PHOTOS: Port Road Trips - HARBOR to MIDWAY

It's time to close out the month of October with another installment of Port Road Trips.  This time we are leaving the A&S and Safe Harbor Dam behind and striking out on our own on the road to Perryville.  Having passed CP-HARBOR this section will cover the next intermediate signal at MP28/29, the west end of the long signaled siding at CP-McCALLS, the crossover at CP-HOLTWOOD and finally the MP23 automatics in advance of the east end of the signaled siding at CP-MIDWAY.

The Milepost 28/29 automatic is split between Milepost 28 and 29 due to the signals being arranged around a curve to improve sight lines.  The C290 eastbound automatic has a lower head | for diverging movements at CP-McCALLS.  It also features an 'SP' plate that stands for Slide Protection.  'SP' plates were a PRR thing that called extra attention to signals that protected slide fences.  Any train passing an 'SP' signal at restricted speed had to look out for falling rock.

 In 2004 the C287 automatic has already been replaced by a Conrail style color light.  This has taken place early in the NS era when the Harrisburg area signal shop was still using US&S NR style color lights instead of Darth Vader tombstone signals.  C287 is shown here displaying Approach for a stop at CP-HARBOR.  This pair of split signal masts were ultimately replaced by a single bi-directional mast after the NS resignaling project.

The lower head is not for diverging movements at CP-HARBOR, which if you recall were Restricted speed, but for the short block length between CP-HARBOR and CP-WEST HARBOR.  The new signal was still outfitted with an 'SP' plate just like its predecessor, but was not given a coat of black paint on the upper half of the mast in the Conrail style.

 CP-McCALLS is one of the few Conrail interlocking names that contains a lower case letter in the name.  Like I said it is located at the east end of a long, 4 mile, signaled siding.  This contrasts with the two short restricted speed sidings at Pilot and Harbor. Here we see the interlocking and the eastbound 246L signal.

CP-McCALLS features a medium speed diverging route and as such features a full PRR PL mast signal with a lower head containing both | and / positions for Medium Clear and Medium Approach.  Stop and Proceed is displayed using the central marker in place of a Restricting \.  This economic "style" would later be adopted by Amtrak.  Because CP-HOLTWOOD is back-to-back with CP-McCALLS the lower head | was also used for Approach Medium.

CP-McCALLS featured an old school PRR remote interlocking relay hut.  Until its resignaling in 2009 this section utilized the US&S 504 code system delivered via the high density plastic wrapped telecom cables. The relay hut is constructed from sheets of galvanized steel on a concrete base.  This hut survived the re-signaling with the new relay box placed on the river side of the tracks (that floods frequently...).  The #245 switch machine is a US&S M23 dual control electric model.

Here is the westbound catenary style position light signal gantry with the 246RB (siding) and 246RA (main) signals.

No surprises here.  Siding signal has a lower head for diverging movements and the main signal has a "hanger" type marker light for call-on movements.  The signals would not get any new paint before they were replaced by an NS cantilever mast at the same location.

CP-HOLTWOOD was located adjacent to the Holtwood Dam, which back in the day was paired with a decidedly less "green" coal fired power station that required shipments of coal via rail.  CP-HOLTWOOD featured a single "trailing" crossover that partly split the long controlled siding into two halves.  Here is the southbound catenary style signal gantry with two PRR PL signals.  The 242L signal on the main track features an old style lower head with the backing applied only to the | indication for Medium Clear.  The Medium Approach / was not provided a backing as it was originally displayed Slow Approach before the 1956 addition of Medium Approach.  Like CP-McCALLS both the 242L and 238L use a lower head central marker light for Stop and Proceed indications, instead of a Restricting \.

'SP' plates make another appearance on both the 238L and 242L signals.
 

Here is a reverse view of the eastbound signal gantry taken in the fall of 2007.  The signal bridge looks a bit like a hack, but it was in place as far back as the 1980's.

Thurmond Signals Fall

I guess it is no surprise that CSX is not above ruining a Nationally Registered Historic Place.  I've been waiting for the re-signaling project on the C&O Main Line to reach Thurmond, WV for some time now and about a month ago (right after my last new post actually) I saw that a new cookie cutter Darth Vader cantilever with Seaboard signals had gone up adjacent to the preserved "downtown" of Historic Thurmond, WV.

Seeing as it can take 6-8 months for the old signals to fall once the new signals go up, I was shocked when I saw this photo of the old cantilever getting chopped down without so much as a by your leave.

At least NS was good enough to donate one of the PRR signal bridges on the Horseshoe Curve to a museum.  That C&O Cantilever was as important to the character of that streetscape as the coaling tower.

 Anyway, while we are discussing news items it appears that the D&H re-signaling has hit CPF-485 at the Schenectady Station.

The old cantilever signal that used to stand on the main track was replaced a few years ago by a new mast type signal that will not be spared the axe.  Replacements are soulless LED Darth Vaders.

