Antiques Roadshow: Amtrak & Old Wayside Equipment

charlesriverbranch wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:16 pm Does the semaphore signal mounted on the ex-B&M Durham, NH depot count?

I would say "no" because I was initially thinking of wayside equipment that is actually in operation but coaling towers are obviously not going to be used anytime soon. So, "yes" the train order semaphore (even if it isn't operating) should be included as long as it remains in its original placement and form.

I would say that museum pieces removed from their original railroad context (for example setup in a trackside park as displays) shouldn't be included. The whole point of the thread was to discuss instances of wayside equipment still in place from their original wayside use.

So there we have it ... Train order semaphores at Durham, NH which are indeed still in place (as is the hardware to operate them inside). Makes me wonder how many other instances of these occur in New England. There really aren't many of these left at all especially not on routes that Amtrak operates.

Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:33 amThose used to be all over the PM main, there was (is?) one like it in Bridgman, Michigan, about 30 miles south.

Lake Street Crossing perhaps? Seems like a standard tubular steel design not particularly unusual but also not common anymore either.

gokeefe wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2020 9:49 pm Another Pere Marquette find, the ex-PM/C&O coaling tower in New Buffalo, MI, is likely one of the very few left in the entire country which sees an Amtrak train running through it.

Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:33 amBelieve it or not, there is one ten minutes away on the Detroit line, north side of Michigan City. I grew up nearby and have been past more times than I can imagine.
https://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/2 ... higan.html

Classic Trains did an article on coaling towers a few years ago.

This thread is proving to be full of surprises. I recall that article and several of the towers in Maine that were mentioned. The Michigan City example is definitely unexpected.

shadyjay wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:16 pm Not sure if this counts, but on Amtrak's Hell Gate Line in NYC, there are several of the New Haven Railroad left handed semafores still in place up in the catenary bridges. Or at least there were <5 years ago. They are not in use and haven't been for some time. Most of the signal system along the line is a PRR-style position color light system.

I took a very careful look using this video and freeze framing it. As best I could tell they've all been taken down or replaced with new signals.

This is a stretch, yet the crossing guard shack in West
Medford Ma on Downeaster route, while not an antique
building is certainly a rare occurrence these days to have it still active.

Certainly unusual but not an antique.

gokeefe wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:22 pm

Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:33 amThose used to be all over the PM main, there was (is?) one like it in Bridgman, Michigan, about 30 miles south.

Lake Street Crossing perhaps? Seems like a standard tubular steel design not particularly unusual but also not common anymore either.

That was the crossing I was thinking of, but it's been replaced evidently. I don't drive through Bridgman nearly as much as I used to.

How about the former New Haven catenary bridges between New Haven and New York? Most of the originals are still in place and in use. West of Stamford on the mainline they date to 1907, east of Stamford to 1914.

Sure. They're wayside equipment and indisputably antiques. They're certainly worth noting for any passenger riding the rails with an interest in history.

On the corner of the platform at Effingham, IL, there's a giant telegraph pole with eight cross bars, several insulators on brackets on the pole, and some kind of cabinet. Three crossbars are aligned for one of the two RRs that cross there, five for the other. Most wires are gone but two that look like cables and three that look like individual wires still connect to neighboring poles. I don't think you wanted a list of every telegraph pole, but this on is particularly noticeable.

Also, some of the canyon parts of the former DRGW between Fraser and Glennwood Springs still appear to use individual wires mounted on old poles for signals or other communications. And some of the slide detectors there could be very old.

Don't forget the "bridge to nowhere" in Chicago. It's a former CTA bridge at Paulina over the approach to Ogilvie and Union Station. It hasn't been used in decades and the surrounding tracks are gone, but it doubles as a signal bridge for Metra and Amtrak. It dates to 1898.

Also the trains using CNIC to the south of Chicago go by and pass under a few catenary bridges from 1927. At one time the entire IC terminal was electrified which means some catenary bridges stretch the entire main, which can be 10 tracks wide at some points. Even south of there, the catenary bridges double as signal bridges and every 4th or so bridge carries across the entire main for signaling suspension.

Also, do lift bridges count? Most lift bridges I can think of are 100+ years old. 21st street, South Chicago, Michigan City, Benton Harbor, etc...

That's a good point about the catenary bridges on the CNIC. I had forgotten them.

The interlocking and tower where the St. Charles Air Line crosses the tracks to LaSalle St. station is an antique in use by Amtrak trains daily: Chicago railfan reports this:
"16TH STREET
Electric interlocking installed 1901
Interlocking rebuilt 1940
STILL IN USE" https://www.chicagorailfan.com/towercri.html

Crossing with St. Charles Air Line and CN former Illinois Central Iowa Division.

There is the bottom part of a big water tower beside the tracks just north of Champaign station: https://pacacc.org/icrr/.

Also, to stretch the point a little, the diamond where NS crosses CNIC in Champaign still has semaphore distant signals on the NS line; so they are not next to the Amtrak line but they are part of an interlocking that it goes through. (I think they are permanently at 45 degrees and yellow light.)

Tadman wrote: ↑Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:13 am Also, do lift bridges count? Most lift bridges I can think of are 100+ years old. 21st street, South Chicago, Michigan City, Benton Harbor, etc...

Actually I would say "no" only because they're not "wayside equipment". Agreed of course that they're all very old and "antiques". My thinking was to identify some of the more obscure items here that are not as obvious as the bridges and could be easily missed. The New Haven cantenary bridges seem like a good thing to include (even though there's a lot of them) because the casual observer might not realize just how old they are and they are truly "wayside equipment". And of course as Tom posted its the entire series and not each one individually.

I thought the question about semaphores on the Hell Gate Bridge was well worth checking on. So if there's some kind of old or unique "wayside equipment" on an old bridge I think that should be included too.

It's interesting how we take such modern appliances for granted. I'm racking my brain and can't think of much more antiques out there. That said, I have plenty of recent pictures of arcane wayside devices, just in other countries. Argentina built a fine railroad system between 1900 and 1920 and has since let it decay with little investment. There are semaphores everywhere! The entire third-rail powered terminal on the north side of BA is full of antique looking stuff.

These are live semaphores at Retiro station, a three-concourse station complex (once there was three different railroads) with narrow gauge, broad gauge diesel, and broad gauge third rail.

Tadman, I have a bunch of memories, and some pictures, of the semaphores, rodding, armstrong lever interlockings, etc., on the other side of Buenos Aires from 1997 (Plaza Constitución to La Plata). I don't know if now, 23 years later, any of those systems are left on that line. Argentina in 1900 may have been the seventh richest country in the world, and was almost certainly the country with the most immigrants per capita and the fastest growing population, and built accordingly.After 1930 they lost a lot of their high-priced markets for wheat and beef in Britain and Germany and elsewhere, their industrialization policies faltered, their government became more erratic, and other countries passed them by in wealth. Some people blame the pro-labor policies of Perón (as opposed to his more general personalist semi dictatorial style and its results), but one thing those policies apparently didn't do was raise the wages of towermen enough to make it pay to replace all that manual equipment. After all, if you can afford all the labor the old manual blocks on double track work really well -- very sophisticated information systems.

Neat to see quite modern equipment passing the manual semaphores.

I think in southern Chile they run modern DMUs with a token-ring block system. Might still do them in central Chile's EMU territory.