MARION (AC) Tower's Missing CTC Machine

A couple years ago the folks at the Railroad Media Archive Youtube Channel posted a video covering the last months of Conrail's MARION (formerly AC) tower in Marion, OH.  Originally built by the Erie Railroad in 1902 and located at the parallel crossing of the CSX Toledo Sub and NS Sandusky Branch with the Conrail Indianapolis Line, the video shows off the tower's GRS/Taylor Model 2 interlocking machine with its proto-pistol grip type levers. At the time, MARION's operator only had control of the local interlocking, which seemed reasonable considering that they had to deal with train movements on separate railroads. However a new video from Railroad Media Archive shows a whole other side to operations at MARION. Sometime after the closure of the Eire main line around 1978, MARION gained CTC control of the Indianapolis Line between Belelfonte and Galleon (CP-BURT) with a 80's "Traffic Master"-style CTC panel and interface situated behind the operator's desk controlled by a compact interface of action keys and a numeric keypad.

In the posted video full attention is given to this CTC panel, with MARION's legendary lever frame barely making an appearance. We watch freight trains slowly cross MATION's territory while the operator discusses his duties and lines routes while text annotations appear in the video's side bars. It is mentioned that the tower would be losing its CTC territory by the end of the year (1989). 

The video captures that fleeting period between classic towers and train order offices, and modern point and click computer dispatch interfaces. By the time MARION was fully closed in 1995, all traces of its 1980's CTC territory had been removed. 

Another One I Missed: Conrail BRIDGE Tower Closed and Demolished

Up through 2019 Detroit featured what I would like to call the Iron Triangle of staffed interlocking towers, DELRAY, NS BRIDGE and (Conrail) BRIDGE. As you might guess the latter two involve movable bridges over the River Rouge. In November 2020 I covered the closure of DELRAY tower as the last active long lever interlocking machine in North America, however I was then unaware that Detroit's iron triangle had already been broken with the closure of Conrail BRIDGE tower in late 2019. I'll blame the COVID era for it taking 6 years for me to notice the unfortunate change in circumstances, but I am going to post about it nevertheless so people don't have to sort through Facebook groups to learn what happened.

Conrail's BRIDGE tower benefited from a perfect storm of circumstances that saw it last well into the 21st century as an active block and interlocking station. First it was attached to a movable bridge, a thing that until recently required human presence, and second, it was part of Conrail Shared Assets, which is a 50/50 joint venture between NS and CSX creating a "Port Authority" type situation where slight inefficiencies can persist. Moreover, when FN tower in Trenton, MI closed around 2003, the operator at BRIDGE was given control of that territory becoming a mini-dispatcher of the Conrail SAO Detroit Line. This situation is similar to the operator at UPPER BAY tower in Conrail SAO's New Jersey division being assigned additional interlockings over the last 20 years or the CSX/Conrail operator at the Livingston Avenue Bridge acting as a mini-dispatcher for the Amtrak Albany Terminal (until Amtrak re-signaled the area around 2018).

BRIDGE had previously survived one brush with re-signaling around the time of the Conrail split where its S&F lever frame was replaced by a more modern unit function type panel. The efficiency movement finally caught up with BRIDGE in late 2019 with the tower being closed and then demolished between August 2019 and November 2020. The BRIDGE drawbridge was likely being placed under remote control as was the style with several other Conrail SAO operated movable spans at as of late. With DELRAY closing in 2020, this left NS BRIDGE, aka NS ROUGE BRIDGE aka ECOURSE JCT as the last remaining staffed traditional tower in the Detroit area (although in theory the drawbridges connecting Zug Island to the mainland also count as towers).

While not as iconic or as accessible as DELRAY, BRIDGE was still the second best example of an interlocking in the Detroit metro area. It's another sad loss in a city that hosted diverse mix of active and disused towers well into the 1990's. 

New Signals at IVANHOE

Just saw this pic of new signals going up at IVANHOE crossing on the former Conrail Porter Branch. Built as the Michigan Central's main line into Chicago, these are likely the mast Michigan Central style small target searchlights on the route along with an equally rare bracket mast so if you happen to be in the area get your but in gear and get out there to get some photos.

