Control towers placed every 30-50 miles or so can be helpful if a coupler snapped and some freight cars are long gone or if markers on the ends of trains are out. Control Towers are also good to know if signals and switches are working. Nobody want’s to crash into another train. if there are any visual problems with the engine(s), the dispatcher can call them.
On the other hand, CTC puts more employees in one centralized control room, and can monitor trains all over the network. if a special train of higher priority is going to be in one area of the line, they can talk to another dispatcher at the other side of the room. instead of many people along the lines in many buildings directing trains. it’s just one person directing the train throughoutthe system.
any more input would be appreciated. do not quote me on the CTC info.
You make a good point, but there are a few good things about CTC….
Modern CTC systems can control much larger area’s of railroad with one person. This allowed for division’s of railroads to be larger. As with most everything in new modern railroading, CTC is much more efficient and results in the smoother running of trains.
With modern CTC, the dispatcher doesn’t have to call each tower and give them information about what trains need to be lined where. He just points to a switch or signal and can instantly give orders to, or route a train half way across the country.
But still, any modern signaling system will not replace the friendly faces of the home-town tower operator. Nothing like the sound of levers popping into place![8D]
Before there was electricity there were switches thrown on the ground by hand. This was followed by Strongarm or Armstrong mechanical levers which gave limited ability to throw switches away from a single locatation but with the aid of electricity could be interlocked and worked fairly well up to maybe a half, three quarters of a mile from the most distant switch and signal. So these could effectively be spaced as needed, as close a as a half mile and as far apart as needed be it a mile or two or five or ten, etc. Therefore when electric and electriopneumatic plants came along, they were often fitted into the then standing towers. Electronics allowed for control signals to be sent over long distances to manipulate swtiches and signals thus CTC. The tower system gave a visual inspection of passing trains that no electronic eye can do. And vice versa.
Actually no. The person in a tower can’t see the running gear of the cars, he’s above it. The modern electronic defect detectors can more reliably detect more defects on a train at speed, day or night, than any human could. Electronic detectors can even compare the readings on the same axle at previous detectors and identify that a wheel or bearing was trending towards a failure. Humans looking at a train can’t do that.
Tower operators don’t replace couplers or walk tracks. The only thing an operator can do is recieve a radio call from the train and make a phone call to somebody who can fix it. Once the communication goes to radio and phone, the distance between the train and the person making the call is pretty much immaterial.
Operators can only see a mile or two, less at night and in bad weather. Anything beyond that they would have to rely on the indications displayed on the signal control displays. Exactly the same thing a dispatcher with a CTC panel would see.
That’s why I put the “And vice versa.” at the end. The frequency of visual inspections by tower operators and others was the main factor but also their expertise…knowing what to look for, and where to look as well as to have an “ear” for what was happening was invaluable. By the same token there are things that contemporary detectors can do that a person can’t. There are pluses and minuses to each.
It was understood that the towerman, work permitting, was to be on the ground to inspect the train as it rolled by.
Trains do, at times, derail at interlockiings. The first tower I worked at was rebuilt twice; it was on the outside of a curve, demolished by two derailments. Was made obsolete by the third one so was not rebuilt…
I never stayed in the tower while a train rolled by if I could help it. And huge interlockings, like Corwith in Chicago, had switches so far away, behind vegetation and such, that no visible inspection of anything was possible from the tower.
Most towers I was familiar with were too busy or otherwise it was unneccessary for the towerman to exit the tower to view a train…often the tower was set back enough or was too far away anyway. But not all towers were “towers” in the sense in being above the track. Some were built to be above the track but later the track was raised or elevated so that the tower was actually at track level. A good example is probably Babylon, NY on the LIRR. Still others were nothing more than sheds or shacks alongside the track but be default were called towers.
