Temporary Manual Block Signal

Would anyone have a photo of a temporary manual block signal in service?

courtesy of arrts-arrchives US Open 1986 Page
https://www.arrts-arrchives.com/usopen.html


All I could find was a view from behind. This view is looking west at Hampton Bays

We used to put them in the trunks of our cars. Never took a picture of one.

We’re these signals mounted to stakes that were pounded into the ground by the person installing them or were they on some kind of 3 or 4 leg webbed based that with some ballast laid over it, would hold it up right during the temporary use?

workextra wrote:We’re these signals mounted to stakes that were pounded into the ground by the person installing them or were they on some kind of 3 or 4 leg webbed based that with some ballast laid over it, would hold it up right during the temporary use?

There was a few floating around, I remember seeing a pair up in the old STM office in Jamaica. Usually someone went out prior to them going in service and laid out a buried extension cord, control cable and pipes to accomodate the size of the pipe the sigs were mounted on. They were simply a basic traffic light, 1 red and 1 green light, and they were used for special projects like golf events at SH College (or a temporary station built for the event and then removed), Bliss or places like the Oyster Bay where they would take one track out for a period of time, and then the other track would be designated a secondary track for wrong railing and they would have these at some half way point, say like near Glen Head station where they would space out the trains. All of this was done by General Notice and a temporary block station was established at the location. They had pipes in the ground permanently at Bliss, and I'd bring a tent stake to dig out the plastic pellets from when Allied/Triplex was still getting serviced, that stuff was all over the place. They would route the LIC/Hunterspoint diesels via the Lower Montauk (before the NYA picked it up) to lessen the traffic over the Mainline during big trackwork projects or Amtrak disruptions. Having this saved the crews the headache of trying to get a S-Card, we'd just turn on the green light for Westbounds, and then the red when it was time to go East. A simple switch and that was it. If they were used in the old manual block territory, then you could call them temporary MB sigs. Can't think of them being used in the past 10 years, and honestly can't think of an occasion where they would be used again, except in something where you have a big stretch of 251, like the OYB, or Babylon-Y for a big trackwork blitz.

If I can find a pic of one, I'll PM you Steve, but I have no idea where it would be now, sorry...

WH Block Limit was always extended Fridays the summer, roughly to the lumber yard switch, and there were plenty of photos taken by folks. It also allowed passengers to detrain at the platform in Westhampton without trundling on the ballast.

Unfortunately, on Saturdays the extending block wasn't in service and if you didn't get WH, ND, etc. this created chaos with the "Avant Garde" who flopped along the ballast ten cars back on trains 4008 thru 4012.

Would that be one in nyandw's post of 1:10 am April 18 on "ID the location and date"?

Yes, that certainly looks like it. There seems to be a height difference with the hampton bays photo, but it lines up with what is in our rule book.

When I worked as an extra agent, I remember them being stored at Mastic. On Fridays, the extra operators would pick them up in the early afternoon and take them out to the temporary block locations.

I know WH was one location, but I forget the rest now. This was back in the middle 70s.

Good material folks. I hope there may be other photo examples or the GN may surface.

The oldest ones were similar to this West Hempstead manual block signal given to the Mechanic Department's Mark Sullivan at his retirement. Later ones from the 70's and '80's were simply automotive traffic lights.