 IVANHOE is where the Porter Branch crosses the EJE belt line, now owned by CN. It once supported a well known interlocking tower that was closed and demolished in the 1990's.

Owned by CSX, but previously used as a back door into Chicago from the Conrail Chicago Line, now owned by NS, the Porter Branch has been in a bit of a limbo since the Conrail split of 1999 with a lot of the traffic being from other railroads.  Many of its interlockings are diamond crossings and have already been re-signaled, but the Branch still retained NYC vintage GRS style G block and interlocking signals on the eastern end of the line including CP-243 as of fall 2024.

I had the privilege of riding this line in the fall of 2006 on an Amtrak detouring around a serious Chicago Line derailment where I also got to see the since closed CALUMET tower. 

 
Anyway, I guess we'll have to wait and see if this is the beginning of end of interesting signaling on the porter Branch or just another chapter in a long slow decline.

Amtrak's Post Road Puzzle

The Albany Port Road Branch, now under long term lease to Amtrak, has an interesting history. One of the few stretches of non-commuter North American main line track dedicated solely to passenger operation, the Post Road Branch represents the original route of the Boston and Albany before the construction of the Selkirk Cutoff that allowed New York Contrail freight trains to bypass the Albany terminal area in the 1920's. In the 1970's, Penn Central completely ripped up the track on the 12 mile branch as a cost cutting measure before being ordered to restore it by the ICC. Since then it has hosted exactly two regular trains per day, the Boston section of the east and westbound Lake Shore Limited and with an 80mph track speeds, it currently represents the fastest portion of the Boston to Albany route. 

Listed as operating under Rule 261 bi-directional signaling in the timetables of both Conrail and CSX one might assume that the line would have something on the order of 4 or 5 intermediate signal locations based on the typical North American main line block length of 2-3 miles. Riding the line I recall having trouble spotting these signal locations, but I assumed they were there. More recently I noticed that Boston Line CP-187 had been re-signaled by CSX and then used Google Earth to carefully scan the Post Road to see if Amtrak had used the opportunity to convert it to Rule 562 cab signals without wayside intermediates. I couldn't find the intermediates or their associated ACSES beacons, but there was also no evidence of cab signaling. It was only then I realized what Conrail had done.

In 2021 I reported on the Boston and Maine's budget CTC signaling on the Connecticut Valley route. Each CTC "block" of 6-8 miles in length might have only one intermediate signal, the distant two miles from the next CTC siding interlocking. Well when I saw the  Milepost 188.8 intermediate above that governs only eastbound movements as they approach CP-187, it became clear that Conrail had done the same thing, just with a 10 mile long block.

Reviewing my archives I discovered a similar westbound only signal about 1-2 miles east of CP-141 at Albany confirming the use of a "superblock" type configuration. While this certainly matches the traffic levels of 2 trains per day and cuts down on some relay logic, it still means that a single faulty track circuit component can trigger up to 10 miles of Restricted speed operation, or possibly 10 miles of Approach.  

With the limited traffic it will be interesting if Amtrak extends the cab signaling to CP-187 and close the last remaining cab signal gap between Boston and Albany. It's not like there are not intermediate signaling hardware on the line since a block that long needs occasional repeaters for track circuit integrity.

2022 Hudson Valley News

My 2022 road trip up the Hudson River valley uncovered several more newsworthy elements than I had encountered in 2021.  The first and foremost of these is that Amtrak has likely completed its refresh of signaling at Hudson Line interlockings with the anticipation of eventual Rule 562 operation.  Although no 'C lamps have been fitted, the Conrail era searchlight signals have been replaced by Safetran modules LED target signals.  At CP-103 these are in new masts at the same location and at CP-114 they have been mounted on the legacy tubular cantilever masts.  In 2021 footings for new signals were in place at CP-94, likely spelling the doom of the bracket mast there. I do not have information about the signals at CP-124 or CP-125.

CP-114

CP-103

At intermediate signal locations the searchlights are still in place and little/no work has been started to install solid state "signal indication point" huts.

