RWM:
That makes a lot of sense. These signals are really short, taller than dwarf signals, but not by much. I certainly wouldnt want to be changing a lamp in January, 25 feet off the ground with a north wind and snow or sleet.
Anyone know of any other location these are in service?
ed
UP installed those short, long-hooded block signals between Cedar Rapids and Mt Vernon, IA back in 01 or 02. The signals between Clinton, IA and Sterling, IL are also short.
Jeff
I always wondered why they just didn’t install UP’s coded cab signal system system?
On the other hand it was bureaucrats with Federal and State money. so they felt they had to reinvent the square wheel.
They didn’t use a cab-signal system because they wanted a system that would provide for remote grade-crossing signal starts, enforce permanent speed restrictions, enforce temporary speed restrictions, provide an open-architecture system that was unrestricted as to vendors, and avoid the conflicts between the cab-signal frequencies, the grade-crossing signal frequencies, and EMF-induced frequencies from power lines that greatly inhibit the flexibility of a cab-signal system. Cab signals can’t do any of that without an enormously complex and expensive pile of hardware.
RWM
SPSCL was a SP subsidiary although, sitting here at my home computer, I’m not sure whether it was technically a direct subsidiary of SP, or a subsidiary of SSW. It was formed to purchase the Joliet-East St. Louis line from the bankrupt Chicago Missouri & Western Railroad. SPCSL also obtained trackage rights from Joliet into Chicago over IC as part of his transaction (although I believe they were ordered by the ICC rather than voluntarily agreed to by SPCSL and IC) . SPCSL was operated as an integral part of the SP system.
CMW, in turn,had purchased the line, and a connecting line from Springfield to Kansas City (both of which had been parts of the old Chicago & Alton) from Illinois Central Gulf (which, in turn, had acquired them in the IC-GM&O merger). CMW was owned by Venango River Corp which, at the time, also controlled the Chicago, South Shore & South Bend. CMW’s bankruptcy dragged the South Shore down too, apparently because the South Shore had been used to guarantee CMW’s acquisition debt. Follwing the bankruptcy, the Springfield-Kansas City line was purcharse by a new railroad called Gateway Western, which eventually became part of KCS. The South Shore’s bankruptcy led to the sturucture of the railroad, when the infrastucture is owned and operated by a trainsit agency and the freight railroad has operating rigths, although the path to this structure was somewhat convoluted.