Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in the American Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. For questions specific to a railroad company, please seek the appropriate forum.
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in the American Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. For questions specific to a railroad company, please seek the appropriate forum.
In continuation after the recent website crash, I am still looking for the closing dates on the following towers, if they ever existed:
-La Crosse
-Peru
-Warsaw
-Wanatah
-New Haven
-Ridgeville
-Veedersburg
-Richmond
-Washington
-North Vernon
-Connersville
-Rushville
-Claypool
-Columbia City
-South Whitley
-Knox
-Hamlet
I can help you some with North Vernon. No tower ever existed here. It is a non-interlocked facility, even in 2004. CSX trains, however infrequent they may be, still are required to stop and flag crossings and turn the hand throw semaphore located at the diamond crossing of the Madison Railroad. I want to say that all movements were controlled by the operator in the B&O depot located at the crossing. B&O controlled the interlocking as it was the second road here following the Madison.
Hope this helps
Richmond had 2 towers, and one over in New Paris Ohio.
The tower were retired in east to west fashion
New Paris was remoted to Glen
Glen then to Newman.
Newman was still in operation when the NW was still running down there.
Basically the NW payed Conrail to keep the tower manned, then cut over of signals so on so forth. Finally Conrail conveyed/sold the remaining trackage in Richmond to NS.
As for dates, without looking back I can't say. Diggin through some flimsies I have in a box things were still hopping for Glen in 70', but I think it lasted until the late 70's.
In 1985 the B&O Operators signed an agreement to give up train orders and the offices still open began closing one by one, North Vernon leading the way.
Dearborn: 1987
Milan: February 1992
North Vernon: October 1985
Seymour: September 1991
Mitchell: March 1996
Shops (Washington): 1988
Vincennes: October 1989
The Vincennes job was closed when CSX installed the new balloon track to connect with the C&EI and the interlocking was remoted to Jacksonville.
Here are a few more:
-Lynn
-Frankfort
-Franklin
-Fairland
-Otis
-La Porte (still standing in 1992)
-Kingsbury
-St. John
-Hartsdale
-Dyer
-Handy(still standing in 1997)
I'm pretty sure Hartsdale Tower closed in 1993 around the same time CR abandoned the SC&S line and rerouted the "hot" bottle trains off of it. I will ask a friend who has the CR general orders from that time frame for an exact date.
MR77100 wrote:On my recent trip to Indiana, I tried to find the tower at Dunreith but couldn't find a trace of it!
Someone took pictures of it and posted them in the Pennsy Lines West yahoo group. I know for years it has been buried in the weeds and thick woods that has taken over the area. If you didn't know where to look, you wouldn't be able to find it right off.
The tower sat well east of the NKP Rushville Branch crossing http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image. ... 4&z=16&w=2
look right behind the farm house, you can see the clearing of where the tower stands.