In the Mechanicville, NY area, the last gasp of Canadian searchlights are still in place at CPF-470 and adjacent interlockings.  These use a custom housing to hold what are probably railroad-stock searchlight mechanisms.

I also noticed that the entrance signals to the former Boston and Main / Guilford Rail System Freight Main Line at CPF-467 was protected by GE branded signal heads that were a thing due to their takeover of Harmon Electronics. This is fitting given GE's presence in the area.

 

The former NY Central XO tower in Mechanicville has been taken over by the local Chamber of Commerce and someone is building a model railroad layout in the former opeator's level.

Finally I can confirm that the ancient searchlight mast on the former D&H Colonie Sub in Cohoes, NY has been replaced by a CP style Vader mast about a quarter mile to the north of the old location.

Well that's all the news from upstate.  Not great, but not terrible.

133 Year Old BO Tower in Kalamazoo (Finally) Demolished

The demolition of some towers, like Fostoria's JACKSON ST, come as a surprise.  On the other hand other tower are clearly on the pah to the wrecking ball and it is not a matter of "if" but "when" and the former Michigan Central's BO tower in Kalamazoo was most definitely in the later category.  In operation for a mind boggling 128, a history of the tower was discussed in my post covering its closure back in 2016. Although BO was owned by Amtrak and/or the State of Michigan as part of the Wolverine Corridor, at the time when the door was locked and boards went up on the windows, it was mentioned that the interior equipment like the model board and interlocking frame were destined for the Henry Ford museum in Detroit.  This is when it became clear that there were no serious efforts underway to preserve BO tower.  

Honestly I would have been surprised if there were.  The tower was built in 1888 and constructed of wood.  It would have needed a pretty serious preservation effort to keep it intact (although the roof was replaced in 2006).  Second, the tower could not be preserved in situ as it was just feet from TWO active tracks, one an Amtrak route with multiple daily train movements.  Third, unattended wooden structures in an urban area catch fire, full stop.  See what happened to SHORE tower just a few months ago.  Fourth, there was no obvious rail museum to relocate the tower to in the immediate area.  Finally, the removal of the interlocking frame (if it was actually removed) would have fatally compromised the structure.  Remember, preservationists tried to move MO tower in Cresson, PA but it was just too weak and immediately fell apart. All of these factors working together sealed BO tower's fate.

Preserving BO tower would not have been beyond the pale.  Tower B-12 in Franklin Park is pretty much the same type of structure and was moved to a nearby park, but it does not seem that Kalamazoo has the enthusiast community on hand to take on such a project. Kalamazoo, where my maternal grandmother is actually from, is still part of the rust belt and there just isn't a lot of downtown civic energy available for these types of projects. Because of my family connection I will be certain to visit Kalamazoo in the upcoming years.  It's a shame BO tower will not be there waiting for me.

UPDATE: According to this video, the lever frame in BO tower was NOT preserved and was generally ripped up in the demolition process.  Not sure if it went to a scrap yard or if a collector was able to snag it. It also appears that there was a limited preservation effort that ultimately failed.

Fostoria's Historic JACKSON ST Tower Demolished

 JACKSON ST tower, located in Fostoria, Ohio, may not be as well known as the famous tower located at the Iron Triangle, but JACKSON ST was notable for hosting the world's first CTC system installed in 1927. As described in this article, the CTC system from General Railway Signaling (GRS) covered 40 miles of New York Central trackage and was the first time trains had been directed on a single track with passing sidings entirely by signal indication and without any use of train orders. 

If you are wondering what a New York Central tower is doing in a town known for the B&O, C&O and N&W, that's because the NYC line between Toledo and Bucyrus was almost completely abandoned.  While JACKSON ST wound up just a short distance from the CSX owned C&O Northern Branch to Toledo, it was still guardian an empty right of way and may have been assumed to be off current railroad property all together.  

Well it turns out it was still owned by CSX and despite the tower's good condition and historic importance, it was demolished sometime in the fall. I'm pretty sure the actual CTC panel was preserved, but its a shame that places like Fostoria likely lack a critical mass of rail enthusiasts or preservationists to prevent this kind of destruction.

