What color are the levers in the intelocking towers? If it makes a difference, the year would be 1950. These are not necessarily PRR. They are shown so you know what I’m talking about.
Well obviously they are GREY Chip![:o)]
Not PRR, this is the switch tower museum in South Norwalk, CT. Also, I rember the tower in Red Bank, NJ having levers colored according to purpose, such as switch, lock, signal, etc.
Nice photo, Chip!
I don’t know anything about PRR lever frames, but I can’t help notice how similar the frame in the photo is to frames I have worked here. Ours were ususally of British design, mostly McKenzie & Holland or Saxby & Farmer.
The colours for levers here were:
Red for signals,
Black for points - (turnouts or switches),
Blue for facing point lock bars and ground frame releases,
White for spares.
I notice that there are at least three different colours on the levers in the photos, so I’ll make an educated guess and suggest that US practice may have been similar, if maybe not using these exact colours. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
Cheers,
Mark.
Chip, you might try posting the question on the PRRTHS Forum Boards
It’s free to sign up and post.
Thanks, I think I will. I am already a member and I spent some time looking through old Keystones because I remember seeing a model Penny tower interior. but no luck.
And the answer–Mark, you were right on
Anyone know the color of the handle?
Lou in a follow-up post described the handles as unpainted wood.
Are you planning to paint your Humpyard controls, Chip? I think it would look cool!
I paint everything. [swg]
Usually the levers were entirely metal (most American interlockings were adaptations of British practice, manufactured in the States under a patent agreement), and the catch handles and the tops of the levers appear to be bare steel. I have found plenty of pictures of signalmen in the UK standing with a rag prominently displayed near the lever frame - the rag being used, apparently, to keep a polish on the handles. The MSE lever frame I’m building comes with a recommendation that you tin the catch handles and the tops of the levers with solder to get the right look - so something like a gunmetal would probably be the right color.
Here’s a couple photos of the Springhill tower in Terre Haute In.
inch
In most cases yes, but I have seen frames where the lever tops had turned wooden handles on metal levers - IIRC they were all made by Stevens & Sons. The lever tops in Chip’s photo certainly look like polished bare metal to me.
The rag is known as a “lever cloth”, and was used when pulling the levers. It was a no-no to touch the levers with your bare hands - you used the cloth to prevent soiling or blemishing the polish on the handles. Most boxes used emery cloth for polishing the levers - a task usually given to the block boy.
In later years, when standards had slipped a bit, you’d often see levers where the handles had been lacquered after polishing, or with rubber grips from cricket bats on them.
Cheers,
Mark.
Just a lucky guess, Chip!
The mention of yellow levers for smashboards is interesting - I’ve only seen yellow levers controlling fog signals/detonator placers. Yellow was otherwise never used in boxes in Australia, the only other colour was green for crossing gates, and they were rapidly superseded by automatic gates operated by track circuits.
Cheers,
Mark.
Speaking of crossing gates, and levers…
The gates at the level crossing on the High Street in Lincoln, England (I lived there for three years in the late '90s) are stilll controlled by the man in the signal box in this picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loose_grip_99/1761273049/
From what I read today in looking for the pic, the semaphores and the signal box go away next year, as they ‘modernize’.
When a train was coming, you’d see the man in the tower walk over to the lever as lower the gates, and then raise them afterward. It seemed so very ‘British’ to me…