The first to identify this wins … pride!
Hint: I didn’t think that any of these were left around here.
Rod-connected interlocking for a turnout or signal?
Air piping to a switch machine?
Pete
I’ll,second this answer,
Cheers,
Frank
Rod connecting turnout to a derail.
Rod connecting turnout to a derail.
Yes, a turnout rod AND roller bearing. There was a set of these on a part of the line hidden from a parking lot by some bushes. They ran to a turnout, a derail and something (missing0 that used to sit on a concrete pedestal - indicator perhaps. I cannot imaging pulling a lever in a tower and moving a set of points 1000 feet away. ‘Armstrong’ indeed.
Somewhere I have photos of an installation like this at Wharton, Texas about 1980 where the Santa Fe (originally Cane Belt RR) crossed the Southern Pacific (originally New York, Texas and Mexico, now KCS). Santa Fe tracks gone over 20 years. My pictures are on slides which I have not taken to be scanned where I can upload them online…
Hi Larack
That is one very bent piece of interlocking rod and a roller block.
Don’t be to quick to dismiss it a lot of places it’s still usedt even on the modern railroad.
These days its made of galvanized water pipe instead of wrought iron.
It could drive points, point locks and associated indicators slip blades and indicators level crossing gates
Don’t think the early booms where driven that way but they could have been
Lower and upper quadrant signals though in mechanical days they where more usually wire driven but some where rod drive fog signals in some places where placed with it.
There where a whole heap of ancillary bits that could provide further interlocking function away from the signal box
I have forgotten the maximum rod run that can be laid out before its to much for the signalman to pull the lever in the box.
They are not hard to pull but there is a bit of knack to doing it get it wrong on a long rod run and you will hurt your self your whole body weight moves with the lever.
You don’t have to be built like the hulk, if a little bloke like me can’t do it then something is wrong and has to be found and fixed so the petite female train crew members can move it.
You don’t just use your arms unless you want to strain something probably your shoulders or back.
regards John
At a minor station in Japan in the '60s there would be a big, hefty lever connected by bellcrank linkage to one end of that rod, and a turnout’s points connected by bellcrank to the other. Somewhere about half-way along there would be a compensating link to nullify the effect of thermal expansion.
The lever, along with a couple more for the associated (cable-driven lower quadrant) semaphore signals, was on the raised station platform (floor level for DMU) right next to the outhouse-size ticket office. Moving one (with its bolted-on iron weight) was equivalent to lifting a 50kg weight through the clean half of a clean-and-jerk. (Non-weightlifters need not apply.)
The interlocking machine (slotted sliding bars) was in a little box on the headblock ties of the turnout. If ANY signal was cleared, the points were locked.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
THIS is what you will find at the other end of that pipe:
This particular tower is in East Stroudsburg, PA, it is no longer in service: it was eliminated by removing all of the switches and extra tracks here. It is now a simple, single track main line.
This was probably the only wooden tower on the old Delaware-Lackawana main line, the rest were constructed of stone. The red levers are for signals, the black levers for switches. It took two levers to move a switch (the points of a turnout). One lever locked and unlocked the points, the other lever moved them. To move a switch you had to 1) unlock the points; 2) move the points; and 3) lock the points. If any of these steps failed, you had to go down to the tracks and clear away any ballast or ice that may be jamming the movements of the switch.
Once the entire interlocking plant was properly aligned for the movement of a train, then (and only then) could the signal be given. The normal position for these levers is to the back, the reverse position is pulled toward the operator. The NORMAL position for signals is RED.
This tower is being preserved by a local train group.
ROAR
I better keep the dog and the house cats inside, looks like Lions are getting near my back yard.
–Randy
So! You live in Penn’s Woods, eh? LIONS have ways of finding you.
Turnout control rod with support bracket and bearing. That rod is pretty bent… I wonder if it actually still works?
I will have to build a mess of these for a junction on my planned layout.
S&S
Unfortunately, the rod is in long disconnected pieces.The tower is long gone. Still it was a fun find. I’d never seen one before.
I have one section of my layout which incorporates these (partially complete) and track pans.
If you look through this page you can see some under construction. I have since installed the cranks.
Fascinating setup! Those turnout rods and roller bearings show the ingenuity of manual railway systems. “Armstrong” operations truly highlight the strength and precision required for such distant control!