Know Your Current Class 1 Standard Signals

It's not really in dispute that North American railroad signaling is currently suffering from a lack of diversity.  However with all the legacy signaling still floating around I figured it would be best to illustrate the lack of diversity of a handy dandy guide.  I'm going to proceed in alphabetical order so you can see for yourselves.

Amtrak:

Former Pennsylvania Railroad Territory - LED lit Safetran Position Lights

Non-PRR NEC - LED target color lights.  Non-Safetran Modular housings.

BNSF: Safetran "Darth Vader" heads with silver painted reverse.  2 heads with three lensed lamps most common.

 Caltrain: Color light signals with square modular units.

 CN: Safetran "Darth Vader" type heads with bare LED lamps. (See Below)

CP:

Primary - Safetran "Darth Vader" type heads with bare LED lamps.

Secondary - In house "mystery" type searchlight.

 CSX: Safetran "Darth Vader" heads.  4 lensed lamp heads used for Lunar White restricting indication.

Caught on Camera - Episode 4: Relay Logic

Today I have a few photos taken in that brief period of time when the relays are still fluttering about and signals, at least the old school variety, can do some rather..."nonstandard" things.  Today we begin on the SEPTA reading trunk line between the Center City Tunnel and Wayne Junction.  This was re-signaled around 1990 and while heavy use of solid state logic was just around the corner, northeast commuter lines were still hitting things up in the traditional way.  Here we see the LED upgraded 24 automatic on track #2 displaying Clear G/G New York Central style.

Woah...now the 24 auto is totally off the reservation!  I will say that I wish I knew what about LED arrays make certain ones fade out and others exhibit more binary behavior.

Alright, time to lift the veil.  Here's a video of the signal progression. Note the relay lag actually lasts for a second or two.



Here is an example from a recent trip on the Capitol Limited on the former Conrail Chicago Line just out of Chicago.  Here the MP 508 automatic is in the process of flipping from Stop and Proceed up to Approach right after our train passed by.  This is because there was a westbound Wolverine Service train waiting for us to clear the single track at CP-506.

One of my favorite signals with wonky relays is the southbound Southern cantilever at MIDLAND interlocking in Gainesville, GA.  This signal has some serious Conrail envy because when trains pass it at Approach Diverging, it drops first to R/Y Diverging Approach before finally going R/R.  I say Conrail envy because this is somewhat typical on plants where R/Y is used for Restricting.

In this Caught on Camera special you can first see the signal upgrade from Approach to Approach Diverging, then get knocked down  in the manner I just pointed out.



I'm sure I have a few more examples of this sort of behavior captured on still or video, but I'm going to leave it at these for now.  If you have some fun examples of relay logic feel free to post them in the comments.

No Joy in Signalville

This month's news post is going to be another of the all bad variety.  It seems that the worst effect of the Midwestern oil boom is that railroads are flush with re-signaling money.  We start out at the western end of the CBQ Chicago raceway in Eola, IL where the boom is falling on the massive searchlight interlocking complex there.  Although I would hardly call this a surprising development with the concrete relay huts and above ground cable runs,  Luckily this interlocking is able to be photographed from both METRA and Amtrak trains,

 Further west I had previously had hope for the BNSF Chillicothe sub due to what were clearly 2000's re-signaled searchlit interlocking plants.  However it appears that STRONGHURST was not among these (again note the above ground cable runs) and it was recently saw the Darths turned on.

Going about as far west as is possible, the new signals on the Donner Pass route between SWITCH 9 and SHED 10 were cut in.  Good thing I took an encore trip on the Zephyr back in June.  See my trip report for information on other parts of the line.

The small target searchlights are coming down at CP-287 near Syracuse on the Chicago Line.  I assume this is part of a larger re-signaling project.  The larger question will be what happens to the "new" Conrail signaled CP-290.

The new signals on the CSX Philly sub have been cut in through the Ankin siding.

 Moving over to Ohio the C&O signals on the Northern Sub in the Richmondale, OH area have also finally been removed.

 Saving the worst for last it appears that for some reason the Kansas City Terminal is replacing some of its searchlights in the Union Station area.  I was hoping that KCT's independence would insulate it from the resignaling mania sweeping the nation.  The real danger is replacement of SANTA FE JCT and its pneumatic point machines.

In an update to a previous news item I noticed a photo of the famous 4-track "modern" PRR PL signal bridge at CP-ROCKVILLE.  The bridge is now down to 3 PLs as one of the yard tracks was lengthened by installing a new Vader mast a few hundred feet to the west.

Wrong Railing Across the Pond

How many Full Time Employees does it take to run a train against the flow of traffic on a section of double track manual block signaled track? Well the answer depends on which side of the Atlantic Ocean one finds themselves on.  In North America the answer is between three and one.  You can have a dispatcher transmit train orders to block operators on either end of the segment or simply use a radio to transmit the orders directly to the train.  However in the United Kingdom the answer starts at 3 and increases from there. 

