A Superb Web Resource for Railroad Defect Detectors

 It's not often that one gets a new web resource that isn't annoyingly flawed (yeah you Open Railway Map) or compromised by enshitification (like Gas Buddy). I might be late to the party on this, but Defectdetector.net has somehow managed to document every railroad defect detector in North America and then provide the information via a clean Google Maps type interface. Not only do we have both large and small railroads included, each pinned location has the full set of details about the detector including make, model and, if available, a recording of the output. 

Of course nothing is perfect so if I had to provide feedback I would recommend ways to map defunct detectors and historic recordings. I would also enable filtering based on detector details like type (HBD, DED, etc) and also collect data on the information contained in the radio readouts like axle count or temperature. 

One specific usability issue is the SP/DRGW practice of equipping every automatic signal location with a physical impact stick style DED that is attached to the signal system, as opposed to a radio readout. This results in many Union Pacific routes having every ABS signal location pinned as a DED. While this can be helpful in some sense, it also clutters/slows the interactive map interface.  

While this site represents an amazing resource, I worry it will not last as Google maps integration isn't free. Airraidsirens.net, which I assure you is a thing, makes use of a Google Maps layer that fully lives in the Google ecosystem.

PHOTOS: Amtrak CORK Tower

 A while ago I posted the first part of my coverage of the Pennsylvania Railroad's 1929 CORK interlocking tower in Lancaster, PA which covered the tower's history and the layout of the interlocking on the PRR's Main Line. Today we cover the tower itself, heading inside to see how it functioned in both its pre and post re-signaling phases. The exterior photos date from 2005 when the interlocking complex was in the process of being resignaled. 

To recap, CORK interlocking and tower were constructed as part of the 1929 Lancaster station project which moved Lancaster's busy passenger depot away from a downtown alignment with slow speeds, lots of grade crossings and partial street running. The resulting interlocking plant spanned approximately 3.3 miles of main line track, which was an outlier for early 20th century direct wire controlled interlockings in North America. Like the contemporary Lancaster station. CORK was built of a dark brick and featured a prominent bay window sheathed in copper cladding. 

 

 

The tower had one auxiliary building that housed the primary compressed air plant and was situated on the south side of the tracks in line with the extreme west ends of the high level station platforms. The tower had an internal staircase with the shelf type relay room on the first floor. With its brick construction and slate roof, the tower was in excellent physical shape as it entered the 21st century. 

 

Heading inside the tower we find a typical layout with the operator's desk sitting in front of the US&S Model 14 interlocking machine. A defect detector readout and overhead catenary section breaker control panel are to the operator's right with the lockers, clock and old telecom plugboard sitting to the left. One interesting feature is that the room has retained its original 1929 vintage overhead lamp fixtures. 

The operator's space is feels like a more cramped version of HARRIS tower with less space around the interlocking machine on all four sides. The gap between the scoreboard style model board and the rear aligned internal staircase is particularly small. As with other PRR Main Line towers, lever blocking devices are stored on top of the interlocking machine and the bathroom is in the left rear corner. Also note the location of the refrigerator, notice board and train order hoops. 

The sprawling CORK interlocking plant was controlled by a relatively modest 67 lever interlocking machine with 49 active levers in its 1960's configuration consisting of 23 levers for switches, 23 levers for signals, 2 levers for electric switch locks and 1 crossing lever for the Reading's Lancaster Branch diamond crossing. The plant was divided into three timer zones, A, B and C with the A timer handling the Conestoga section, the B timer the central Cork plant and the C timer the Reading crossing. The short run was 1 minute with the long run being about 5 minutes and 30 seconds. The tower also had 4 horns for Conestoga, the tower itself, Lancaster West, Dillersville yard and the Reading crossing (Longs Park).

One interesting feature was the presence of Rusty Rail tabs instead of the more usual placard. Besides that the levers were of the standard US&S crank type.

Although CORK's model board was a standard PRR illuminated type, it had several interesting features features. Grade crossing status lights were located at either end of the board to indicate the activation status of the Irishtown Road (east) or Eby Chiques (west) crossings. There were three low air alarms for East and West Conestoga in addition to the Cork main plant. In the post-1960 era two block indication lamps were added for tracks 1 and 4 eastbound. These had some interaction with PARK tower to the east as well as the intervening temporary block station at LEAMAN with track #1 being lit by the regular 2 lever and track #4 by a button on the operator's desk console. Best I can tell this was some technical method to prevent conflicting movements beyond what would be afforded by train orders and the dispatcher. Finally the most endearing model board feature was a framed photo of CORK tower itself that is also present in photos from c. 1992.

