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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Changes come to Michigan’s famed ‘BO’ tower
You could watch trains from the Tower if they allowed it.
The tower is on the North side of the East to West tracks, so your view will be shadowed by the sun for most of the day.
I am curious as to the disposition of the S&F machine?
I am curious as to the disposition of the S&F machine?
Spent many an hour there in my youth.
Maybe they can restore it and use it as a train watching place.
Would be nice if the tower and interlocking machine could go to the Henry Ford Museum.
Mr. Haave has an excellent idea!
I “third” Richard Haave’s suggestion. What a great complement the S&F machine would make to the Ford’s other railroad artifacts. What would it take to get it there?
Indeed. The tower should be at the Ford museum.
Indeed. The tower should be at the Ford museum.
Thanks for the picture!
Come on you people! Amtrak will show up in the middle of the night and destroy the tower! It is just in the way if it is up to the people in D.C.! It would make too much sense to save the Tower
and give it to a worthy orgnization so better go see it now why you can! As far as the guts and the levers and the signal board, it will end up in a dump truck being hauled away to some local dump. Just think of all the great Dome cars Amtrak once had for its passengers! The smart people at Amtrak only saved one Dome car! And how about the great Slumber coaches where one could afford a room! One cook for a sixty seat dinner! And you want a Tower saved? Goodbye old gray gal! Maybe they will set it on fire so they don’t have to tear it down? Adios
Thanks for the news item but I remain a bit confused - so the tower actually is still in operation, just under different methods, right? Sounds like they just switched from using the S&F machine levers to a control panel, which I’m guessing means the tower would have to be considered as still in operation. Any thoughts?
The problem with Bob Friedlander’s conspiracy diatribe is that Michigan DOT, not Amtrak, owns the tower.
Another data point is that, even if Amtrak owned the tower, one can point to the dozens of intact but deactivated towers that pepper Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor decades after their closing.
To answer Cheri Seiler’s question: “BO” Tower is still open, but it’s controlled from a modern control panel and protected by a solid-state interlocking instead of using the Saxby & Farmer strong-arm machine and the old circuits used prior to the changeover.
They should move it to Greenfield Village in Dearborn. Would look great between depot and new coaling dock.