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.

Mind the Gap! - The case of "3rd Head Restricting"

There's a odd feature in current North American railroad signal practice dating back to the 19th century that hints at the practices of old like a vestigial organ. Lacking a former name, one might call the aspect "lowest head Restricting" or "3rd head Restricting", but its feature is a prominent gap between the top "full speed" or "normal route" head and the bottom lamp used to display Restricting indications. What would be a R/R/Y (or R/R/L) under normal circumstances, becomes R/ /Y, with the middle head omitted. So why does this exist and why is it still in use today.

Low head restricting originates in the concept of the subsidiary signal. In the days of mechanical semaphores a subsidiary signal is a smaller semaphore arm mounted below the "main" arms to give Restricting type movement authority.



In North America, it was not uncommon for this subsidiary signal to be mounted on the ground at the base of the mast or under the signal if mounted on a gantry or cantilever. The New Haven railroad was a proponent of this ground mounting practice and continued it up until they were folded into Penn Central.

As North American signaling progressed into the electric era, signal aspect systems would have an upper head for straight routes, a lower head for diverging routes and then a "subsidiary signal", either on the mast or on the ground, for Restricting/call-on conditions. Interlocking setups like the Taylor system would even have a separate lever controlling each signal head. Although this "third head" position on signals would later see use with other slow speed and combination indications like Medium Approach Medium, the link between the third head and Restricting remained strong. Of course as an economizing measure, some railroads went the route of only using two heads with R/Y as Restricting and simply not having a Diverging Approach type indication (its not strictly necessary). However, one could also economize by eliminating the middle head if it was only serving as a marker, especially if the lower "head" was its own signal on the actual ground. The Erie, along with the Reading, were both good examples of the gap between the upper and third head were left exceptionally large to avoid confusion.

 

 
Of course as signal mounting distances became more standardized, this gap became less emphasized to the point where one could make the argument that there was a likelihood of confusion between R/Y Diverging Approach and R/ /Y Restricting. Here we see an example of two bracket mounted signals with R/ /Y restricting at Chicago's KEDZIE interlocking installed by the CNW in the 1990's.

Today one can accommodate both R/Y Diverging Approach and a Restricting indication on a two headed mast through the use of lunar white or flashing red . At this time NS is the only major railroad to install new examples of R/ /Y Restricting and does so only on its former Southern RR signal territory. 

Of course quite a few railroads, including Canadian Pacific aligned Delaware and Hudson, never went with the economizing feature of the gap and instead went with a three head system with R/R/Y Restricting and R/Y/R Medium Approach. Under the Conrail associated NORAC system R/ /Y of predecessor roads like the Erie and Reading were considered to be a two head R/Y Restricting with three head R/R/Y Restricting as another option. The C&O on the other hand only had R/Y Restricting with any third head left dark because they just had to be different.

Roanoke and Lynchburg Trip Report

 I recently had to the privilege of riding Amtrak's second daily round trip to Roanoke, VA, allowing for single day excursions to the Star City.  A similar second round trip was added to Amtrak's Norfolk, VA service and together these two trains represent the only scheduled Amtrak service on former Norfolk and Western trackage and therefore the only way for one to experience N&W signaling in person. An added benefit is that the reverse peak Roanoke train uses the shorter NEC morning/overnight trainsets with 2+1 seating Business Class section on the rear of the train which provides a railfan view. This would also be my first opportunity to survey the former Southern main line with a unobstructed rear view since Amtrak reversed their LD trainsets in 2015.  

The first observation is that NS did not restricting signal capabilities to most of their interlocking signals during their most recent re-signaling protect in the mid-2010s. This allows a train to follow closely behind another in the same direction. Instead following movements need to wait for the leader to clear the block or get permission past the stop signal. Providing for Restricting likely adds a bit more signaling logic to establish direction of traffic. Another change from the former Southern arrangement was that equilateral turnouts have now been given an explicit straight and diverging routes even though both routes have the same speed. On the N&W there remained examples where both routes at the end of a double track segment could get a "straight" clear.

Equilateral turnout with "diverging" route and no restricting at RIVERMONT

Equilateral turnout with "diverging" route and no restricting at RIVERMONT

South of Lynchburg where the Regionals change between the former Southern and N&W Main Lines, there is an uncommon "full complete" Southern aspect system signal with three lamps with three lights each. The presence of a bottom head is due to the slow speed route to the double wye N&W connection in addition to a medium speed crossover route.  It is unclear how approaching movements are informed of the difference between the two routes, but it is likely that *Y*, Approach Restricting, is employed. Although the next signal will not display a Restricting, the former Southern RR rule book listed *Y* as Approach Slow.  In theory Approach could also be used. Regardless, this would be a good location to observe the scheduled Amtrak Roanoke movements.

Full complete Southern type signals on both tracks at MONTVILLE interlocking.

