Guilford Country Resignaling Updates

With the re-signaling of the former Guilford Rail System/Boston & Maine Western Route Main Line accelerating rapidly, I managed to carry out a multi-day road trip to gauge the situation and take what photos I could. With the re-signaling already complete between the Mass border an the Exeter, NH area I started at Dover, NH and worked my way north to Saco, ME.

My first discovery was that CSX was doing more than just swapping out the signaling and the signal rules. Outside of the MBTA zone the interlockings have all been renamed from the Guilford era CPF-Milepost format to location based names, some of which call back to B&M telegraph cores and others more modern things like road names. Overall this marks an improvement as the CPF names were a result of the crazy Guilford owner kitbashing a 715 mile long main line between Mattawamkeag, ME and Sunbury, PA in 1981. Changing the interlocking names was actually in support of moving away from the Guilford's "Freight Main Line" 0 to 715 mileposts. Unfortunately CSX did not restore the original B&M mileposts from Boston and instead established an MP 0 in Portland Maine that increases as one travels west. Although the chaining was not changed, stone "Boston" mileposts defaced with spray paint instead of reused.

Main track Clear at CPF-243

New signal bridge at Rollingsford Jct

In the Dover area the B&M signaling, including classic signal gantries, is very much on its way out. The holdout signals at CPF-244 in downtown Dover are also going to be removed without replacement due to the reduced need for switching movements that need to occupy the main line. Dover actually represents a bit of a B&M signaling island right now as just over the Main border, double tracking improvements have already ushered in Seaboard signaling all the way through Wells, ME.

Part of these improvements include a new full crossover designated WILLIE west of the Wells, ME Downeaster station. The only details of note is that standard CSX switch procurement is now from Apex and the color light signal modules are now from Progress Rail instead of Safetran.

Milepost 211 searchlight automatic. Note the new CSX milepost number.

The section between Wells and Saco was re-signaled by Guilford in the 1990's with brand new SA searchlights, however new signal mast footings are in place at all of the locations as CSX can't let us have nice things.  CSX has also replaced all of the former Guilford defect detectors with brand new units, which runs counter to their practice after the Conrail merger where CR readouts lingered for over a decade.

Turned signal mast at Saco.

At Saco a turned target type signal awaits an unknown fate. The sale to CSX caught some of the Guilford's own re-signaling projects in mid-stride. If any Federal funds were used as part of Downeaster service improvements, it might be difficult for CSX to scrap this work so we will have to see what they choose to do. 

CPF-LO w/b dwarfs

The corridor between Lowell and Ayer has seen no recent activity on the part of CSX. This might be due to the state of Mass owning all of part of the infrastructure or just the lack of passenger operations bumping down the priority. I am pretty sure the state owns the Northern Route Main Line to the wye junction north of town and possibly to the New Hampshire border and plans for Nashua commuter rail will likely dissuade CSX from making changes the government might ultimately pay for. While I already reported on the re-signaling of Lowell's BY interlocking by MBTA, CPF-LO west of the station is intact, although all connections to MBTA tracks have been cut. 

CPF-307 eb-B&M signal bridge

CPF-307 new w/b searchlight mast.

The ABS signals and CTC siding on the Guilford track between Lowell and Ayer are also intact with each end of the siding featuring an intact B&M signal bridge. CPF-307 even has what appears to be a fairly new 3-head searchlight mast, although it is unclear if this was carried out under CSX or Guilford.

Caught on Camera: Double Green Clear

 With the CSX takeover of the former Guilford Rail System empire, there's a real risk that we might see the end of double green clear signal indications in the wild. Most commonly associated with the New York Central, double green clear is an artifact of two position ABS semaphore signals with an upper head of R+G and a lower head of Y+G resulting in the combination of R/Y for Stop and Proceed, G/Y for Approach and G/G for clear. A part of the NORAC set of signal indications, its last common use was in New Englande on the former Boston and Main territory operated by the Guilford Rail System and the MBTA.

As previously covered, while Guilford wasn't perfect it did maintain a bunch of legacy signaling practices, like bracket masts, up into the 21st century. Even in places where new signals were being installed, two head "distant" signals to interlockings would still display G/G as opposed to G/R. In fact you can see it for yourself on Google Street view on the milepost 2xx intermediate signal adjacent to the Main St grade crossing in downtown Saco, Maine. 