 

Decision 2024 for the Signaling Single Issue Voter

Just like in 2020 I thought I'd provide some political analysis for the single issue railroad signaling single issue voter. Not sure who that would be exactly, but in a country this big it has to be somebody. In 2020 the big political signaling issue was PTC and the Trump administration's general failure to soften the regulations or roll it back before PTC driven signal replacement projects ruined the legacy infrastructure. In 2024 PTC is still proving to be a problem in terms of ETMS outages cancelling passenger services, but I don't see either party lifting a finger to solve the problem and almost all the vintage signaling is gone anyway.

In terms of regulation in general fears that the East Palestine derailment would trigger a moral panic on the order of the 2008 Chatsworth crash proved to be unfounded and I have to give the Biden administration real credit for taking a political risk and not rushing through knee jerk regulations that would damage the rail industry. We might see a minimum distance between hotbox detectors well below the old 20 mile AAR standard, but several railroads like the Southern and N&W have been on shorter intervals for decades.

Of course one area where I would call regulations too weak was the FRA's decision to allow CSX to remove the cab signal system on the RF&P. Coded track circuits are still more reliable and secure than over the air data links running off internet connected servers and attempts to use ETMS as safety critical cab signaling is going to cause a bad day. Another regulatory issue that is also in also in the blind spot of both parties is the FRA's use of shadow regulations to throttle the deployment of higher (80+ mph) speed passenger rail service. This might find a sympathetic ear on the current supreme court, but since it doesn't affect Class 1 freight RR's industry is uninterested in mounting a challenge and passenger operators known they are beholden to public funding.

A major factor in favor current Democratic politics the focus on anti-trust and industrial consolidation. Today the biggest threat to interesting signaling is industry consolidation, as seen with CSX's snapping up Guilford and CP buying KCS. I would expect proposed east-west RR mergers, like BNCSFX or UPNS, not passing regulatory muster under a Harris administration. In terms of trade policy, the vast majority of signaling equipment is still produced domestically so tariffs aren't necessary to fight off some invasion of cheap Chinese signaling hardware because that threat simply doesn't exist.

Finally, because legacy signaling has been so thoroughly decimated, the only way forward is new rail projects, which is one of Biden's signature issues. While a lot of the projects that have been built have employed locally prevailing signal rules and styles, there is always the chance of a Caltrain style speed signaling conversion or expansion of the Northeast cab signal network. 

Therefore if you are looking for my opinion I would endorse the Democratic ticket primarily for blocking additional rail mergers and funding the construction of new signaled passenger routes. They have earned my trust on avoiding bad regulation and are no worse than the alternative in cleaning up the FRA's existing over-regulation.

Don't Regulate Defect Detectors Like Signals

It looks like the derailment in East Palistine, Ohio is causing another full blown safety panic of the type that brought us Positive Train Control. Some of the more benign proposals are calling for increased regulation of equipment defect detectors such as those that scan for overheated axle bearings. Like everything the devil is in the details and treating detectors exactly like other FRA regulated safety devices such as signaling systems and grade crossing protection would be a mistake that would take an automation technology that railroads don't really have a problem with, into a high cost headache that would become an actual target for cost reductions.

Let's be absolutely clear. Hotbox detectors (HBD) and the response to their alarms have not been impacted by investor demands or Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). The frequency, placement and procedures associated with defect detection have not substantially changed for the past 40 years. Conrail spaced HBD's every 20 miles with supplementary dragging equipment detectors every 10. NS kept those exact same detector locations since Conrail was taken over in 1999. The Southern Railway preferred a 10 mile detector spacing and on former Southern parts of NS that detector spacing has also remained unchanged since its operations were merged with the N&W in the late 80's.  Speaking of the N&W, their detector spacing was every 15 miles and has also remained unchanged. Long story short the derailment was not caused by corporate cost cutting.

The risk of strict regulation, similar to that applied to signals, is that ay change to a detector would require costly certification processes and/or regulatory approval. For example Amtrak and other railroads must go through a full regulatory process, including public hearings to, apply a software update to their PTC system. Detectors on the other hand display a far greater range of context specific innovation with secondary features like train speed, axle counts and time/temperate enouncements. Regulating all of these features like signals would create a race to the minimum standard as regulated features would have to be rigorously maintained and certified. Don't think this is fanciful prediction either as believe it or not there do exist FRA regulated detectors in situations where they form part of the signaling system. 

Some examples like the CP-BANKS, shown above near the Rockville Bridge on the former Conrail Pittsburgh Line, have interlocked high car detection. As part of the interlocking, even changing the readout recording would have required costly re-certification and as a result the CP-BANKS detector retained its Conrail readout some 20 years after Conrail's absorption by NS. Other examples might include the propensity for all automatic signal locations on some western roads to have an breakaway style dragging equipment detector stick. If those are linked to the signal system (instead of radio readout) it would explain why this type of protection has persisted on select western lines and no others.

Regulated standards are important, but requiring a public heating to adjust alarm thresholds or change a broadcast recording (no matter how much I would love to hear KCS and Guilford over the air in 40 years) is liable to trigger loophole abuse in an area was uncontroversial.