 In downtown Roanoke there was quite the amazing track and signal complex.  Although all of the N&W Position Lights and pneumatic point machines have been removed, the sheer quantity of appliances all visible from the Amtrak Station or public streets makes the location a must visit. Oh, there are also two N&W interlocking towers standing at either end of the corridor.

PARK ST tower visible past a variety of N&W pattern color light signals in downtown Roanoke.

 The N&W signal system has a few speed indications, specially in the area of dwarf signals due to the use of PRR type position light dwarfs. Slow Approach (*Y*), shown below for the departing Amtrak trainset, is only able to be displayed on a dwarf signal and also happens to match the NORAC version. Placement of the yellow lamp in the center of a R/Y/G arrangement also allows for Y/G Approach Diverging and R/G Diverging Clear.

On the former N&W Blue Ridge Sub, we had to do a pull-in pass due to long PSR specials hanging out on the main tracks.  At WEBSTER interlocking we pulled forward into an occupied block, waited for an opposing train of empty hoppers to pass by over a Diverging Clear, then reversed with a permission past the stop making it likely that the lower head Y on track #1 was for Y/Y Advance Approach and not R/Y Restricting as per the previous commend about lack of Restricting indications.

I'm sure I could go on, but those are the most relevant points from my first passenger train journey over signaled N&W trackage.

Signs! Signs! Everywhere a Sign! - Eastern Class 1 Freight

Station signs are a uniform way of figuring out where you are on the railroad.  Sure mileposts work to, but important landmarks like stations and interlockings and block stations aren't always placed at whole mileposts.  Station signs aren't only a navigational aid, but in many cases a reminder device as many movement authorities are given between stations and if thew sign isn't obvious one is more likely to blow right by it. Of course every railroad is going to have it's own idea about what makes a good sign, some even have more than one.  Here in Part 1 we'll look at the eastern freight railroads, in Part 2 the western freight railroads and then in Parts 3 and 4 the eastern and western passenger railroads respectively.

Kicking things off,, Conrail use what I think is the most visually distinctive station sign in modern times using it's trademark blue and the Futura Bold font.  The signals were typically placed on either side of the main relay hut, although interlockings with two huts could support one each and of course special circumstances could lead to other mountings.  The standard signal was a reflective white lettering on a blue background.

However an alternate version existed that also contained the milepost.  This existed for a time in the late 80's and early 90's, but I'm not sure if ever fully replaced the regular signals. 

There was also this deluxe style sign with a white border and a different font that may have been a one off due to a rush order or something. .

Conrail used a slightly different sign for it's DCS block limits which was based on the PRR style of a vertical name surmounted red and yellow lamps..

Conrail's signage is still relevant today because after the split-up, Norfolk Southern decided to keep the style on all of the former Conrail territory (with a few exceptions early on).

Elsewhere, Norfolk Southern adopted the style of the Southern Railway with a green background and white lettering.  The signs are smaller than the Conrail variety and use a stick mount with one plate in each direction.  Some of these Southern style signs have appeared in Conrail territory, although the practice seems to have ended.

Southern era signs sometimes have a white border around the outside of the sign.

Moving on to CSX, CSX is a party pooper and doesn't really use station signs.  At interlockings it just stencils the interlocking name on the sides of the relay cabins.

 The policy applies even to new interlockings in Conrail territory. 

CSX used to use a Direct Traffic Control system with their own signage.  But DTC was largely replaced on CSX by DCS using mileposts.

The Guilford Rail System, currently known as Pan Am Railways, is known for painting some of it's rolling stock in a retro Pan Am inspired livery.  When it comes to station signs however, they can barely be bothered. 

A change in milepost prefixes has further degraded the artistic styling of the already bare bones signs. 

I have previously discussed interlocking names on the former Delaware and Hudson, and likewise, their interlocking signs reflect the period of Guilford ownership, although the association with Canadian Pacific did make things a little better.

The newly re-signaled interlockings have a more standard Canadian font, which I assume is bi-lingual in some manner.

Well that's all the Eastern freight railroads I have photos for.  Sorry Florida East Coast and Grand Trunk Western :-P

2018 RF&P / A-Line / H-Line / Southern Main Line Trip Report

It has been three years since I last surveyed the RF&P, A-Line and Southern Main Line and quite a bit has changed. This report will try and cover more of the signaling related changes and less of the various capacity improvements that have occurred in tandem. On the RF&P third track projects are causing intermittent layout changes north of Fredericksburg, but a number of legacy 2 track bridges are isolating the new segments. Not much of a signaling change as the whole area was re-done between 2012 and 2014. South of Fredericksburg a few remaining RF&P large target US&S N-3 intermediates still stand along with the classic bracket mast at Doswell. Towers at Fredericksburg, Millford, Doswell and Greendale were also still standing.

Still hanging in there!