Lit for an approaching train we see double green clear displayed on a thoroughly modern target type LED mast signal. In fact I saw this street view while scouting Guilford automatic signal locations on Google Maps and was not only able to locate the normally dark (approach lit) signal, but catch it displaying the coveted indication for a northbound Downeaster train. 

Unfortunately it appears that this location will be replaced by CSX within the year with no chance of it retaining the double green clear. However with 5 round trips a day, its pretty easy for anyone in the area to  catch it for themselves. 

CSX Accelerates Boston and Maine Resignaling

It appears that CSX has put its foot to the floor regarding resignaling the former Boston and Main Eastern Route Main Line. From the MBTA division post at CP-PLAISTOW to Exeter, new signals are already in place with prep work underway between Exeter and the Maine border. 

Blocks are being lengthened from 2 to 3 miles and even the LED target signals recently installed by Guilford are being replaced. Perhaps the most shocking turn of events is the conversion from NORAC to Seaboard signal rules, despite the presence of NORAC rules and cab signals on both MBTA and former Boston Line territory. This also closes the door on any potential Rule 562 cab signal conversion, even if all of the locomotives running on the line will have to be cab signal equipped. It is unclear when the new signaling will be cut over as CSX has been known to move quickly on new hardware before following up with the logic and testing, but I would suggest that any interested parties move with all possible speed to get their photos, and maybe some video of the flashing Green single dwarf Limited Speed signal at CP-PLAINSTOW.

CSX Demolishes New Hampshire's Penultimate Tower

The effects of CSX's takeover of the Guilford Rail System is already becoming apparent as I have discovered that New Hampshire's second to last surviving interlocking tower, MA in Manchester, has been demolished. Never a big state for main line railroading, New Hampshire did have some fairly robust Boston and Maine infrastructure in the Merrimack River Valley between Nashua and Concord. The B&M had a thing for placing towers at the end of yards and had such towers in the cities of Manchester and Concord.  Both towers were low level brick and concrete "cabin" types built around 1944 to the same plan and designed around a unit lever (CTC style) console and associated local relays.

B&M MA(nchester) Tower, just visible behind the tree line at center left.

CSX's chosen victim was MA tower in Manchester, which is especially vexing because as you can see in the photo above, I had been a stone's throw away taking photos of the deactivated remains of CPN-28 in October, 2022, only becoming aware of the tower's existence after I got home. I had plans to re-visit the area, but had not been able to put them into effect by the time the tower was demolished in May of 2024. Luckily a local urban explorer visited the tower in February, 2024. According to a history published by the Boston and Maine Historical Society, the tower first gained CTC control of the entire New Hampshire Route Main Line in the 1950's before closing entirely in 1974.



In a bit of good news, the tower in Concord had been identified some years ago by local preservationists who are currently involved in its restoration. The story behind the preservation effort is told in the video below. Unless something has been overlooked it is believed to be New Hampshire's last standing purpose built interlocking tower.

Once again the lesson is to be aware of your surroundings and do the research before you go on an expedition.  This was not even the first time I missed something in Manchester as in the fall of 2020 I had failed to get photos of CPN-28 before it was taken out of service despite performing a historic walking tour just a half mile away. 

When Urbex Meets Signaling

While there is a lot of crossover between the urban exploration (Urbex) community and the rail enthusiast community, the Ven diagram doesn't quite work the way you think it does as there is both the type of enthusiasm the individual is involves with (rail, urbex or both) and the type of things they explore.  When railfans explore rail stuff, they tend to put the resulting content in the rail bin, even if they are also into Urbex.  Qualified railfans know the jargon and historical details to properly label their content, rendering it searchable and discoverable. On the other hand, Urbex people who aren't railfans, can get into a lot of interesting rail places, yet have little idea of what they are looking at, therefore harming discovery.

Not so long ago I found some critical WINSLOW tower interior photos from 2003 on an urbex blog site that just hadn't happened to appear on casual google searches until recently. In the same vein, I also found a great exploration of the former PRR MG tower on the famous East Slope between the Horseshoe Curve and the summit at Gallitzin. I routinely search for new "interlocking tower" videos, but not "switch tower" because the genericness of the term returns a lot of bad results.  It was only after several years would YouTube searches include this video in my interlocking tower search due to the key words in the comments.

