NYC Gridley Tower

Gridley Tower on Anderson's east side. Now gone.

 

Like Ken, I also am curious about the stilt foundation. Normally, you would see this only in flood prone areas, and railroads did their best to build on high ground.

Also, I'm curious why there are not more windows for better visibility along the track, since it's obvious from the rod routing that the interlocking complex is behind the camera. Do you have any info on these questions Roger?

 

1) Many of the Big Four towers were on stilts.

2) hey really didn't need too many windows as most of the switches they controlled were out of sight.

3) Here are more photos for you. The first one is at Bellefontaine showing that tower with stilts, the other two are at Gridley.

 

Please forgive my ignorance, but I've never been inside an Interlocking Tower, let alone understand how one operates. However, seeing the Gridley panel gives me just enough information to realize how much I don't know.

Can you help me understand just one routing, e.g. "Westbound", "Big Four", "From", "C to E"?

I assume the routing is for a westbound train entering at C and leaving at E.

I've located (I think) "20" (20 @ upper right), "21" (L21 @ upper right), "13" (L13 @ C, far left, center ), "8" (L8 @ center), and "31" & "27" (far left below D).

Does "Reverse" mean to set the designated levers to their non-normal position?

Does the operator quickly return all activated levers to their normal position after the train requiring this action has passed?

What conditions cause the operator decide whether to activate "31" or "27"?

Why is there an "L" with some of the numbers on the panel, but not with others?

"13" and "8" appear to be turnouts, and "31" and "27" appear to be signals, but what are "20" and "21"?

Thanks for your help, Hank

 

I am just glad to be able to access the TB site again. Will be back to comment later, and thanks again, Roger for more history. :tb-biggrin:

 

Here's a later photo of the same tower. It strikes me that the reason for the height is that it has to look a long way down either track. Yes, it was a yard tower, for visibility and the train order office.

Busy, wasn't it.

I'm hoping that LEW will answer the first questions as I can answer some but not all.

 

Roger, I think your latest photo at Bellefontaine is great. It shows a broader perspective of railroading in an area, rather than focusing on a single item.

Wasn't Bellefontaine one of the Big Four's largest facilities, if not the largest? I'd love to see more photos of the Bellefontaine area and facilities.

Wasn't there was a boiler explosion in 1944 in the roundhouse area, killing a number of people? I believe I saw a photo of the roundhouse/turntable area shortly after the explosion taken from a hillside nearby. As I remember, it showed only the loco's frame remaining, possibly some of the cab, and total destruction to the fronts of at least three stalls.

 

Love that last shot, with a Niagara running under the signal bridge. The railroads could use some towers on stilts now with all of the flooding going on. :tb-biggrin:

 

I am working on it. The tower at Bellefontaine was called ,High Tower,and was still there when I was working the B-line.

 

Here we go. The track plan ,or board, we are looking at is from ,left to right ,or east to west. the C,D tracks are coming from Muncie and is 251 terr.. D-J westbound goes downtown Anderson and is an early form of CTC. C-E goes thru So. Anderson Yard and is manual block. The A track is PRR from Logansport-Richmond and is manual block.

Notice the semaphores below track D,above track J and above track E and These are all B4 tracks.
In the tower itself the levers are divided into 3 seperate groups. 1-switches,derails, signal.
We must remember that this is all operated by levers and rods from tower to equipment to be moved.
Go to the C-E move for westbound.The first move is 20 ,that is a derail,21 is the lock indication.13 is lock for for normal for switch 14 and normal light will be lit. 8 locks switch
9,17 in normal. 31 or 27 is the signal indication on the semaphore,31 clear and 27 restricting.
Now go to eastbound from E-C. You will notice all of the switch and lock indications are the
same as C-E.The signal numbers are different because you are making an eastward move.
The indications will be the same ,clear and restricting.I should add that you could get an approach on the upper arm on either signal as well as clear.
I do not know what indications you would receive on any of the PRR line ups. LEW

 

The numbers on the board will also be the numbers that are on the levers in the tower. The levers were also painted colors to match the use. LEW

 

LEW, thanks for an excellent description, I now can visualize what is happening in the tower and on the ground.

Was there anything to prevent the operator from activating an incorrect lever or sequence, such as an interlock? What I'm thinking about is the recent occurrance of sleeping airport control tower operators in the middle of the night. I'm sure there were similar events in interlocking towers 80-100 years ago, considering everything relied on a single operator without computer or radio backup.

 

I think the way interlockings work is that the levers must be "thrown" in the specific order or they cannot be operated correctly, hence the name "interlocking". Nowadays it is pretty much computerized but even the computer entry must be correct or the desired lineup will not take place. Also the lineup is supposed to occur first and then the signals drop in.
I know of an alleged anomaly occuring regarding signals and switches not being in the proper sequence. This involved a signal and switch that was a key part of an injury causing,head-on collision. I was told of this anomaly by the person who observed it, I worked with him often and I know for a fact that he reported it to the FRA and I know for a fact that the FRA came out to interview him about it. I spoke to the FRA agent myself as he asked me if I was so-and-so. I replied in the negative and told him the whereabouts of the person he was seeking.

Charlie

 

Charlie, I think you are correct about it was almost impossible to line wrong routes.
You had to be qualified at these different towers and stations and you did follow the board and lights.Of course the Titanic was unsinkable
About the two trains being lined into each other by two seperate towers 6 miles apart in
yard limits there were many people and rules wrong but the towers were lined correctly.

 

Hytec, The solution for nap time was you had all signals red and was using the bath room
and that was the delay answering the phone.Of course you had all of the doors locked.
When I was playing with airplanes, when the tower man did not clear you to land you did not land.If landing was an absolute you had every light on and contacted anyone and everyone and declared an emergency. In other words all of the signals were red. LEW

 

Thanks to both of you for the answers and clarification.

 

The old story that new hires always asked the instructors when confronted with absolute signals all showing red was "how long should we wait"? The answer was "until the weeds are growing up thru the cab"!
BTW, as a newbie, I was confronted with the "otherwise unavailable" scenario at the Forest Hill interlocking. We were doing a dogcatch of two locomotives and several cars at the CSX Forest Hill ramp. The tower operator would not let us out of the ramp nor would he acknowledge our radio transmissions after the initial one. It was a Saturday evening and the crew,surprisingly enough, didn't want to work overtime(we were a yard job doing the dogcatch)as they all had other places they wanted to be and we were running for a quit. There was no weekend service on the METRA Southwest Service line at that time and the BRC had the line-up for a couple of regular moves that they made around that time. We knew the operator was catching some "spot time". He already had a known reputation. I volunteered to walk over to the tower and "reason" with the operator,but my foreman felt that I was still too new to get fired needlessly. We were able to finally get out of there when we reached our trainmaster on the radio and he contacted the CSX trainmaster who then had a "chat" with the tower operator.

Charlie