On the CP’s C&M sub (between Chicago & Milwaukee), the old code lines and poles are being removed. The maintainer I talked to said that they were no longer using the wires, and that by removing the wires, they were also removing the temptation from copper thieves and trespassers. The poles that held the wires are also being removed.
Half of me is glad to see the removal, as they interfered with morning photography (the poles were on the east side of the tracks), but the other half of me is sorry to see them go, as they made a nice background for evening photography.
Similarly NS has been pulling down the wires and pulling out the poles along the Southern Tier Line west of Binghamton, NY…poles that carried the wires that first tied the Erie and later Erie Lackawanna together and then unraveled with Conrail. At first all I could say was that something looked different along the now single track right of way…it wasn’t until I came across several white trucks with cherry picker buckets and guys with chain saws that I realized what was happening!
Most, if not all, new and/or revised signal installations are using radio controlled code line. With all the upgrades necessary for PTC installation, thousands of miles of pole lines that are used for only signal purposes will become redundant and most will be removed as radio code installations progress. There will still be some minor pole line installations, most generally connecting ends of sidings to a single radio code control installation; some of these connections will also be done with underground cable.
One of the problems along the old Erie lines at least was that the poles and wires alongside the tracks were, or might have been “active”. By that I mean that telephone circuits, signal circuits, and other “things” were maintained by the pole lines. As time progressed and new circuits and installations came on line, records or whatever of the told lines were lost or forgotten so that it wasn’t until a wreck, a storm, or vandals removed the lines (stealing the copper) that the railroad found whata the circuits were actually for and in which were sort of in actual use. With the new single track and its attending signal system coupled with radio, the old Erie structures were safe to dismantle.