Despite their lack of historical context, the Urbex community can assist the railfan community by being willing to generally take more risks than railfans. In this example MG tower is known to see increased police patrols to the point where the risk of visiting is well known.  On the other hand, Urbex folk don't care about getting train photos and can put more effort into not being see in addition to just having more experience in not being seen. Therefore, while railfans steered clear of MG, this guy was able to made a comprehensive video documentation. Another popular urbex assist has been the Hoosac Tunnel in northwestern Massachusetts, which sees both explorers and ghost-hunters occasionally getting some footage of the searchlight signals inside.   

Anyway, the next time you are looking for some open source intelligence on some hard to access signaling artifact, try to use some urbex search terms. You might find something surprising.

Vermonter Route Signal Update

About 3 years ago I wrote a fairly positive report on the state of signaling on Amtrak's Vermonter route between New Haven and White River Junction. Unfortunately the recent spike in infrastructure spending has had major negative impacts on the New England Central portion of the route within just the past six months. The only good news is that some of the vintage searchlit signaling might hang on for a little while longer, but much of it is already on the way out.

First a quick overview of the old NECR signaling. Originally part of the Canadian National family under the Central Vermont brand, the rail line up the Connecticut River Valley would have likely passed into unsignaled TWC territory if not for the presence of Amtrak's Montrealer/Vermonter on the route that made abandoning the signaling system impossible from a regulatory point of view. The solution to make the signaling more cost effective was what I termed "Centralized Manual Block", with typical single track CTC sidings, but only a single ABS block between them (although technically the distant signal in advance of the next CTC interlocking did a second ABS block in that direction). This resulted in block lengths as long as 14 miles. South of Brattleboro, there was a additional 10 mile segment of non-signaled TWC before a (formerly) isolated interlocked junction between the old CV and Boston & Maine lines. In the 90's the NECR got some money to install a section of new CTC north of Windsor, VT, however this only included block signaling without interlockings with a more sensible 3 mile block spacing.

The first major change was the elimination of the TWC island south of Brattleboro. A new signaled siding was installed in Brattleboro itself, eliminating the old WEST RIVER CTC entrance interlocking and the related northbound searchlight distant signal just north of the Brattleboro station platform. It is not clear if the project included south of the NECR's Brattleboro yard, but if not evidence also pointed to sensibly spaced automatic block signals. Unfortunately the project also included the re-signaling of the EAST NORTHFIELD junction where the former Boston and Maine CT River Main Line splits off with the typical Safetrain Vaders. It is unclear if an additional new interlocking was installed at the south end of the NECR Brattleboro yard.

New block signaling between EAST NORTHFIELD and SOUTH BRATTLEBORO

New NORTH BRATTLEBORO interlocking south of the Brattleboro, VT station.

At the Putney CTC siding, the south end was re-signaled some years back with the notable poor man's bracket mast, however the north end is still searchlit with no evidence of impending changes. The same goes for the diamond crossing at Bellows Falls with cabling that implies a more recent logic update which might fend off searchlight replacement. I did not visit the Walpole siding just north of Bellows Falls, but as of June 2023 there were no signs of reconstruction. the news CTC siding at Claremont is a different story with new signals on the ground at the south end and in place, but no new relay hut yet installed at the north end. Both of these locations will use Vader masts from Progress rail (aka EMD, aka Caterpillar). This siding is also being upgraded from restricted speed to signaled which will allow Amtrak to better use the station-side platform at Claremont at the cost of siding exit dwarf signals.

New signals up at NORTH CLAREMONT.

Between Claremont and Windsor it also appears that new ABS signals have been installed at more regular intervals. The controlled point at Windsor has work going on, but the replacement signal masts are not yet present. A station sign also indicates that the "CTC" between Windsor and White River Jct was at one time operated under Canadian style Occupation Conrail System (OCS) rules. As I understand it this is somewhat analogous to APB system.

Northern extent of the Central VT era CTC.

From a documentation perspective, while I just missed getting photos of EAST NORTHFIELD and WEST RIVER at Brattleboro, I was able to fully document interlockings near Putney, Bellows Falls, Claremont and Windsor. I hope to return shortly and get the remaining signal locations around Wapole.