Conrail Tower Videos

 Despite the algorithm Youtube's discovery system is still pretty spotty so I wanted to share a few videos I found showing the operation of some Conrail towers in Ohio.  Unfortunately the first two suffer from a common ailment of interlocking towers videos, near total focus on trains passing by the towers instead of the tower operations themselves.  Of course it's better than nothing and it's great rail videographers were able get what they did, but ultimately locomotives are generally working the same way they did back in the 1960's and will continue to work that way for the foreseeable future. Interlocking towers on the other hand are practically a completely lost art with very little video documentation of how they functioned.

Here in the first video we see inside of the rather large and complex STANLEY tower south of Toledo, OH in 1995.  STANLEY was equipped with a 1930's vintage GRS Model 2 pistol grip frame.  We see one route being lined around time index 4:40 and two more routes being lines around 6:02.  The important thing to watch are the black switch levers stopping before full travel while the points complete their throw and then the lockout lights illuminating when a red signal lever is reversed to line up a route.STANLEY was open using its original machine until about 2015.

In another 1995 we get inside the late, great IU tower just east of Indianapolis Union Station.  Equipped with a 100+ lever US&S Model 14 machine, the tower was closed at some point and re-interlocked, but not re-signaled until just a few years ago.  The tower also contained unit lever CTC desks for area interlockings and retained some degree of functionality until CSX completely re-signaled the plant.  In this video we see only a few brief glances of the operator's floor starting around time index 2:41.  The Model 14 is still present, but it is not clear if it is still in operation.

Since DELRAY tower closed on November 20th, 2020 as the last armstrong style mechanical lever frame in North America, a local railfan posted a video tour of the inside, but unfortunately was not able to capture the machine being operated to line up any train movements.

Finally this news piece from 1986 shows the closure of MORGAN TOWER in Quincy, OH.  This mechanical tower was in service on the Big Four main line complete with power operated semaphore signals. This video does capture a degree of lever frame and pipeline operation as well as some shots of the semaphores rising and falling. Enjoy!

LENOX Tower Demolished as Singleslip Scrubbed

I previously reported on the 2018 closure of LENOX tower a Big Four (NY Central) tower between Alton and St. Louis that had ended up under the purview of Union Pacific through the acquisition of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois route to Chicago. The tower was closed through a State funded rebuilding of the interlocking complex as part of the Chicago to St. Louis Lincoln Corridor project. Unfortunately, despite the tower being of brick construction and located in the middle of a major junction in need of maintenance, LENOX was demolished in May of 2021.

When I had last seen LENOX in the spring of 2019, the lights were still on and I had been told that the telephone etc still worked.  The interior was thoroughly modernized with wall to wall carpet and HVAC.  It looked like the Alton to St Louis rebuilding effort had finished with speeds raised on the old 40mph stretch between LENOX and WR. 

Unfortunately someone had other ideas because the tower found itself in the way of a plan to remove LENOX interlocking's signature single slip switch and the resulting track realignment would require the demolition of LENOX tower. Although the the State of Illinois had some preservation riders in its billion dollar corridor project, they only applied to the GRS Type 2 interlocking machine itself.

Despite the fact that two local rail museums turned down the request to save the interlocking machine, a local signal enthusiast got the call and managed to remove everything that was both transportable and worth saving.  Anyone who might be riding the Texas Eagle between St. Louis and Chicago would be wise to get additional photos out the back.  Moreover LENOX isn't in a built up areas so an in-person visit to the location would be unlikely to trigger much attention unless the rebuilding crews are on site. 

Former Conrail Boston Line Completes Cab Signal Conversion

Sometime over the winter of 2019/20 the MBTA cut in the last section of Rule 562 cab signal without fixed wayside signal territory on the former Conrail Boston Line between the Amtrak division post at COVE and CP-21 in Framingham.  This completes the cab signal conversion project that was imitated by Conrail in 1988 and carried out in three distinct phases over the following 32 years.

Rule 280a 'C' boards are up at CP-3 (Photo Credit Fred G.)

