I have seen abandoned right-of-ways, both first-hand and pics, that have the signals left behind track or no track. Do you guys know of anyone who grabbed one of those old singals and restored it? I see these things in pics online all the time. You would think if the were worth anything the RR would have taken them.
Just because the signal towers are standing along an abandoned right-of-way doesn’t mean that they’re free for the taking. It could just mean that the railroad or salvage firm who owns them haven’t gotten around to removing them.
If its an old stretch the signals probably aren’t very useful to the railroad antwhere else, but usually they aren’t left. After all, here in NJ we have enough abandoned lines to go by. I do know of people that have old signals, don’t know if they got them all legitimately or not. I would assume its not the easiest thing to do and probably hard to be inconspicuous about it. On the other hand, if they are going to take them and preserve them rather than let them rot away, why not? Except for that part about it maybe not being legal.
If you really want a signal, you can get one fairly cheap legitimately. I would not try to just take one, even if it does seem to be abandoned. You probably would get away with it, but if not, it could be a real can of worms. I have known of railroad workers who were taking them out, just giving them to collectors on an off the record basis. Lots of them are being scrapped, and the scrap value is not very high.
I have always thought it would be neat to have a semphore. Those are really quite the machine. The details of construction quality of railroad signals is impressive. But getting one home is no walk in the woods.
Dunno about an abandoned ROW signals, but I acquired, through mass quantities of “sweet-talking” with several signal maintainers, the signals seen in the pic below for a local museum. I’ve already restored the dwarf signal to full operation, and the main signal mast will be installed within the next two weeks. Both were removed due to a new double track project at the location in this pic. (track #2 is now sitting where this signal set used to be)
http://anb740.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=47010
If you know who to contact at the railroad that owns the right of way, you might have the same good luck.
anb740
And how do you know that abandoned R/W is really abandoned?
…And the power is off at the signal. (?) CSX found a dead lowlife fried to a crisp near a signal at Hillsdale, IL a while back trying to remove a holding signal still tied to a transformer and part of an active interlocking (frog removed, CI&W crossing Mon/L&N))… Lowlife got what he so richly deserved.
just Don’t!
just put on an orange vest and white hardhat and just take it, just kidding.[:)]