Derail Operation -- *Pittsburgh Traction* Video shows this nicely!

[Dietrich, Robert J.]

Hello:

I am in possession of a video with some footage that Bill Vigrass took of
the signaling.  If I were to describe it my interpretation would be very
close to Professor Holland's, without his eloquence of course.  The only
difference on Bill's video is the delay between cars, closer to 5 seconds
than 5 minutes.  

Colors:  Center is RED, bottom could be white and the top appears to have a
tint of green.  Unfortunately our cameramen could not position themselves to
get the best view of the signals, at least without bodily harm.

In the future those particular signals will have red-center, yellow-bottom,
and green-top --- those are the colors in the signals I bought for my
module.

Bob


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Jim Holland [mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net] 
Sent:	Friday, February 25, 2000 6:43 AM
To:	PRCo -- WP -- JTC -- The Big *3*
Subject:	Derail  Operation  --  *Pittsburgh  Traction*  Video  shows
this nicely!

Greetings!

On 1999.12.16 at 09.31 AM Eastern time, John Swindler said:::::::

> As for derail signal, center was red, but impression is that upper 
> signal was white.  Would feel more comfortable if someone could check
> an old operator's manual rather then trying to rely on memory from
> 30+ years ago.

	The video shows two different cars going thru the derail within
about 5
minutes of each other.
	The center light appears red.  It appears as though once the car has
passed thru the switch contactor while the motorman was depressing the
track switch toggle, the red light remains on while the light below it
comes on.  Colors are not easily discernible on video unless head-on and
this is somewhat from the side, but the intensity of the bottom light is
quite strong and appears white.
	John had previously indicated that there was a time delay before the
switch set.  Within several seconds, both the red and white light go out
and the top light comes on; this top light *might* be green.
	As soon as the front truck is on top of the derail, the top light
goes
out and the red light comes back on.  When the trolley pole passes the
contactor on the far side of the derail, the derail sets again for the
*turnout-to-nowhere* - ie, derail!

James B. Holland
------- -- ---------
        Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo), June of 1949 -- June of 1953
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