Such a place was Andover Jct., NJ. at the diamond for the DL&W’s Sussex Branch and the Lehigh and Hudson River. It also controlled a siding and interchange switch and was operated by the L&HR, of course reporting to both road’s dispatchers as needed. One normally would never have to leave the tower. However, in the late 50’s/early 60’s, in order to compete with the B&A-NYC system from Boston to Chicago, the New Haven and PRR started a piggy bacak service from Boston to Devon, CT to Danbury, across the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook; then the L&HR took it to Hudson Yard outside Phillipsburg, NJ handing it off to the PRR’s Belvadere and Delaware to Trenton and Morrisville to Chicago in faster time than the competitor. This meant flying. Like 55+ across the L&HR including the diamond at Andover Jct. It was written that no one was allowed in the tower when the Jets were coming. The towerman, and his guests on one occasion I am aware of, had to clear out and away from the building at least five minutes before the train arrived and until it cleared the diamond and building. Damned railroading was fun back then!
Most towers I was familiar with were too busy or otherwise it was unneccessary for the towerman to exit the tower to view a train…often the tower was set back enough or was too far away anyway. But not all towers were “towers” in the sense in being above the track. Some were built to be above the track but later the track was raised or elevated so that the tower was actually at track level. A good example is probably Babylon, NY on the LIRR. Still others were nothing more than sheds or shacks alongside the track but be default were called towers.
Such a place was Andover Jct., NJ. at the diamond for the DL&W’s Sussex Branch and the Lehigh and Hudson River. It also controlled a siding and interchange switch and was operated by the L&HR, of course reporting to both road’s dispatchers as needed. One normally would never have to leave the tower. However, in the late 50’s/early 60’s, in order to compete with the B&A-NYC system from Boston to Chicago, the New Haven and PRR started a piggy bacak service from Boston to Devon, CT to Danbury, across the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook; then the L&HR took it to Hudson Yard outside Phillipsburg, NJ handing it off to the PRR’s Belvadere and Delaware to Trenton and Morrisville to Chicago in faster time than the competitor. This meant flying. Like 55+ across the L&HR including the diamond at Andover Jct. It was written that no one was allowed in the tower when the Jets were coming. The towerman, and his guests on one occasion I am aware of, had to clear out and away from the building at least five minutes before the train arrived and until it cleared the diamond and building. Damned! railroading was fun back then!
Some towers controlled switches that were definitely beyond sighting distance. Calumet Park interlocking, which controlled the point where IHB and B&OCT crossed the PRR Bernice Cutoff, also remotely controlled the junction about three miles away in Hegewisch where the Calumet River Secondary diverged from the Bernice Cutoff. Burnham Tower was a separate interlocking between these two points.
These were definitely not strongarm plants but probably electrical, and probably not electropneumatic as compressed air from the central location was not enough to push a switch at that distance. Most likely it was a CTC addition to the interlocking.
While I am not a fan of ‘air’ plants, don’t sell the power of electropneumatics short…remember trains are operating air brakes on trains that are two miles from the engines source of air pressure and control. So long as the air lines are reasonably maintained air can power switches at quite some distance from the air source.
But three miles from home is a long distance for air plants…unless, of course, there is a compressor at the site. I do believe air was good up to a mile…I remember at Denville, NJ on the DL&W there were crossovers and turnouts about a mile east of the tower that were noted to be slower than those a quarter of a mile or less. Three miles would have been out of the question. So, it might have been electric but more likely a remote electric or CTC controlled (electronic pulses to electric appliances). And air plants were actually great working with the least amount of electricity I presume. I used to like to listen to them click to unlock, swish across and slam against the rail, then click to lock. I think the safety factor was that the switch was electrically locked and not hampered by or held in place by electricity (trickle of current could cause movement of switch from lock).
Hegewisch Junction was 1.6 miles from Calumet Park and it was definitely an electric switch. Burnham was electro-mechanical with lots of rods since it controlled the entrance to Burnham Yard from the C&WI.
If I were supposed to be complete with onboard spell check, perfect typewriting ablities, and computer skills God would have had be born with them But I was born before He invented computers. So if you want to nit pick, nit pick Him.
Ahh…henry6, methinks thou doth protest too much! ‘Different than’ would not be caught by a spell checker, nor is it a typewriting failure nor a lacking computer skill. I suspect my English teacher is the cause of my misery as I also writhe and crawl when I hear bespoke ‘with him and I’.
But time will soon cease my agony I suspect, as my family seldom hangs on when reaching 80 and I’m past that! [:(]
Art (God won’t have me, and the Devil doesn’t want the competition)