In 1988 the Conrail Boston Line, originally built as the NY Central affiliated Boston and Albany (B&A), was showing its age.  The two track, Rule 251 ABS signaled line was an expensive albatross in post-industrial New Englande. Seizing the opportunity, Conrail decided to rebuild the line and in the process set a new standard that continues on to this day, most notably under under NS.  At the time the state of the art for a Rule 251 ABS conversion was a mix of CTC and single tracking.  Conrail decided to take this one step further and installed cab signaling without fixed wayside signals to compliment the adoption of CTC and single tracking on most of the B&A's 200 mile long main line. 

CP-147 with Conrail standard target signals and legacy SA searchlights now serving as Clear to Next Interlocking lamps.

The first part of this rebuild stretched from CP-187 at the Post Road Branch junction to CP-33, midway between Framingham and Worcester.  While this system had been tested on the PRR's Conemaugh Line in 1948, the Boston Line project would mark the first use of cab signal only operation by a post-deregulation freight railroad.  More surprising is how the former B&A was well away from Conrail's existing cab signal territory on former PRR routes and signaled a commitment. by Conrail, to deploy cab signaling as standard equipment on its full fleet of road freights.  Conrail would later repeat the cab signal rebuild process on the Morrisville, Fort Wayne and Cleveland lines before the 1999 sale and breakup halted further expansion of cab signal territory. The project also involved the use of color tri-light signals, a departure from the small target Michigan Central style searchlights Conrail had briefly favored during the 1980's.  The color tri-lights would remain Conrail's default signal up to the 1999 sale and beyond via the Shares Assets Operations. 

Clear to Next Interlocking lamps at CP-21 turned to await a cab signal extension that would take 22 years to complete.

Halting the cab signals at CP-33 in 1988 allowed the MBTA commuter operation that ran between Boston South Station and Framingham to avoid having to cab signal equip whichever trainsets that on the line.  Conrail did eliminate the remaining single direction ABS between CP-33 and COVE and also preserved the line as fully double track.  Nine years later, the MBTA was expanding and the Rule 562 cab signal equipped Old Colony lines would generally eliminate the desirability for non-cab signal equipped trainsets running out of South Station.   In 1996 the second track was restored between CP-33 and CP-43 east of Worcester with the decision being made to extend the cab signals through to CP-21 Framingham.  While 'C' lamps were installed on the eastbound masts at CP-21, they were turned out of service as the recently upgraded CTC signaling between there and COVE was seen as not worth replacing.

New signals at the new CP-6

 In 1999 CSX purchased 48% of Conrail including the Boston Line, which quickly became an operational headache as CSX did not otherwise employ cab signaling except for the former Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac.  As CSX owned the line all the way to the Amtrak division post at COVE in order to serve the Beacon Park yard and intermodal terminal and has little interest in commuter operations, service on the MBTA Framingham/Worcester Line began to suffer.  In 2011 the state on Massachusetts offered to purchase the line and yard real estate east of CP-45 in exchange for land in Worcester for a new CSX intermodal facility.  This would allow the MBTA to improve both service and the physical plant with the first major project being the elimination of a single track bottleneck that existed between CP-3 and CP-4 to support the former yard.  By 2017 this project grew to encompass a new full crossover interlocking (CP-6) and, the extension of the Rule 562 cab signaling all the way to COVE.

Milepost 6 intermediate signals..

Milepost 7 intermediate signals.

Milepost 8 intermediate signals.

Milepost 10 intermediate signals.

 This unfortunately has meant the elimination of 4, bi-directional searchlight automatic signal locations.  Each of these 16 signals were equipped with two heads per mast to support a 4 block signaling arrangement that was necessitated by the short, 1.4 mile signal blocks between CP-11 and COVE.

Trackside Photographer Profiles NY Central Towers

The Trackside Photographer is a great publication and I've have been tapped a few times to provide content there.  Recently I noticed that another contributor appears to be running a feature on New York Central railroad interlocking towers in the Metropolital Region where he got to spend time as a kid with his dad, who was a tower operator. At this point NW tower in North White Plains and OW tower in Ossining have been profiled and I suspect that a few additional towers are in the pipeline.

