jfrey40535 wrote:Lime, thanks for checking it out. Are you saying that old mast was used for a illuminated signal at one point? You are aware there is another mast a few feet from the Street Road overpass (behind the weeds). I never saw any evidence of signals being on those masts (as a stupid kid, I climbed to the top of both of them years ago). I always thought those masts were used as semaphores only.
I went back there yesterday to find the mast you speak of near Street Road. All I could find was the double-mast at the north end of the siding. Being on the engineer's side, it would have governed northbound moves. Just north of Street Road, however, I did not find any signal masts, but there was another splice box on the east side which evidently tied aerial line circuits to an underground cable. It was a 12 conductor, but only 9 were terminated. 9 conductor is a standard for signal lighting, so I imagine there was a southbound signal on the east side here? There's not even a foundation or anything. I expect to find it fully operational in some local railfan's back yard.
jfrey40535 wrote:From what I remember, the north switch is still intact, although maybe its just the rails that are left with the switch mechanism gone (as is the case for one of the freight sidings on Jaymore Road). Last time I saw the siding used was for storage of disabled RDC's back in '83.
Well the mechanism is still there, and the point detector/circuit controller is obliterated. The points are disassembled and moved, and I think it unlikely that some vandal kids are going to move a switch point around with common household tools for no apparent reason, and this doesn't appear to have anything to do with the fiber optic project, as with the severed track down by the station.
In other news, The 1963 Philadelphia Div. TT and the 1967 Special Instructions would seem to prove me wrong about there not being ABS north of Bryn Athyn. They also show the Stony Creek branch as ABS territory. So I guess the company did a proper job of scrapping/recycling the system north of Bryn Athyn, because there's practically noting left of it. I guess that shows the thriftiness of the company compared to the apparently wasteful Conrail/SEPTA MO of shutting it off and leaving it there to rot. I would really love to find any information about the system if it exists.