Abingdon Update

[NW Mailing List]

I agree that N&W's CTC installations were gold-plated, but I don't believe 
wastefully so.  Running trains on single track where all the sidings are 
bonded, allowing trains to enter on a "diverging approach" indication 
instead of "restricting" was nice.   And having a separate indicator light 
for each block allowed the operators to do some operational things as well 
as pinpointing trouble toward which a signal maintainer could be sent.

I worked under too many half-a** penny-pinching CTC setups over the years to 
not appreciate N&W's setups.  The Wabash had one bonded siding between the 
junction at Bement and Landers Yard at Chicago, and I believe none between 
Alvordton, Michigan and Bement.  You went into all those sidings on a 
restricting indication.  West of Decatur, towards Hannibal, they had a setup 
called "manual block remote control", where the crew handled the switches 
after getting a "take siding" signal.  I believe that the NKP had some 
bonded sidings.

And then there was the Seaboard Air Line.  The CTC between Birmingham and 
Atlanta had no follow-up signals.  The only intermediate signals between 
controlled sidings were the approach signals, and you went into the sidings 
on a "restricting".

Having experienced a lot of those setups from behind the throttle, I 
remembered, and appreciated, those "gold-plated" N&W setups.  They bought 
them that way because they could afford it, and their balance sheets didn't 
suffer on account of it.

EdKing

-----Original Message----- 
From: NW Mailing List
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2018 7:38 PM
To: NW Mailing List
Subject: Re: Abingdon Update

On 11/1/2018 5:24 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:

> The US&S salesmen sold the N&W an absolutely gold plated CTC system for 
> the Bristol Line (translation: more bells and whistles than they needed,) 
> so no doubt the electric lock for this switch was controlled by a discrete 
> 16-bit code address over the code line.

Abe,
     The south end of Elkton and Stuart's Draft sidings had a spur off
of them where you had to contact the dispatcher in order for him to code
the switch before you threw it. The signal in the siding would change
from STOP to Restricting once the switch was thrown.

Jimmy Lisle
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