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  • LV Whistle Signs

  • Discussion related to the Lehigh Valley Railroad and predecessors for the period 1846-1976. Originally incorporated as the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Company.
Discussion related to the Lehigh Valley Railroad and predecessors for the period 1846-1976. Originally incorporated as the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Company.

Moderator: scottychaos

 #843200  by lvrr325
 
Was the LV the only road to use steel W signs consising of a disc with the W cut out, riveted to a post (presumably an old boiler flue tube with the end pressed flat)?

Anyone looked at one up close, do they look like they were cut by torch and cleaned up a bit?

I passed one up the other day for $75 but for $50 I might have sprung for it just to have one. That, or an original mile marker might be nice, but because the posts were tubes it was way easy for people to steal them back in the late 70s - you just bent the now rotty post over, then up and down until it snapped off. So they're not going to turn up left behind on the ROW to throw a $20 at the landowner to buy.
 #844280  by lvrr325
 
That's probably the biggest problem with them, is a guy could make them up pretty easy and they'd be virtually indistinguishable from the originals. Maybe that's how I can get a mile marker - make one.
 #875386  by Lehighton_Man
 
Friend of mine found an original laying in the weeds along side the former Naples Branch ROW. Completely rusty, but still in decent shape. Cut with a torch IIRC. Guess LV had to cut costs in some places so they just cut them with torches instead of stamping them.
 #875409  by toolmaker
 
Lehighton_Man wrote:Friend of mine found an original laying in the weeds along side the former Naples Branch ROW. Completely rusty, but still in decent shape. Cut with a torch IIRC. Guess LV had to cut costs in some places so they just cut them with torches instead of stamping them.
Once a stamping die is made the fixed cost per piece decreases as more are purchased. Maybe their stamping die was damaged or it never belonged to LV.
 #875779  by TB Diamond
 
All the LVRR signs with cut out letters/numbers were torch cut, even the private crossing signs.
 #875845  by lvrr325
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the steel they're made from was also recycled from something else, given the heft of it perhaps cut from scrap boxcar side sheets, or other flat pieces. They're like 1/8th or 3/16ths steel. Maybe even 1/4", its been too long since I handled that one. The LV had at least a couple of shops capable of major freight car repair, with Sayre remaining one to this day, albeit not for Conrail or NS but GE Railcar. That would give them a source of material that would more or less be free. And labor used to be a lot cheaper -
 #876496  by JhnZ33
 
lvrr325 wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if the steel they're made from was also recycled from something else, given the heft of it perhaps cut from scrap boxcar side sheets, or other flat pieces. They're like 1/8th or 3/16ths steel. Maybe even 1/4", its been too long since I handled that one. The LV had at least a couple of shops capable of major freight car repair, with Sayre remaining one to this day, albeit not for Conrail or NS but GE Railcar. That would give them a source of material that would more or less be free. And labor used to be a lot cheaper -