Hoosac to Hudson: The State of Western B&M Signaling

For years the western end of the old Boston and Maine main line between the Hoosac Tunnel and Mechanicville, NY has been subjected to a highly inconsistent re-signaling programme by the NS-Guilford joint venture "Pan Am Southern". After a recent visitation and Google Earth survey I believe I have determined the exact disposition of B&M signaling between those two locations. 

Starting at the Hoosac Tunnel, both CPF-414 and CPF-415 are retain their B&M signaling with tri-lamp searchlights and pulse-code based block state transmission. 

Inside the tunnel both ABS signal locations have had their signal heads replaced by modular square LED color lights, but appear to use the same mounting and relay infrastructure. 

At the west end of the tunnel CPF-421 is still searchlit and also features an old school intra-interlocking pole line cable bundle as CPF-421 appears to have been a larger pre-CTC interlocking plant. 

CPF-423 at the west end of the North Adams CTC siding was unfortunately re-signaled in 2022. This was part of a protracted re-signaling project that was probably cut short by the CSX purchase of the east end of Guilford and the uncertainty about the long term future of the west end. 

The split intermediate signals at mileposts 424 and 425 (numbered 144 and 145) were removed and replaced by a single bi-directional mast at the Ashton Ave crossing near MP 425.44. Signal hardware is branded as GE, which is associated with the Landsay company that seems to have taken over the lines of GE/Harmon. The new 425 intermediate may have been intended to replace the holdout signal at CPF-428 as the westbound direction has a fixed lower red lamp, however someone may have thought better of this between when the signal was installed c. 2017 and when it went into service some 5 years later. 

The MP 430 intermediate at the old Taconic racetrack along with the MP 432 intermediate were both replaced by a single new mast around MP 431.

This is where things get strange as the next 4 intermediate signal locations at mileposts 435, 438, 440 and 443, are are still B&M searchlit. 

At the CPF-445 junction with the Vermont Rail System, the interlocking has been re-signaled and B&M searchlights have been replaced with Unilens searchlights and a Safetran color light dwarf.

However at CPF-448 in Eagle Bridge, the B&M searchlights and signal bridge were decommissioned in favor of LED color lights around 2017. Because the Guilford rail system's particular tastes the project included a westbound bracket mast although the B&M signal bridge was abandoned in place.

Between Eagle Bridge and CPF-464, all the B&M searchlights were removed around 2017 including locations at mileposts 450, 452, 455, 458 and 462. However CPF-464 remains in a 2-head searchlit configuration. 

At the other end of the siding CPF-466 also remains searchlit in a 2-head configuration, however the new holdout signal at CPF-467 consists of LED color light masts. At this point the Guilford main line hits the CP searchlights at CPF-468.

I hope this makes things a little clearer for those looking to explore the area. I am kicking myself for not conducting additional expeditions between 2017 when the new masts appeared between MP 423 and 435. I assumed that by 2018 the route would have been re-signaled and rather than risk a wasted road trip I diverted my attention to the Amtrak Hudson Line. This just goes to show that one should verify signal removals instead of mentally writing them off. 

MBTA Re-Signaling Project Reaches Lowell

An update for my previous reports on MBTA's re-signaling efforts on Boston's north side commuter lines.This project consists of installing cab signals and Rule 562 operation on all or part of the North Side lines as well as the general replacement of GRS SA-type searchlight signals. In fall of 2020 the project had already commenced, but there was no sign of it at CPF-BY in Lowell when I stopped by for a visit. 

In fact I even documented ongoing maintenance work on what appeared to be brand new replacement SA heads.

Well recent photos indicate that the re-signaling work has no only reached CPF-BY, but also also replaced the GRA SA searchlight dwarfs with L&W LED searchlight dwarfs, which I guess is better than Safetran cube stacks.

At this point there is no information about CPF-LO, CPF-WA and CPF-NC located beyond the end of MBTA operations at Lowell, but before the end of MBTA ownership at CPF-NC. I suspect this might become a signaling sanctuary as CSX would want to avoid needing to run cab signal or ACSES equipped leaders here and the MBTA would want to hold out for Federal rebuild money to extend service to Nashua.

