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Good after noon folks. I saw a post over at Trainorder saying that the Fostoria Tower is to close on the 31 of this month.

Let the mayhem begin...

CSX’s local control tower in Fostoria, one of the last of its kind on the railroad’s entire system

Am I missing something... Does Delray not count? I'm assuming that there is a differemce between "local control tower" and a true Interlocking tower then?

MQT3001 wrote:Let the mayhem begin...

Operator was working under direction of the IP anyway. Just eliminating the middle man. Plenty of busy junctions where towers have closed and mayhem doesn't ensue. Just have to have a dispatcher paying attention...

ConrailMan5 wrote:

CSX’s local control tower in Fostoria, one of the last of its kind on the railroad’s entire system

Am I missing something... Does Delray not count? I'm assuming that there is a differemce between "local control tower" and a true Interlocking tower then?

"One of the last of its kind" is the operative phrase here.

CSX_CO wrote:

MQT3001 wrote:Let the mayhem begin...

Operator was working under direction of the IP anyway. Just eliminating the middle man. Plenty of busy junctions where towers have closed and mayhem doesn't ensue. Just have to have a dispatcher paying attention...

Operator worked with the IP dispatcher on some things. Traffic on the former B&O will move. What will get the shaft is the local moves H791 H793 and especially the hottest train at Fostoria H795 along with the NS. M&W especially the signal dept will have problems with this move. Signals worked with operator to do there test and I can't see the IP dispatcher having time to throw almost 50 switches for testing. Word already has been mentioned if switch test can't be done when required they will be taken out of service. The city will see lots more blocked crossings with trains not being able to see signals when there parked off crossings and F tower would tell them it's ok to come down from Culbertson Adams street and so on. It will be chaos for quite sometime.

This will be a sad sad day. I would not surprised if there is a contingency plan for when things go to hell though.

I do wonder if trespassing problems will escalate when everyone figures out there is nobody in the tower watching them.

It seems only [fitting] to add the words below as written in General Railway Signal Company's
book titled, "Elements of Railway Signaling".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On July 25, 1927, the first centralized traffic control system in the world went in service
between Stanley and Berwick, Ohio, on the Ohio Division of the New York Central Railroad.
This system, invented by Sedgwick N. Wight of GRS, was a tremendous stride forward in
improving facility and economy of train operation.

Here is a first-hand account of operation with the new
system as given in an address by Mr. J.J. Brinkworth of
the New York Central Railroad before the Signal Section
of the Association of American Railroads in 1947.

"... I was particularly involved in centralized traffic control in 1927....
I went to Rochester, to the General Railway Signal Company plant,
and saw the actual machine there. I, of course, became acquainted
with Mr. S.N. Wight of that Company, who studied out the details of
the cTc machine. I went to his house and in the back room we talked
it over in detail for hours."

"Then we came to 1927, when the final date was set to
install centralized traffic control on the Toledo & Ohio Central and put it into service.
Needless to say, we were all over at Fostoria, Ohio, and we watched the progress of
the various signals being put in along the approximately 40 miles of railroad
between Toledo and Berwick. Then, after a comparatively short time, trains started
to move over that piece of single track for the first time without train orders".

"I recall very distinctly, as we had supper in the hotel at
Fostoria and got through, I said to the gang, I do not
know what you fellows are going to do tonight, but I'm
going over to the tower at Fostoria and stay there until I
see a non-stop meet.' Well, they all decided that if the
boss was going over, the rest of the gang had better go,
too. So we went over to the tower at Fostoria in the
evening. The dispatcher was there and he was just filled
up with enthusiasm on this new gadget called central-ized
traffic control. Along about 10:00 o'clock, he just yelled right
out loud, 'Here comes a non-stop meet.’
Well, we all gathered around the machine and watched
the lights that you know all about, watched the lights
come towards each other and pass each other without
stopping."

"That, to me, and to you, too, was history on American
railroads, the first non-stop meet on single track without
train orders, of course, that we knew of. We waited at
Fostoria until the southbound train arrived there and you
never saw such enthusiasm in your life as was in the
minds and hearts of that crew, the first non-stop meet of
which they had ever heard."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enjoying the forum,

John

I thought the CTC machine was in the NYC tower?

bdconrail29 wrote:I thought the CTC machine was in the NYC tower?

It was, the NYC tower had the first CTC machine, F tower was built long after this event took place.

CG Tower

F tower was built in the fourties IIRC

MagnumForce wrote:F tower was built in the fourties IIRC

50s

ConrailMan5 wrote:

CSX’s local control tower in Fostoria, one of the last of its kind on the railroad’s entire system

Am I missing something... Does Delray not count? I'm assuming that there is a differemce between "local control tower" and a true Interlocking tower then?

No, you're right. Delray is something similar.

cbehr91 wrote:

MagnumForce wrote:F tower was built in the fourties IIRC

50s

I concur. AFAIK it wasn't interlocked until then either.

MagnumForce wrote:F tower was built in the fourties IIRC

1948

The original machine at F Tower was a GRS NX machine...at the time it was installed, it replacesd manual target signals at all the diamonds.

For what it's worth, at the time it cost $950,000 to upgrade the entire plant. This per the Railway Signaling article I have on the upgrade.

The entire article is very interesting, I could scan if any one is interested.

CG Tower

CG Tower wrote: The entire article is very interesting, I could scan if any one is interested.
CG Tower

Please do!