Amtrak's Q and R Towers Close For Good

 Signaling control for the Pennsylvania Railroad's massive 1910 Penn Station project consisted of 10 block and interlocking stations. Towers N and S (later HUDSON) managed traffic at Manhattan Transfer, W (later PORTAL) handled the Hackensack River swing bridge, A, KN (B?), C and JO (D?) controlled Penn Station proper, F managed the eastern approaches and, R and Q controlled either end of Sunnyside Yard. N went first as Manhattan Transfer was consolidated into HUDSON interlocking in the early 1930's. PORTAL went next in 1988 followed by the four Penn Station towers and F being  replaced by the Penn Station Control Center in 1994. When HUDSON closed in 2003 it brought an end to the era of main line towers on the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal railroad, but R and Q soldiered on at either end of Sunnyside Yard. 

In the early 2000's the 1910 R was re-signaled and the 1910 tower was demolished to make room for an Acela maintenance facility. Still, the complexity of the Sunnyside Yard operations still required the use of local operators, who were relocated into the yardmasters office in the Acela building to run the interlocking through a video interface. Around this time both Q and R were reclassified as "switching centers" to alleviate Amtrak of various regulatory requirements associated with main line interlockings. 

 

While the operator at R was playing video games in an office, Q kept going with its original US&S Electro-Pneumatic interlocking machine from 1910. Similar to the machine in ALTO and NORTH PHILADELPHIA, the Q machine was likely to be the last pre-Model 14 in active service in North America. Unfortunately, as early as 2015 one began to see the replacement of pneumatic A-5 point machines with electric M3's and by the early 2020's new relay cabinets were popping up all over. In 2024 I got word that the 1910 Q machine had been retired, the operator switched over to a video display like R, and just now I was sent these this Amtrak bulletin order taking both R and Q out of service and replacing them with the new Section S dispatcher in the PSCC.
 

Why this is happening now when long term closures of each of the four East River Tunnels are likely to complicate Sunnyside Yard operations is unknown. It could be that the Q re-signaling project was completed and found to be in working order and moving to PSCC was always part of the plan. Or it could be that Amtrak was having issues managing the two remote yard towers when everyone else except said towers were in the same room. If new productivity tools allow a single dispatcher to do the work of two or more operators (especially if they lack a clear view of the yard) remains to be seen.

Historic PT&T (New York Penn and Sunnyside Yard) Video Tours

I recently stumbled upon a YouTube channel run by an old Amtrak conductor who posted a number of video narrations of various parts of the Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad (Penn Station, Sunnyside Yard, etc) including the towers and signaling.  The videos were shot prior to the mid-90's when the old towers and old signaling were still in place.

Here in this discussion of the Penn Station track layout, one can see some interrior footage of A Tower starting around 4:30



This video show Sunnyside Yard has some footage around Q tower a little past 3:30.



Here is another Sunnyside video with some Q tower content right up front and some R tower inside footage after 8:00



These are the ones with the most tower content, but her has a bunch of other tour videos that are still very interesting.  Check them out!!!

The New Interlocking Towers?

It is a bit ironic that the same automation technology that so utterly decimated traditional interlocking control systems now seems to be reviving things in a way.  As the cost of automation continues to drop what used to be handled by hand operated switches can be remote controlled using less formal methods. Here are a few photos I spotted of a new remote control yard operation at Camden's Pavonia Yard, which was recently downgraded from a humped classification yard to a flat remote control job.

Here we see the "tower" (pavilion?) in the middle of the yard leads.



The magic happens on a ruggedized touch screen panel that allows the remote control engine operator to also remotely operate the yard switches.



Here is the actual interface.  As you can see it also include authentication (probably hard coded to some easy to guess password) and various functions to both throw the switches and possibly remote control the engine or functions of flat switching.  Doesn't have the charm of a real interlocking tower, but its not hard to envision this sort of thing moving to a mobile device and out of yards and onto non-signaled branch lines.