The posts are comprehensive, discussing operations, history, mechanics, you name it, all bound together with a great personal touch.  Central towers are woefully under-documented compared to PRR and Reading towers for reasons I have yet to figure out and at this point Trackside Photographer is the only publication trying to pick up the slack  In fact the site has a whole interlocking tower category, and while some of the listed posts can be a bit lite on tower content, they are nevertheless worth checking out.

HALLETT Tower Closes (DB DRAWBRIDGE too)

Just got the bad news that what I believe is the last "tower" style tower in Ohio closed some time in late April.  HALLETT, located north of Toledo, was owned and operated by the Ann Arbor regional railroad and also served as its dispatch center.  It was the last in a plethora of Toledo area towers, including STANLEY, WALBRIDGE and IRONVILLE, that made it onto the 21st century. 

Although it appeared as a strange garden shed, it actually housed a US&S Style S electro-mechanical machine, although from what I heard all of the "armstrong" levers had been removed with the entire plant controlled by the suspended miniature levers.  Apparently CSX paid to re-interlock its portion of the plant while the Ann Arbor diamond crossing was turned into an automatic interlocking.

Word is that the Ann Arbor dispatchers are still on site, but will likely be moved to some centralized office belonging to it's corporate parent in another state.  This also leaves DELRAY tower in Detroit as the last remaining Style S electro-mechanical machine in North America.



In other Ohio news I just learned, but was not surprised, that NS DRAWBRIDGE tower in Cleveland, Ohio had also been downgraded from a tower to a bridge cabin with a bridge tender. Located at the Junction of the Cleveland and Chicago Lines at the mouth of the Cayuga River, the tower had been re-signaled by Conrail and modified by NS, but still retained some PRR PL dwarf signals on the far side.  Like HICK tower in Indiana, the plant was re-signaled again along with NS's general Chicago Line re-signaling project and NS took the opportunity to place switches and signals under dispatcher control.

All of this came to light as NS recently took away what little authority the on site bridge-tender had to open and close the span upon their own authority resulting in massive delays to local marine traffic as the clearance is only a few feet.  While one may struggle to think of any towers in Ohio that ARE still open, I am pretty sure a number of bridges still include on site control of switches and signals, including RU tower in Lorain.

Indianapolis IU Tower Faces Demolition

The former Indianapolis Union Railway IU (Indianapolis Union) tower that sits directly to the east of Indianapolis Union Station is being prepped for demolition by CSX.  This tower and interlocking was special in many ways.  built as part of the Indianapolis Union Station modernization project in the 1930's, the tower contained a ~130-lever US&S Model 14 interlocking machine that controlled a massive field of slow speed double-slip switches and dwarf signals.  Unlike the similar passenger terminal in Cincinnati, Indianapolis Union was also a junction for through trains from the PRR, NYC, B&O and Monon railroads.  

Unified under the Penn Central and later Conrail, "IU INT" was drastically simplified, but still retained it's dwarf signals and pneumatic switches.  While the tower was technically closed around 1990, it became what I calla "zombie tower" in that it still housed the active logic for the interlocking plant, under remote control, in addition to the air plant for the switches.  The general layout included the two main tracks of the Indianapolis Line, a central wye junction with the Louisville Secondary and an east end junction with the ex-Monon line to Cincinnati. Two additional station tracks ran out to the north of the tower and entered into a strange 3 track middle segment with a number of parallel turnouts and routes that required most through trains to diverge at slow speed.  

While the air plant would be moved out of the tower in the early 2000's, the interlocking remained un-resignaled for nearly 20 years into the CSX era.  In 2018 a general re-signaling and rationalization was carried out.  Dwarf signals were replaced by Seaboard rule Darth Vadar cantilevers and masts, pneumatic points were replaced by electric and the plant was changed to two through tracks with the wye, station tracks and Cincinatti branch feeding in before a central crossover.  The current Google Earth view shows the reconfigured interlocking.

With the building no longer needed and located in the center of a wye junction in a major city it appears that CSX sees no avenue for re-use or preservation.  Asbestos and window removal is now underway.  It has been reported that historic equipment in the upper floor is being preserved. While I was not expecting the tower to be demolished, I am not surprised by the re-signaling.  IU had lasted far longer than it had any right up under a railroad that is outright hostile to just leaving things the way they are.

