My WSRR signal tower is now back in service-Lit

After several hours of beating, still standing.

I'm not sure what a small green light to the right of a large red one would be. Other than a Christmas decoration.

Your 4 lights are already a bit over the top. I'd suggest taking one down and spacing the other 3 to more closely resemble an actual signal. Get yourself a rule book of whatever railroad and whatever era you want, or go on line and look up signal indications, and come up with something that you can actually name - Slow Clear, Medium Clear, whatever you choose. Get an amber lens too and you have even more options. You have the potential there to make something pretty authentic looking, just smaller than the real thing.

Or just line up a whole bunch of lights at random if it makes you happy.

How about tie the lights into garage sensors? Maybe the indication could normally read Slow Clear (two red over green). When you pull into the driveway, you will get an Slow Approach (two red over yellow). Then when you pull into the garage you get all red in case anyone is following behind you.

Beside that, I recommend you get some blue, yellow, and green lenses and make a flashing Christmas Pole.

RailKevin wrote:How about tie the lights into garage sensors? Maybe the indication could normally read Slow Clear (two red over green). When you pull into the driveway, you will get an Slow Approach (two red over yellow). Then when you pull into the garage you get all red in case anyone is following behind you.

I noted above the various indication names change over time, and probably differed from one railroad to another, especially before CGOR and NORAC. So you may not be wrong. But yellow below red made me think "Restricting". And sure enough - on CR - that's Rule 290 and was Restricting.

It looks to me like he's using old grade crossing signals (it's amazing how big a real signal is when you're up close to it). So most likely he doesn't have the capability of changing colors. But I sure like your idea.

I think my signal terminology may be west coast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPI_JG_4pYs&t=1117s

True; one of the key differences between NORAC and GCOR (General Code of Operating Rules; I think of it as the Code of the West because that's generally where it's used) is that GCOR uses both lunar white and flashing red (sometimes on the same railroad) for Restricting, whereas NORAC uses bottom yellow, which requires a workaround such as a flashing yellow in some cases to indicate another speed. I think the reason for NORAC's aversion to lunar white is that afaik no Eastern (member) railroads were using it when NORAC was formed, and the reason for that is that the standard AAR aspects date from when semaphores were still in use, and a semaphore arm can't have more than three positions (I think the B&O used lunar instead of yellow for the diagonal position of the bottom arm of a 3-arm signal because you couldn't have the same arm displaying both yellow and lunar).






























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Well, the storm is finally over and I'm finally all dug out. While the snow wasn't very heavy, it was very sticky and held together making snowblowing difficult. My snowblower is over 30 years old and I can't believe its still running. Although I think the auger belt is about to snap. But I'm through the worst and the signals are still standing.

The lights are former crossing lights where the WS crossed Transit Rd [78]. Only the black search light portion was acquired. There is no circuitry or mirrors. That all remained on the property. Over the many years I've had these, they've been mounted in different ways. The current mounting is set up as top 3 lights are all wired together and "controlled" by the right garage door opener. I wired the three together and plugged it in to the right garage door simply because that's the busiest side [Kinda mainline}. The one on the bottom is wired by itself and "controlled" by the left garage door. I put one light on this side because it doesn't get much use [a siding].

While I realize that my set up doesn't follow strict NORAC rules, for me, its the thought that counts, not the absolute rule. I was thinking of putting a small green lens on the top light in the 2 o'clock position so when I come home and hit the button, I'll get a "clear" indication.......something towards Rule 281 with a touch of Rule 281b signals.

Replacing the existing lens' would be somewhat difficult. It took a lot of effort to keep as much of the original metal holding these in place. Taking them apart and putting in a new lens....not sure I want to do that. But, I will keep it in the back of my mind and when we get back into spring, I'll take a look at it.
NORAC-1993

And to think back when life was so simple.
For whats it's worth , i like your original setup.
Also glad to see you and your signals survived the Blizzard of '22.