3 which follows the slower route of the old Sang Hollow Extension for 15 miles between CP-CONPIT and CP-C since SG interlocking was removed by Conrail around 1980. 

Returning 3 tracks to the Rockville Bridge

Additional changes include the restoration of CP-WEST PITT, removed by NS around 2007, a new crossover on the West Slope near the old NY interlocking between CP-SO and CP-MO, a new third main track between CP-ALTOON and CP-ANTIS, a new interlocking on the Altoona raceway between CP-ANTIS and CP-GRAY and another third main track between CP-BANKS and CP-HARRIS, which would restore a third track to the Rockville Bridge which was lost around 2000. Summary details of the project can be found here with a 2021 report providing more details of the track and interlocking changes. Note the report is not gospel as photos of the new CP-SG show parallel crossovers instead of a universal crossover.

Although no longer equipped with Conrail/PRR era signals, the NS Pittsburgh Line is still Rule 562 cab signaled with "C" lamps, so more interlockings means adding signals where automatics were previously removed.

Clear to Next Interlocking Rule 280a Displayed at CP-SOLOMON (EAST PITT)

In NORAC-aligned cab signal territory where wayside intermediate signals are not provided, Rule 280a, "Clear to Next Interlocking", allows trains without cab signals to proceed under signal indication instead of needing a track warrant or moving at Restricted speed. Related to the old concept of manual block clear, Rule 280a consists of a flashing lunar white light under the letter 'C' adjacent to a wayside controlled signal. These are normally pretty hard to catch in the wild because they are intended to be used to remedy en-route cab signal failures which are both rare and impossible to predict. For a time it was policy for Norfolk Southern dispatchers to run some Amtrak trains under absolute block protection and I was informed that some would display the  Rule 280a "C Lamp" where available, but I never managed to observe this practice for myself. 

That being said I did stumble upon a scheduled use of Rule 280a that one can catch if they are ever in the Pittsburgh area. After arriving at its Pittsburgh terminus, Amtrak Pennsylvanian Train 43 must reverse about 5 miles to CP-HOME where the closest turning wye is located. Because the rear coach lacks cab signal capability, the "C lamp" is displayed in along side the interlocking signal at CP-PITT, CP-EAST PITT (aka CP-SOLOMON), CP-BLOOM (if necessary) and depending on the order of the wye move, CP-HOME. 

Somewhat ironically the first three interlockings, CP-PITT, CP-EAST PITT and CP-BLOOM, are all back-to-back with no code change points between them. NS could have designated that track segment as normal Rule 261 without the "C" lamps, but their policy followed that of Conrail to provide the "C" even where it is not necessary. (Amtrak had chosen to do the opposite up until about 2010).

Anyway, here we see the 2E mast signal governing track #1 eastbound at CP-SOLOMON (EAST PITT) on the former Conrail Pittsburgh Line displaying Rule 280a in conjunction with a Medium Clear indication reverse move of Amtrak's westbound Pennsylvanian Train 43. CP-EAST PITT is only about half a mile from CP-BLOOM and directly adjacent to office parking making it and ideal spot to Rule 280a in the wild. 

I got this video from the east end of CP-PITT, which a shorter walk from downtown. About 30 minutes after its outbound passage, Train 43 will get more more "C" lamps displayed for a second long reverse move back into Pittsburgh Penn Station however the 2W signal at CP-PITT will display a Restricting into the station track without the "C" indication.

Open Railway Map's Signaling Layer is Hot Garbage

Open Railway Map (ORM) is a great resource that recently came on the scene to allow for fast identification and tracing of railway lines, rights of way and even individual tracks. Unfortunately as project that is based in Continental Europe, its coverage of North America (and the British Isles) has some serious shortcomings, especially when it comes to signaling and train protection systems. The information is incomplete and the presentation is seriously lacking. Ironically we have already seen a better way to present this sort of information in multiple railroad-produced employee timetables. 

In Europe almost all railway lines are considered signaled, with the specific method of block working, (ie manual, automatic, token, bi-directional, etc) not being as important as it is in North America. As a result the signaling layer mostly documents special train protection systems like ETCS, TVM420, LZB, etc. (Even then a lot of "National" ATS-like systems like AWS and Le Crocodile do not make an appearance, although PZB does.) 

 

When translated to North America the result is a generic tag for "PTC" and another for "ATC", even though neither labels refer to specific train protection systems as is the case on the European overlays. One might say the project got a little in over its head trying to color code every protection system, although they do have 40 color codes for speeds. The maps cannot seem to handle situations where multiple gauges, electrification systems or train protection systems are present on the same track segment.

The solution, at least for the North American segment, is to first dump the generic "PTC" and replace it with ETMS and ACSES. Next, drop ATC and replace that with Cab Signal System (CSS) and then add in "ETMS with CSS" where applicable. Since ACSES generally needs CSS there is no reason to restate the presence of CSS in that case. For a stretch goal I would add tags for CTC and ABS, however in a global context indicating bi-directionality is less important, so maybe a single TCB tag for "track circuit block" can be used where ETMS is not present. In the (currently) few cases where ETMS s present without TCB, and "ETMS with TWC" tag could be used. 

In an ideal world ORM could "stripe" colors where multiple tags apply in a similar fashion to the Union Pacific employee timetables which at one point were managing CTC, ABS, TWC, ATS, ATC and CSS systems, but that would probably require significant development time.

If ORM had some clear way to make contributions I'd be down to make the more basic changes myself wiki-style, but I can't see exactly how to do that and e-mails are going unanswered. Leave a message in the comments if you know what I'm missing.