[PRCo] Re: car restoration work

[Fred Schneider]

If  two cars enter simultaneously at opposite ends of the block, no one gets an amber.  Rule books need to state which car must back into the siding.

The three color US&S signals on the Pittsburgh interurbans had an additional signal on a post at the end of the siding.  If you pulled into the single track on green, that additional target should illuminate confirming that you had the block.  Two cars entering the track circuit simultaneously would prevent the target from lighting.

I've never known any signal system to be flawless with single-car operation.  While we have Nachods in use at Arden now, a prudent motorman will also keep mental track of radio conversations so as to know that no other car is entering a block.  And a dispatcher is also there to confirm the right of passage through a block.  The overhead wire contactors used in Nachod installations are (were) sensitive to the width of the wheel or shoe on the trolley pole.  They are also very sensitive to the speed of the car passing through the contactor.  I would think, however,  that they were OK for street operation where speeds never exceeded 25 mph and where current collectors are uniform and where motormen knew not to exceed a brisk walk through the contactor.

Pittsburgh Railways had selected 1700s fitted to manually clean the rail heads to get rid of rust ... I think these were the cars that usually ran on Sundays.  The Reading Company had a similar mechanical means to improve rail-to-car contact on selected RDC cars ... those cars that were assigned as single cars between Reading and Pottsville.  It isn't a new problem.  And it isn't a problem with multiple car trains on a heavily used railroad.   If anyone thinks the USS installation was perfect, ask EHL for a copy of a list of failures that were logged during a period in the late 1930s.

As archaic as it was, perhaps the manual signal systems used on between Llanarch and West Chester on the PST and all over the West Penn system were as good as any automatic system.

I'm thoroughly convinced the only thing standing between a railroad employee and a fatality is the number of hours or days or years they work.  Even the best men will eventually run out of time.  (And that law applies to any moving object ... like how many ships owned by the French Line, White Star, Cunard, or the Italians are resting at the bottom of the Atlantic.)


rogertrolley.1 at juno.com wrote: