On the past few rail fan trips to the yard here in Wausau, I have been taking a different way. Along this way I frequently cross the Mail Line. By one of the RR crossings while coming back from the yard I noticed this:
So my question is; what is it? I’m guessing it’s a phone box dating back to the Milwaukee Road days. Here’s a back view and a side view.
If this line has wayside signaling, then the most likely function is center-feed battery for the wayside signaling system – note the concrete battery vault next to it – and the heavy cable is the right size for track wire.
Also possibly shunts for the grade-crossing signals, but I think not as they do not need battery nor cable that heavy.
There are so many cobbled together this-and-thats out there that I could be completely wrong. Go back when you can and tell me if there are insulated joints there, and whether there is one pair of track taps or two – or better yet, take a photo that shows the insulated joints and track taps, all in one photo.
RWM
I know for sure it isn’t for the grade crossing as they have a box for that on the opposite end of the tracks.
I’ll head there next time I got back that way and take a few more pictures. Thanks for your help.
WCfan:
Grade crossings require a shunt to terminate the approach circuit frequency at either end of the approach. In the old days the shunts were laid between the rails, but the common practice now is to put them in a box at wayside so that they don’t get torn up by the ballast regulator or tamper, and to make it easier for the signal maintainer to troubleshoot. Generally the shunts are in a box like the one you photographed.
This is not the same thing as the instrument house at the grade crossing, which houses the constant warning device/grade crossing predictor, relays, batteries, battery charger, etc.
RWM
WCFan probably does not understand that he is looking at the top of the proverbial iceberg when looking at that round cover for a battery cellar that is about 6 ft in diameter and about as tall, buried about a foot below the ballast.
Ditto the shunts replacing the pedestal mounts, mounted in a post mounted small signal case. (at least those do not get torn up after they aren’t guarded by a cable plate…along with the jumper cables which are rarely buried as deep as they are supposed to be…[}:)])
Well it’s size and shape is pretty much spot-on for it to be a phone box. Before radio was used on trains, railroads put call boxes at various places for the crew to use to call the dispatcher, like say near the entrance to a junction so the crew could call to ask permission to enter the junction to do some switching or something. Kinda the same way in big cities they used to have police call boxes on streetcorners for police “beat cops” to use while walking the beat, to call in to headquarters to check in or report a crime in progress.
It could be this was originally built for as a call box, but now has been converted to some other use??
It certainly resembles the phone boxes that I used to see used on the C&NW back in the 1960s. Even though they had train radio systems I am not sure those could reach the dispatcher or yard master if that is who they needed to talk to. I recollect seeing a crewman get off a stopped train and go to the box, open it with a key, and talk to someone on the phone. I don’t know if the train was stalled or if the Automatic Train Stop and tripped and they needed to talk to the DS. They had such boxes at the block signals but they also had them spaced between the block signals. I don;'t know if there was a strategic placing of them or not.
I am pretty confident modern train radios have made most such call boxes obsolete although one sees a similar box at the diamond at Rochelle and I have seen crewmen have to open the box and “manually” obtain clearance on the diamond.
Dave Nelson
Just because we have radios does not mean we dont need telephones. and there is phones all along the mainlines. not just crew members use these signal maintainers, crews on work trains or railgangs are comunication guys and soforth use these things. yes we use cell phones but there are still places where cell phones wont work.
as a possible recycled electrical cabinet it could be many things. is this its orginal location historically? my vote is with dirt bird. keep your yard bird muddy.
I have no clue what it is, but I think I have seen those jumper cables before and after the MOW person shoveled a little ballast over them. They don’t stay buried very well…
I bought, refurbished and sold on eBay just such a signal box that had been installed on the former CGW line between Randolph and Cannon Falls (Progressive Rail sold it to me for $200). It had been installed by CNW.
I also thought, when I first saw it, that it might be a telephone box. I think the enclosure may be a general purpose design and can serve a number of functions. In my case it was for the grade-crossing signals that had for a long time been replaced by simple cross-bucks.
That would’ve been at the US 52 grade crossing, correct? I’ve been over that crossing a few times…
No - actually it was the Hwy. 56 crossing closer to Randolph. There are a few switchstands with the classic CGW targets remaining in Cannon Falls, and I’ve plied the good guys at Progressive Rail with money, beer and cigars for one of them but they won’t budge (they’ve embargoed the CGW trackage in Cannon Falls, but they could theoretically re-open the line so they won’t give up the stands). [banghead]
The box at Rochelle probably contains the time release controls for the interlocking. Allows you to manually try to get a signal when you don’t get one automatically. After “running time” if you don’t get a signal you have to be flagged across on hand signals. That’s the basics, every automatic interlocking has it’s own procedure that’s posted in side the box.
There aren’t any active phone boxes on my corner of the UP. There are a few boxes with the phones removed (and maybe one with the phone still in it) at a few places. Generally they would be at points where a train crew would need to talk to the dispatcher to get clearance to enter the main track. Sidings and controlled points would also be a point that would have them. Many rules required a crewmember to contact the dispatcher/control operator if they didn’t get a signal or if an expected train to be met had not shown up in a certain time period.
Remind