Acca Yard in Richmond has seen major changes. Previously both ends of the yard had been completely interlocked. Now the throats had been converted to hand operation with simplier terminal interlockings constructed farther out. On the south end the old AY interlocking has been relocated with a access cutting through the wye to allow northbound movements off the Belt Line to access all the yead tracks. South of Richmond AF interlocking was getting a complete set of limited speed crossovers to replace a single trailing 15mph crossover. The Petersburg Station has also been provided with a new interlocking to reduce the need for trains to cross passengers across an active main track.

This RF&P vintage modern style N-3 gantry is a goner :-(

South of Petersburg the only remaining classic signals are at CHARLIE BAKER interlocking in Rocky Mount. A few new limited speed crossovers have also been installed with a few extra miles of double track to reduce time spent waiting in sidings for meets which is what eliminated the last few N-3 holdouts after 2015. The NS H-line has also seen a number of improvements with new interlockings and new passing sidings, but the line had already been assimilated by NS so there wasn't anything to be lost. The new Raleigh Station is open, but not all the tracks are in service and there is still work to be done before the new terminal interlockings are fully in service.

The last A-Line N-3s were replaced by new crossovers.

On the Southern main line a smattering of interlockings remain unresignaled, typically 1990's builds with the traffic light style heads. One example is FAWELL interlocking south of Lynchburg. Also, CR TOWER interlocking in Alexandria, VA has seen new Darth heads placed on the Southern vintage ladder poles. Although there are some exceptions, NS did not use the opportunity to add new CTC features such as a Restricting indication into single track territory. This has been done on some NS lines like the former NKP route, I believe, but not Southern. Also, many of the old Southern signal gantries have been left in place along the RoW where it was somehow inconvenient to have them scrapped. So there might be something worth taking a picture of if anyone makes a signal trek.

Apt that FAWELL interlocking would be resistant to change.

All in all this was a pretty dull trip, signaling wise. Exactly what we have to look forward to across North America for probably the rest of time :-(

Springtime for News

We start off this time with another gut punch to the signaling scene.  The NS re-signaling effort is not attacking the PC era position light signaling complex on the south end of Buckeye Yard.  Not only are these I-beam gantry mounts PL's still within their useful lives, Buckeye Yard has been pretty much shut down.  What better place to defer maintenance and capital investment!

 I can also confirm that re-signaling work has started on the far eastern end of the PRR Middle Division from CP-BANKS to CP-CANNON inclusive.  This segment had originally been spared from the project working its way westward from CP-CANNON.  Also, presence of 'C' boards eastbound at CP-CANNON mean that the new style 3-track signal bridge at MP 116 will also be removed in favor of cab signals.  Seems a lot more trouble than its worth just to remove one intermediate equipped with modern hardware :-\

 At least on the former Southern part of NS, the signaling is getting dumped for legitimate improvement projects involving the restoration of the double track removed during the Nadir of rail transportation.  Fun fact, the ICC allowed for the Southern to abandon its use of ATS in exchange for installing the CTC system now on its way out.

CSX continues to get it at both ends with signaling projects in both Georgia and in the Buffalo area.  There's still time to get out there and document stuff however.

 

I also recently found some documentation of the discontinuation of 261 signaling on the former Conrail Buffalo now leased by the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad north of Machias, NY.  At least because the line is under lease, the out of service signals have been turned and not removed.  It also doesn't seem to matter if the signals are old or new.

That's pretty much it aside from the news items covered in previous posts.  Remember, don't procrastinate about taking photos or you'll regret it.

NS Windup Signals Winding Down

So I was out this weekend documenting some locations on the former N&W H-Line in West Virginia and I saw an intermediate signal being replaced and it prompted me to devote a whole post to the interesting experiment of NS installing what I like to call "windup signals" in Virginia and Pennsylvania around the turn of the century.

Old windup at JC cabin

Windup signals are a type of signal mast that avoids the need for a ladder to service the heads and change the bulbs.  Instead, an internal cable mechanism allows a maintainer to crank the entire head assembly up and down so that all the work that used to be done from a ladder of bucket truck, can be performed from the safety of the ground.  they were typically employed as stand alone replacements, although they were used in a few re-signaling schemes (typically automatic only).

Windup at ORANGE interlocking

The idea is that working from the ground would not only be faster, but also avoid a large number of injury claims that can result from workers climbing signal ladders in the dark or inclement weather. This concept is increasingly found in Europe, although they tend to prefer tip over signals that can be unlatched at the base and then tipped over for servicing.   However the reason it never caught on in the United States was because instead of just being able to work on a signal and have trains pass as if it were dark, the entire signal has to be taken out of service.  This meant a train order had to be passed to any train in the area that such and such a signal simply didn't exist until further notice.  I don't know if this safety issue came up after the windup signals started to be installed or if NS felt the hassle was justified, but whatever the case, NS soon switched to 'tombstone" style Darth Vaders and never looked back.