In mechanically signaled manual block territory you first need to employ signalmen at either end of the track segment.  Then all wrong direction movements need a pilotman to chaperone all trains through the section of single track operation.  Back in the day when stationmasters were still in existence both of them had to be informed so that is a total of five workers.  Then because most block stations were only equipped with non-locked trailing point crossovers you needed another two men to spike and wedge the points prior to a train movement.  Finally where main line spring worked catch points were employed you needed another person to spike and wedge those as well. The total number comes out to between 5 and 9 depending on the circumstances.  Of course the one thing they don't have is a dispatcher.  All authority is worked out between the signalmen and the pilotman.

If this sounds confusing not to worry...British Rail put together an easy to understand training film on how single line working is to be carried out.  Just about the only sensible thing they do us to use both block instruments for the single track...shame they couldn't dream up a procedure to eliminate the 5 or so extra people involved.



If your eyes are spinning here is a bit of North American practice to take the edge off.  Here is video from Viaduct Junction in Cumberland, MD with Amtrak T30 getting some train orders hooped up followed by the operator copying down some train orders.



Ahhhh, modern efficiency.

PHOTOS: Port Road Trips - CRESS to HARBOR

It's no secret that the PRR was never a huge fan of CTC thanks to their abundance of multi-track main lines and manned interlocking towers.  So far we have seen an example of the PRR's use of CTC without traffic control, ie remote control interlockings, but a predominance of Rule 251 operation.  However due to its rather constrained geography that favored single track lines with passing sidings, the Susquehanna River valley also featured two genuine Rule 261 signaled CTC lines.  One of these is the Buffalo Line running north of Harrisburg and, of course, the other is the Port Road Branch running from PORT to PERRY.  So while the remaining segments of our Port Road Trip may seem a bit less interesting than those that came before, it actually represents an opportunity to examine a method of operation common to the rest of the rail system that the PRR tended to avoid.

So passing CRESS we finally leave the COLA CTC zone...or at least the Harrisburg Division CTC zone.  Below CRESS the Port Road entered the Maryland Division and if you recall the COLA interlocking sheet there are 50 levers on the 150 lever CTC machine used by the Maryland Division. These 50 levers control the 9 interlockings south of CRESS and north of QUARRY.  Today we will be looking at the intermediate signal south of CRESS, the HARBOR siding and a little bit of the Safe Harbor substation complex.

Between CP-CRESS and CP-WEST HARBOR are the MP 35 automatic signals C357 and C356.  Remember the mileage is now counting down towards Perryville instead of Parkesburg.   Here we see the two signals looking westward with the Fisherman's Run flume (aka shoefly) far in the background.  At this point the A&S is running parallel to the Port Road about 20 or 30 feet up the rocky slope.  The signals are arranged in the typical fashion for a single pole catenary structure with one PL being mounted on the catenary mast and the other on its own mast.

The C357 signal is displaying an Approach indication for the  stop signal at CP-CRESS.  Although CRESS features a medium speed turnout, because it is the entrance to double track ABS territory there is only a straight and a restricted speed route available and therefore C357 does not need to display Approach Medium.

Here in this rather backlit reverse view  we see the C356 mast signal.  The layout of this intermediate is a bit counter intuitive because the signal that is unable to display Approach Medium is the distant for an interlocking with only restricted speed routes while the signal that can't display Approach Medium faces an interlocking that could have a Medium speed route if not for the Rule 251. Note the lack of pole line power tap.  Here the 6000 volt, 100hz power supply was running up on the A&S alignment and feeding both it and the Port Road.

The reason for the lower head | on C356 is not because the Harbor siding was ever downgraded in the Conrail era, but instead because of the short (5000 foot) distance between  CP-HARBOR and CP-WEST HARBOR.  Trains diverging at CP-WEST HARBOR would get an Approach.  Trains stopping at CP-HARBOR (perhaps for a meet) would get an Approach Medium.

This rather long shot of C357 shows the signal displaying Approach in the time before the dispatcher lined a route at CP-CRESS for an eastbound NS freight train.  Around 2010 all the catenary poles were chopped down by NS.

After the re-signaling project a new bi-directional mast was installed with Darth Vader signals.  The odd layout has been replaced by Approach Medium signals in both directions.  Not sure I agree with the placement of the signal and the relay box on the lake side of the tracks.  This part of the river is a well known flood risk.

CP-WEST HARBOR, at MP 33.2, is the west end of a 5000 foot long restricted speed ending.  It was located in the shadow of the impressive Safe Harbor viaduct and adjacent to the Safe Harbor Dam.  The single \ on the lower head is all you get in this situation.  If the siding were signaled this signal would also come with a lower head \ for Slow Approach.