LENOX and WILLOWS Towers Close

In a devastating blow to St Louis area rail history and living examples of General Railway Signal Co technology, I just learned that both LENOX and WILLOWS towers closed in the later part of 2018.  LENOX was a former Big Four tower operated by Union Pacific between Granite City and Alton and WILLOWS was operated by Kansas City Southern.

LENOX tower was built in 1924 with an 80 lever GRS Model 2 interlocking machine. It eventually passed from the former New York Central to the Chicago and Alton (owned by a succession of other railroads) to finally the Union Pacific in 1996.  As late as 2016 the future of the lower looked bright as no funding was available to rebuild the plant as part of the Illinois High Speed Rail Lincoln Corridor.  However it appeared that Union Pacific had grown tired of looking for a state financed rebuild and settled for a simple CTC automation.

 The real bummer is that I am scheduled to travel the Texas Eagle route for the first time in early 15 years at the end of this month and was really looking forward to get some reasonable photos of LENOX's other features such as the single slip switch and old B&O style CPL signals.  Latest report is that the tower is still standing and the lights are still on, but nobody is home :-(

WILLOWS tower, built in 1903 and equipped with a 112-lever, pre-GRS Taylor Signal Co Model 2 interlocking machine, was one of those I thought would be around for some time to cone due to the intersection of 4 lines with 6 diamonds and 5 competing railroads (NS, TRRA, CP, KCS and CSX).  Well I guess I was wrong :-(  Word is that Kansas City Southern is looking to donate the vintage interlocking machine to the science museum co-located with the Kansas City Union Station.

These latest closures leave only one or two examples of either the GRS or Taylor Model 2 interlocking machines left in the North American rail network.  My cursory count gives me three in Chicago (JB, LAKE ST, 16TH ST) and two more in New Orleans (East and West BRIDGE JCT). 

To G or not To G

A lot of people like to throw the term "G Head" around as a generic reference for signals that have a circular target surrounding a triangular arrangement of three signal lamps.  Also known as target signal, target color light, V light or tri-light, this style of signal doesn't really have a good name so people tend to gravitate to the professional sounding "G Head" moniker.  However, instead of being a generic term for that style of signal, it is actually a specific model of signal produced by the General Railway Signal corporation.  You can't even say that it was the dominant producer of said signal type as US&S had their own competing products that tended to be purchased by railroads US&S bias towards.  As time went on even more producers entered the market so using G Head without any regard for the manufacturer is not only imprecise, but also inconsiderate to the actual brands involved.  So below is a quick field guide to tri-light signals to help you tell the G Heads from the Generics.

First up is an actual GRS Style G color light signal.  Note the partly rounded lamp housing and the GRS brand spelled out in words.  These were made popular by the New York Central railroad, but were also heavily employed by the Rock Island, MoPac and others. 

US&S responded with a couple of models.  Their first attempt, the Style TR, used a compact, three section lamp housing covered by a single detachable backing plate.  These are becoming quite rare, although Amtrak installed a bunch new at Chicago Union Station in the 1990's.

US&S later updated this style to be more like the GRS G-Head with a single piece lamp house.  Christened the CR-2, it was a favorite of Conrail and other northeastern commuter railroads that were willing t pay more for a brand name.

Of course Safetran couldn't help but make a knockoff.  Dubbed the NR (I think), it did show some innovation by having a split door on the lamp house.  

Of course even at Safetran prices railroads can't be bothered with purchasing large cast iron signals so to accommodate them, Safetram offers a V target configuration for its ubiquitous scallop shell modular signal lamps.   This produces a large gap in the center of the signal target, which is the easiest way to identify this style of hardware from the front.

I mentioned that other suppliers jumped on board back in the 80's and 90's.  This triangular single housing model was made by an outfit in Louisville, KY and was purchased by Amtrak for its 90's color light needs.

A decade later, this boxy LED modular Safetran knockoff is popular on Amtrak related projects throughout New Englande. 

Of course there are a few others in the V arranged modular lamp category, but I think you get the point.  Hopefully you've learned something and will be able to correctly give every style of tri-light signal its due.