Windup intermediate just south of Culpepper, VA

Personally I've always detested windup signals because they just reek of cheapness.  They look like toys instead of signals and also lack the always positive feature of user serviceability.  Still, they are different and in this increasingly bland signaling environment that is something I can appreciate.  The good news is that a number of windups went in on the former Conrail Harrisburg Line when that was re-signaled in the early 2000's and it appears that the PTC menace will not involve many signal replacements, so any fans out there will still have a place to get some photos.

Election Night Coverage!

Ha, fooled you!  I didn't say exactly what I was going to cover on this night before the election and as you may not have guessed (for once), it's going to be railroad signaling.  Thanks to all the tower closures I haven't had time to wedge in one of these news segments over the last bundle of weeks, but have no fear, that's what browser tabs are for. 

First a bit of rare good news up on Amtrak's Springfield Line double track project.  The old H-5 searchlights were removed over a decade ago, so there's no much downside to this 4-track signal bridge of modular target signals that is going up near Berlin, CT, complete with Rule 562 'C' boards.

Meanwhile, over in N&W territory, the slimy tendrils of NS's resignaling project is slowly wrapping their way around the iconic Bluefield area.  It's a shame the collapse of coal hasn't preserved the old N&W region in amber as happened on similar main lines around the lower midwest.

 It's not even the N&W signals that are going.  These modern era NS/N&W signals are also on the way out. Note the new 'Y' lamp on the bottom head as NS uses the importunity to include a Restricting capability, omitted from the previous CTC scheme.

Moving on the Southern part of Norfolk Southern, the new signals are in service on the main line at Salisbury, but old new ones are still standing...for now.

Moving on to CSX, any readers in Georgia should hop on over to the A&WP/WofA Sub to document this adorable little elephant ear mast near LaGrange before its gone forever.

Well that's it.  Apart from the tower closings this was a pretty slow news month...at least signaling wise.

Conflicting Route Conundrum

So the following photo drew a number of questions on both its own page and also a few of the signaling forums.  As one can see it appears that two conflicting routes have been lined over the same switch at the end of a passing siding, something that appears to indicate some sort of failure in the interlocking, or some photographic trick like multiple exposures.  The photo was taken on a Norfolk Southern line in Georgia and it's location is one reason that people are so confused.

Before I give away the answer I'll first state that the signaling logic is functioning as intended and there was been no photographic trickery.  Still, Clear and Diverging Clear appearing next to eachother in this context should be contradictory.  Here's I'm going to post another photo from a different part of the country that is a pretty big hint about what's going on here.

This was taken on the former ATSF Raton pass line where the last operational semaphores in North America are located. These semaphores are constantly being photographed, but nobody seems to be confused as to why adjacent signals can both display clear like this.  Well, there are two reasons.  The first is that there is something about Diverging Clear sitting next to a Clear at the end of a siding that just seems plain wrong.  The other reason is because the sort of signaling where this circumstance occurs is much more common out west than it is in the east.

This is your last hint before I give away the answer/

 If you haven't figured it out yet the answer to the puzzle is that the signals in both these pictures do not protect an interlocking and are not part of a CTC setup.  They are part of an ABS-TWC (aka NS Rule 271) arrangement, that also likely an example of Automatic Permissive Block .  The signals operate automatically based on occupancy of the line ahead and, more importantly for this post, trains exiting the siding do so over a spring switch so both routes through the control point are valid.

Surprise!  It's a spring switch and its also not an interlocking.

ABS-TWC / Rule 271 can actually take a couple of forms.  The first involves signals placed only on the main track so trains on the main and the siding will encounter the same signal and act accordingly.  The other places signals on both the siding and the main.  Since they are operating automatically and they 'protect" a trailing spring switch, both signals will default to a Clear indication.  Out west if there is only one possible route from a signal then the railroads don't bother with a lower head since they are happy to have route signaling handle the switch speed through the timetable.  However in the east it is standard practice to provide reduced speed movements with a  Diverging or Reduced Speed Clear signal indication.

Same situation, one less signal.

 This arrangement is not always an example of APB because APB involves an element of traffic control with absolute headblock signals that prevent trains from entering a line segment where an opposing movement is under way.  Typically the presence of absolute signals at siding exits implies APB, but this is not always the case and NS Rule 271 operation requires Track Warrants for traffic control.  In theory an APB line can operate under Rule 261 with the Conrail Southern Tier Line being one example

Well, what's enough of me rambling on.  Like I said this arrangement is far more common out west and there you don't see the Diverging aspect.  This is why it is absolutely critical to have a good understanding of how traffic control applies to various methods of signaling.  Realizing the line was running under Rule 271 with manual traffic control, it is clear how two trains could never take both routes simultaneously.