Balt. That was was the nick name I learned in back in the fifties for US&S. You mentioned that you had worked at Stors in Cincinnati in your early career. Was that an interlocked plant or a manual hand throw plant? I don’t remember seeing a tower, just a small shack there.
Storrs Jct was not interlocked. There was a Operator and a Switchtender. The Switchtender handled the hand throw switches from CUT, crossovers between B&O #1 and #2 tracks as well as crossovers to the Big 4 Main. Authortiy for movement was a waved Highball from the Switchtender. The back of the ‘shack’ was on the North Bank of the Ohio River.
Something I pieced together from a B&O HS article in their ‘Sentinal’ - both Storrs Jct. and M&K Tower at McKeesport came into existance in the early/mid 1930’s - with the creation of CUT and the B&O getting its trackage rights over the P&LE from MK Tower in McKeesport to New Castle - neither location was interlocked, both locations used a Operator and Switchtender. Guess B&O was too cheap to order Interlockers at that point in time. Additionally the Center Street crossing at Haselton in Youngstown was not interlocked - a ‘Train Director’ flagged trains for
In a previous post, I understood you to say that PTC might not know the position of a manual switch, but would know its location, and under a restricted signal would require the engineer to confirm the switch position before getting to it. I assume this would be thru the engineer pushing a button or entering the info into a computer. I am guessing there might be situations like snow aroung the switch, or other visibility problems that might cause the wrong confirmation info to be entered. The PTC would have no independent way to check if the switch info is correct. Thus PTC might not prevent the movemont of the train thru a misaligned switch.
Thanks, Balt. Was Storrs TRACK SPEED = Restricting? Or was a train coming out of or going into CUT given anything higher. Was there a WB track block signal for trains after passing Storrs?. I was looking out the riverside vestibule when I rode #3 through Storrs in 1955 enroute to Louisville. Steam from N. Vernon to Louisville. L&N back to CUT.
I mean, yeah, if you don’t actually look at the switch. But if you have a restricting signal, you should look at it…?
That’s why we were saying that many switches aren’t wired into the PTC yet. Some day, I’m sure they will be.
To my recollection - Restricted Speed - looking for the Highball from the Switchtender. Green for straight Main Track movements and Yellow for crossover movements. As I recollect, the switches and crossovers were all of the 10 MPH variety so Track Speed would be 10 MPH until the rear of the train cleared the switches/crossovers. Westbound intermediate signals were a mile or more West of Storrs Jct. The WEDT was at CW Cabin MP 6. Track speed was 20 MPH Storrs Jct to MP 3 and 60/50 from MP 3 to CW Cabin.
I can understand how some expediences were taken on this initial roll-out of PTC. I’m sure you are right that someday all the affected switches will be wired for PTC.