switch stands

[NW Mailing List]

Found two great photos in the archives showing all kinds of signaling made
at the West end of the middle siding at Glenhayes.  NW06732 shows a dwarf
for Eastbound movements on the Westbound main.  I assume this would be for
a Westbound to back cars into the middle siding.  Located just behind the
dwarf is a high switch stand indicating the switch in the normal position.
Is the only reason to use a dwarf here so as not to obscure the switch
stand?  Seems like a high semaphore signal could replace both the dwarf and
the switch stand here.  Was this combination used to reduce
cost/complexity?

NW06732 taken from a bit further East and looking back West, shows another
switch stand with lamp only, located on lefthand side of the Eastbound
main.  There is also something I haven’t seen before called out as a switch
indicator on the righthand side of the Eastbound main.  Was this just to
point out to the engineer to look to the left for the switch stand?  It
appears there was plenty of room to place the switch stand on the righthand
side.  The switch stand was probably there for reverse movements out of the
middle siding onto the Eastbound main as all information for Eastbound
movements would be given by the two-arm semaphore.

Please correct this stuff I have made mistakes on and add any additional
information on operations for this and similar locations.

Thanks,
Jim Cochran

On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 1:33 PM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> Being a primitavist, the question I would like to see answered is:
> When/Where was the FIRST use of lights on main track switches, on the N&W
> or its predecessors ?
>
> I have never seen even a hint of that information. but am not making any
> bets that the desired information will be found.
>
> I think many of the innovations in methods and practices came when the
> management of the Shenandoah Valley RR was integrated with the management
> of the V&T/AM&O, especially in the person of Joseph H. Sands (1851-1927,)
> who had been an operating department man at Altoona.  It appears that the
> management of the SV RR had come from the biggest railroad then in
> existence, and the one with the most formal set of procedures for operating
> an efficient, heavy-traffic railroad:  the PRR.   Example:  It is my belief
> that the blocking of trains, using what was then called the Telegraph Block
> System (but now called the Manual Block System,) was brought to the N&W by
> the SV RR management.  Same for the two-arm station signal (one arm giving
> the codndition of the Block, the other arm being the Train Order signal)...
> that probably arrived on the property due to the SV RR management.
>
> What I would need, in order to pursue this topic, is a copy of the AM&O
> Rule Book, so I could do a comparative study.  But I have never seen one,
> and do not know if the AM&O even had its own Rule Book.  And a copy of the
> SV RR Rule Book, if they had their own.
>
> For a few hints about the management which came with the SV RR, see my
> little monograph titled, "WHO WERE THEY ?  Articles Published on the N&W
> List, July - November 2018."  It is fifty-two pages long, so bring some
> No-Doze pills..
>
> -- abram burnett
> Imperial Free-State of East Turnipovia
>
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