CPF-NC in late 2021 showing no signs of change.

Additional reports indicate that CSX has dropped new signals at CPF-309 and/or CPF-307 which would be in line with their plans to assimilate the old Guilford territory.  No word if the new signals are CSX standard hoods or Guilford/MBTA targets and also if CSX is planning to run Rule 562 as all Boston Line locomotives will be cab signal equipped and multiple sections of the old Freight Main Line will have MBTA cab signals.

B&M's Centralized Manual Block: The Worst CTC

The Guilford Rail System and to some extent is predecessor Boston and Maine Railroad, had a reputation for stinginess despite being one of the more "interesting" railroads signal wise. In 2014 the formerly Guilford owned Connecticut River Main Line was restored for passenger operation that had been routed off the line in 1987 due to poor track condition.  I took a trip over this route via Amtrak's Vermonter in 2021 and posted a trip report covering the new Guilford style LED target signals, bracket masts as well as surviving instances of searchlights both in Massachusetts and on the New England Central owned portion of the line in Vermont north of the Mass border. However I missed something pretty important in that trip report that only became salient when I was processing all of the photos. Before I try and explain it I'll show a sample of the pre-rebuild Guilford Employee Timetable for the route.

At first view this looks like a pretty common Rule 261/CTC setup, an interlocking, some bi-directional intermediates.  However if you look closely you'll see that each of the two intermediates, shown at mileposts 2 and 7, are distant to the CPR-1 and CPR-9 (not pictured) respectively. That creates a rather unusual 5 mile long block in the middle of the bi-directional single track section that would be broken up by an industry standard 2-3 mile long block. Although this setup was modified in 2014, it was not modified much with a new interlocking CPR-2 eliminating the very long block with a dual distant at milepost 5 for a relocated controlled point CPR-8. The next line segment had a 6.5 mile northbound block replaced with another two 3 mile blocks with the milepost 13 intermediate.  However the third line segment is where things go off the rails again with a massive 8 mile long automatic block between the mileposts 20 and 28 intermediates.

The CT River Line changes ownership at the Massachusetts border reflecting the historic split between the Boston and Main and the Vermont Central.  No matter the ownership however, where the line had been upgraded from Track Warrant/Form D to CTC, the block lengths are reasonable, however wherever the Boston and Main had installed CTC, megablocks are the norm. In fact, on the former Boston and Maine signaled territory controlled by the NECR, the situation is even worse with the intermediate signals acting as single direction distants only similar to Amtrak's 562 cab signal territory, just without the cab signal blocks. The controlled signals in advance of the single track segments are the only indications of block status until the distant signal 2 miles short of the next interlocking. 

This creates automatic blocks of 6 miles south of Putney, 11 miles south of Bellows Falls, 10 miles south of Wapole , 14(!) miles south of Claremont and then a comparatively reasonable 6 miles south of Windsor. North of Windsor a new CTC extension has reasonably spaced blocks of about 3 miles each. At the time of my journey I figured I was just doing a bad job looking out for and photographing intermediate signals, however upon further review I wasn't missing anything, The Boston and Main had employed CTC with manual block distances and setups. If this had been the PRR they could have replaced Clear, Approach and Restricting indications at the ends of sidings with Clear Block, Caution and Permissive Block.

While this sort of layout might seem to be a clever twist of frugality, it is in fact an example of the adage "The Stingy Man Pays the Most".  Not only is the capacity not much better than with manual block/track warrant, ANY track circuit failure in ANY of these super blocks will result in a Restricting signal indication at best or, more likely, a permission past stop signal. The next choice is a 10 mile slog at Restricted speed (elapsed time 30+ minutes) or a dispatcher process to temporarily replace signal rules with TWC/DCS rules if that is even possible thanks to whatever is causing the track circuit problem, like a broken rail. This explains in part why the poor maintenance of the Guilford years formed Amtrak to move off the CT River Line and seize by eminent domain the segment between Vermon and Windsor. Any signal problem would instantly cause a 30 minute delay in addition to all the bad order track. In summary this setup might work for low density lines with some passenger trains that need better protection than track warrants. However if track circuit integrity is taken seriously, this setup is highly fragile. It's no wonder that setups such as this are somewhat more popular with axle counters substituting for track circuit integrity.