Looking for a little assistance. Here are a couple of photos of a control panel that was donated to HVRM some years ago. The panel is labelled as being from West Pullman, Illinois. There are four streets on the diagram; 118th, 119th 120th and Halsted Street. The markings are etched onto the face of the panel, but hard to read. I am wondering if these were originally painted (there is no evidence of paints in these grooves) or something, that would have made them more visible to the operator. The control panel was made by Western Railway Signal and I am not sure or the material on the face.

There is a second question. There was a Pennsy tower at West Pullman, Illinois controlling the crosssing of the railroads old Panhandle line between Logansport, Indiana and Chicago, with the Illinois Central's electrified branch line to Blue Island, Illinois. A photo of that tower is attached to the control panel, but was probably added by the person who donated the panel. The problem is that the four streets mentioned above are quite a ways away from the tower (which was located near Union Avenue, about two blocks east of Halsted). The impression we have always had at HVRM, is that this gate control panel was in the tower itself, but I am now wondering if it might have been in a separate watchman's shanty or tower nearer the crossing of these four streets. In fact, the face of the panel shows an "aerial tower" located near the crossing of 119th and Halsted streets. I was able to find a schematic of West Pullman tower and there is no indication of any gate control panel on it, although even if it was in the tower, it probably would not have been on the schematic anyway.

Any help, or ideas, would be appreciated.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

Les,

In the few photos of similar equipment, usually I have seen them Black with White traces. With yours, I wouldn't doubt if you removed one of the 4 switches you will find that the panel was black, and the paint was either cleaned off or just oxidized off.

Another possibility would be that the background was polished before the markings were etched or sandblasted. Not sure how the contrast between polish and the blast/etch would be.

Regards,
Rich C.

Rich -

Thanks. Next time I am at the museum, I will try to take one of the 4 switches off, and check the color underneath it. Appreciate the hint.


Les

Les:
I have seen a bunch of those panels that were made by Western RR Supply and they all look like that ! It appears that they applied some kind of clear coat and over time they have all turned to grey.
We have the one from WALBRIDGE TOWER at Marion, and there is one spot under that top layer that is a nice BROWN in color. We cleaned the panel with acetone, but it's still nice and grey.
The PRR had lots of those model boards.

Kevin K

Les;

That material looks like either Bakelite or Micarta, both early thermosetting plastics. They were widely used as electrical insulators and as radio cases, toys, billiard balls and even plates and cups.

They started out a nice brown color (like old distributor caps) and then oxidixed and turned dull gray.

I have had success polishing them up with a buffing wheel and some rouge. For electrical applications (distributor caps and rotors) I have soaked them in WD-40 (tm) to seal any surface cracks. They work fine after that.

I think the lines and lettering were machined into the surface and not polished. Rough machined Bakelite has a white/gray look to it.

Bakelite is named after it's inventor and is recognized as the first synthetic plastic.

Cheers, Kevin.

The black with white letters type of plastic panel is often made from a 3-layer plastic "sandwich" with the outer layers black and a white core. The white letters (or other markings) are produced by grinding away the outer black layer as desired. Other colors (such as red with white letters) are also available.

These panels are still easy to obtain. I had some made a couple of years ago - just took a Postscript file to a local sign shop and they made them with a computer-controlled cutter.

AL:
The later panels made by GRS were done in the manner that you described; however, the Western RR Supply panels are completely flat.
NYCRRson has described the color exactly, they are BROWN underneth.

Kevin K

Gents -

This is terrific stuff. Thanks very much for all of the information.


Les

Al,

The style I was referring to predates the laminated plastic + router engraver method commonly used in modern ID tags. The method I was referring to was done in one of two ways.

Method 1: entire panel was painted/enameled black then a mask was overlayed, and the traces were sandblasted through the coating exposing the aluminum or stainless steel underneath.

Method 2: Sheet was polished, mask applied and traces sand blasted or etched. traces were then filled with a wax based resist and panel was coated with color. When the coating was baked/ or dried the coating would not stick to the resist coated areas and when done the panel was washed uncovering the traces

Than again there is the old silkscreen method used in enamel or paint, but this panel does not look to have been done this way unless the traces are actually heavier oxidized areas and the coating was only placed on the background.

Like the saying goes there are many ways to skin the cat.

Regards,
Rich C.

Rich -

Thanks for a good professional explanation of how it was done before plastics.

-Al

Rich -

Managed to get a little time in at the museum this morning and I unscrewed the backing for one of the switches as you suggested. There is definitely a different color under there, and it's probably the original color of the entire face of the panel. Whether it was dark brown or black I couldn't tell for sure as the various coffee drippings, rain water, and other type of spillings through the years, had also stained that part of the panel. However, it was definitely of a darker color.

The "etching" for the lettering and street outlines is not very deep. If you look from the side of the panel face where it "runs off the end", it is hard to even see an etching there at all. Anyway, the bottom line I guess is that there is probably nothing I can do to make the panel more readable for visitors and we'll just have to live with the way it now appears.

Thanks again to all who offered their comments.

Les

One thing I forgot to mention is that WRRS had the terminology SIG-NA-TROL down in the lower right corner of the panel.

Les