How common were elevated crossing towers? Most photos of crossings that I have seen have ground level shacks for crossing guards. Were elevated crossing towers for limited visibility locations perhaps? Any info would be appreciated.

Boyd


bowens@rypn.org

I recall reading some articles written by retired railroaders that indicated that some elevated crossing towers controlled multiple crossings. A common example would be where a station sat between two streets that crossed the railroad. An elevated crossing tower gave the crossing guard adequate visability of both crossings that he controlled.

awalker2002@comcast.net

Of the four DL&W "cabins" that still exist (all but one still up in the air) on the former Syracuse & Utica Division, I know for sure that 2 of them controlled multiple crossings.

Joshua

Surviving D&H Non-EMDs

I was wondering about them last night after seeing an ad in MR. What I can't figure out is how they got coal or wood up to that stove.

dphend@wcnet.org

Good question, since some of them seem to have had only vertical ladders, not stairs like the one in the photo below.
BTW, the one at Mid-Continent (pictured in my original post), will eventually receive stairs of some type.

Boyd



bowens@rypn.org

Should have checked Mid-Continent's web site before asking, since that's where my example photo came from.
Here's the description from the site:
As crossing protection became more sophisticated, railroads devised a mechanism that could protect a crossing by dropping an arm or gate across the road to protect vehicles and pedestrians from train movements. These gates had to be activated manually by an employee. Thus evolved the elevated crossing tower. From a higher vantage point, the employee had better visibility of both road traffic and train movements. With increased visibility, a single operator could control gates at multiple crossings when in close proximity. Crossing towers were a common sight at larger communities, often near the depot or industries where train movements might be erratic.

Boyd

bowens@rypn.org

Here is a poor quality photo of one in my hometown. As said above, it was to operate the crossing gates. A few years ago I saw such towers still in regular use near Eastborne in the UK.

gbrewer@yahoo.com

This isn't the best possible picture, but in the far right corner you can see an unusual elevated crossing shanty. The building is enclosed because the gates were powered by compressed air, and the 600V compressor and storage tanks were located on the first floor. The gates protected both the CA&E and the parallel C&NW, which you can see to the left of the car. I believe this system later had to be replaced because it wasn't fail-safe. If power was lost, the gates remained in the up position.



http://206.103.49.193/cae/htm/cae062.htm

In Washington, DC, Capital Traction Company, the Metropolitan Railway, and Washington Railway & Electric controlled joint trackage on Union Staion Plaza using switch towers at several locations on Capitol Hill. One of these was restored by our Museum in 1996. It is shown here with HTM 1329.

Union Station Switch Tower

Happy Monday All...

Figured you might enjoy a picture of a two story tower on an active line (in this case the DL in scranton). This one is ex D&H and located along Wyoming Avenue in Scranton. Its under the care of Lackawanna County I believe, its painted now and then and Santa regularly appears inside at Christmas time.

This area was quite the yard at one time and the "throat" of the yard if you will is right at the intersection of Woming Avenue and Gibson Streets. I believe there was an at grade crossing with the Scranton Transit Trolley line along Wyoming Avenue here in addition.

The stairs were located on the outside of the building but were removed at some point. They attached right at the platform on the side of the tower.

The photograph is at the botom right of the page linked below.

Dave Crosby

ex D&H crossing shanty
bing@epix.net

> Were elevated crossing towers for
> limited visibility locations perhaps?

Attached is a picture that I took in July of 2002 of an active crossing tower here in Eastern Pennsylvania. It's located on the ex-Reading Bethlehem Branch in Lansdale, PA. (Trackage owned by SEPTA, with SEPTA passenger service and CSX freight service.)

I think the reason for the tower still being in operation here is because of the odd trackage arrangement, consisting of multiple tracks crossing a busy road, combined with the active Lansdale passenger station which SEPTA services (where I'm taking the picture from) just across the street. Trains go just across the street and stop at the platforms. I'm guessing that a human is needed to know when to operate the gates.

> Boyd

JimE


Jim's train pages

> Good question, since some of them seem to
> have had only vertical ladders, not stairs
> like the one in the photo below.
> BTW, the one at Mid-Continent (pictured in
> my original post), will eventually receive
> stairs of some type.

> Boyd

This tower was at Neenah on the Soo Line. It originally had a ladder to a trap door in the floor; the long stairway was a later addition.

I'm sure coal got up to the stove the same way coal got most places it needed to go in those days; in a gunny sack slung over someone's back.

The operation at the tower in the photo was rather interesting in its last days; it lasted into the early nineties, IIRC. The tower stood where the north lead to Neenah yard paralleled the main, just past the start of the yard ladder. By the time I stopped in (1986 or so) the gates were on an automatic circuit. The crossing watchman's job was to judge if the yard engine was going to stop short of the crossing, and if so, override the gate circuit so that traffic could cross, as this was the main street into town from US 41. As of 1986, this was a 24/7 operation with four jobs: first, second, third trick, and a swing man. At the time of my visit, the swing "man" was a nice lady named Kathy. The operation lasted until the crossing was grade separated.

Dennis Storzek


dstorzek@elnet.com

Here is the link (somehow lost above):
http://www.vphistoricalsociety.com/imag ... lla20s.jpg

Villa Park, IL CA&E
gbrewer@yahoo.com

> Attached is a picture that I took in July of
> 2002 of an active crossing tower here in
> Eastern Pennsylvania. It's located on the
> ex-Reading Bethlehem Branch in Lansdale, PA.
> (Trackage owned by SEPTA, with SEPTA
> passenger service and CSX freight service.)

> I think the reason for the tower still being
> in operation here is because of the odd
> trackage arrangement, consisting of multiple
> tracks crossing a busy road, combined with
> the active Lansdale passenger station which
> SEPTA services (where I'm taking the picture
> from) just across the street. Trains go just
> across the street and stop at the platforms.
> I'm guessing that a human is needed to know
> when to operate the gates.

> JimE

Jim:

Nice to see an elevated crossing tower still in service. Thanks for the photo and info. Last I heard, there was one still operational in Blue Island, Illinois at a multiple railroad crossing there that was located just off of a busy street.

How many others are still in use out there? At one time there must have been thousands active throughout North America but my guess is that they are down to just a handfull today.

One other thing, there has been talk about how coal was brought up to the towers (manual labor) and the obvious problem this represented. What is also interesting however, is the fact that most (if not all) of these towers had NO PLUMBING! I have heard that this presented an interesting problem to workers who had to remain on duty never knowing for sure when a train would show up.

A final question; how many museums/tourist railroads have elevated crossing towers; either historic structures or reproductions?

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



midlandblb@cs.com

What is also interesting
> however, is the fact that most (if not all)
> of these towers had NO PLUMBING!

But they had windows!!! :^)