How’d they do it?
And how would I model it?
As far as signalling, I don’t know. But on the subject of telegraph wires and how they crossed trestles and tunnels, that I can answer. One of my great grandfathers worked for the Union Pacific Railroad. In the papers he left to his family was a journal of his activities with the rr. When it came to getting a telegrapg line across a trestle, the easiest way was to use the trestle itself to carry the wire. They would screw the insulators to the legs of the trestle and run the wire across that way, with the legs serving as poles. In tunnels, insulators would be secured to the wall of the tunnel and the wire run straight through the tunnel.
Chip,
Signal systems were well developed by then. Manual Block had been used for some time, and ABS with semaphores was becoming the standard.
Telegraph lines are usually routed along a trestle on special arms to the side and just below track level. Tunnels can have the wires routed in the tunnel, or ‘over’ the mountain and back to track level.
Jim Bernier
Chip,
Regarding telegraph wires, etc. I know that during the Civil War period, telegraph wire was insukated with a cloth covering, and many times, a combination of cloth, and either rubber or gutta percha to help protect it. The military telegraph system ran wires along bridges and trestles by using large iron staples to run it alongside the main beams, usually on the outside (but not always) of the bridge to make it a little harder for someone to cut.
Telegraph wire came on large wooden spools, just like pnone and electric wires today, although a tad bit smaller, so having one of those laying about for scenic reasons might be doable.
Respects,
Anybody familiar with highballs?
It’s been a while since I’ve read about this subject. I recall the HIGHBALL was part of a crude signal system. Stations would have a large ball mounted with a pully system on a poll. A station master would learn from his telegraph that the track to the next station was clear. He would then raise the ball. The engineer of the approaching train could see the high ball and proceed.
Was that how it worked?
There are several good books available that deal with RR signals. Ball signals go back to pre-Civil War times but were still around in New England into at least the 1950’s. They could be pretty usefull especially when signalling a spot where two railroads crossed, as you could have different colored balls for each railroad - i.e., railroad X’s signal balls would be red, railroad Y’s would be green etc. Signal indication came from how high the ball was, and/or how many balls were raised. I think they could put up to three balls up.
Another system was the staff or token system. In order to enter a block, the train crew had to receive a physical item - usually a piece of metal kinda like a big key. The gizmo that held the token was connected electrically to a tower at the other end of the block and in order to get the token out, both towers had to throw an electrical switch (or something). That way, only one token was available to be given out at a time, so only one train at a time could occupy the block. That system was probably more common in the U.K. than the U.S.
Gerry,
Like this?
Click pictures to enlarge
Or like this?
The design for the ball signal was originally borrowed from tidal signals
and were the first stationary signals used by the RRs.
To quote Jim Shaughnessy from his Fall 2003 Classic Train article entitled, “Ball Signals of Vermont”, he states the following:
“The first recorded use of signals to control train movements in the US was in 1832 on the New Castle & Frenchtown Railroad on it’s 17-mile line in Delaware and Maryland. The NC&F’s signals were bell-shaped peach baskets suspended by pulleys from poles about 30 feet high, placed at each station and at intervals of about 3 miles. From a distance, these signals looked like balls, and they became known by that name. Ball signals were the inspiration for the term “highball”, meaning all clear to depart or a clear track ahead, a term still in the vernacular of today’s railroaders.”
Ball signals were labor intensive as it meant that someone had to be on watch 24/7/365 to manually raise and lower the balls according to the signal aspect needed. When the ba
tsage…
TERRIFIC ! [:)]
Garry
I wouldn’t call 1885 prehistoric, Chip. They were even printing on paper with moveable type by then.[:-^]
Outside of the traffic-intensive Northeast-Lake states area, most railroading was done by timetable and train order, with the only signals at train order offices (usually, but not always, located at town stations. Some were separate buildings.) By 1885, the usual train order signal was a three-position lower quadrant semaphore (round-end or pointed blade,) and two, facing in opposite directions, were usually mounted on one mast.
Why three position? Three possible actions required by the train crew:
The staff and ticket system, with 2-position lower quadrant semaphores, was in use in Japan well into the latter half of the 20th century. I saw it in action in the 1960s on a secondary, single track route. The ‘ticket’ was a big brass disk with a hole in the center - adjacent blocks had different shaped holes - carried in a leather pocket attached to a ring-shaped hoop about the size (and mass) of a basketball hoop. These could be passed up to the engineer of a moving train. Tickets being surrendered were looped around a special
Thanks everyone, this has been enlightening.
Since I am modeling California, I imagine they would be using semaphores. I’m still not sure how this would be modeled. I can see putting one at each of my two stations, but to actually have them working…
On a semi-phorically related note. Would mail hooks have been in use by 1885 in CA or would they just stop at each station?
Yes - I have an excellent reprint of an 1887 book called “The American Railway,” and it has several woodcuts of mail cranes being used to pick up mail on the fly (if you can find it, it has a whole chapter on the “Railway Mail Service”). You would probably have found that kind of service on a heavily travelled trunk line, though - short lines and branch lines tended to offer infrequent service, with mail carried on local passenger trains that stopped at every station.
SpaceMouse,
I found this book:
An investigation of railway signaling / by Frederick Lincoln Chenery, Jr 1911
It’s in the Special Collection in Orono, Maine - a four to five hour drive north from Boston 
RPOs were using “on the fly” pickup in the 1870s, so mail hooks would be appropriate for your era.
Semaphores are pretty easy to model, working semaphores are difficult but doable. Personally there’s a reason why I am modeling a railroad that is technically entirely within “yard limits”: no signals!
Does someon like Ganht Line make mail hooks? (I know I butchered the name.)
Chip,
Tichy does…but it may be a more modern one.
Tom
The “gizmo” is called a staff or token instrument. The photo shows me operating a miniature electric staff instrument on the single line section at Newbridge, in the west of New South Wales.
As simpler form of staff/token is what’s known here as ordinary train staff and ticket. There are no interlocked instruments, just a box at each end of the section, locked or unlocked by the staff. The box contains a book of tickets, which could be issued - if in possession of the staff - to allow multiple trains in one direction. The last train in a given direction travels on the authority of the staff.
Staff or token working is used throughout the world. In the US I know it was used by the SP, and other western roads, and was quite common in Minnesota and other parts of the midwest.