I have just become aware that the last Main Line interlocking tower on the entire
IRT located at
East 180th St on the White Plains Road Line has been closed and demolished. Built in 1912, E180th St tower stood for 99 years at what became the junction of the Dyre Ave Line shuttling trains in and out of the three track station and E18th St Yard.
E180th St 2011
E180th St 1912
While all the other single interlocking towers on the IRT were closed in the 1950's and 60's to make way for extensive "Panel" type Master Towers, E180th St had survived due in part to its complexity and late model 79 lever US&S Model 14 machine,which would have been much newer than the original IRT signaling.
Later being assigned a US&S UR style NX machine for the Dyre Line, E180th St only lost its semaphore signals in the early 1970's and later the interlocking became the final holdout for the old style IRT route signaling where each complete signal head represented a route. This resulted in such unique signal indications as
R/G/R and
G/R for nearly a decade after it had vanished on all other parts of the NYC Subway.
