[PRCo] Re: signals

[Fred Schneider]

And sometimes Mark,

we assume a false truth because we instinctively think something must be true.

Some 40 years ago when I began my research into Conestoga Traction Company (here in Lancaster), I found a former company manager (David Baker) who had kept notes during is career in a pocket sized, buckram covered notebook.  He wrote down when each stretch of signals was activated.  He also recorded when one-man cars began on each line.  There was an amazing correlation.  Generally one-man operation began on each line within five days of the date signals were turned on.  It therefore became obvious to me (an assumption) that the
company didn't want one-man cars running on timetable authority.  Some 40 years later I know question if there might have been a PUC General Order requiring two-man cars on non-signalled track??????

For what it is worth, the signal installations began soon after a 1923 head-on collision that killed both motormen.  I guess that proves that the junior man on the freight motor didn't want to overrule the motorman, or he was too busy talking to the freight handler, or two people had watches that were slow.  But it did prove that two men could collectively make mistakes.

The 1942 collision of a Lehigh Valley Transit box motor with an ex-C&LE passenger car also proved that there is no reason to believe that one man with good eyesight can be expected to observe that a semiphore blade is down in the stop position and then react to it.

Maybe signals helped to prevent accidents but they weren't the end all.  Automatic train stop (ATS) supplementing the signals should also be fool proof but we keep making better fools .... those who can tramp on the acknowledger pedal to shut off the whistle and still forget to make a brake application.

And Jim,

when you get this project finished, are you publishing it on line as a finished copy?  If I take hours to go through photographs, will it help us to have the definitive document?

And has anyone asked Ed,

if he saw anything moved into the PTM files that shows signal installations?

fws

Mark McGuire wrote: