Ye Olde Bo Tower

[rettop]

Well, we have all seen the answers on this site about the "Bo Tower"; I pass it a few times a week and the occupant's black SUV is consistently there. What is he doing in the tower????With 6 Amtraks a day and a few Grand Elks and all the new signaling, I hope they have plenty of crosswords to or computer games!!!

[NYCMan]

Ever give ponderance that the Operator at BO Tower could be female?

Lots of work for a tower operator to be doing. Sweep the floor. Clean the windows. Look at all the centerfold pictures posted on the wall. Shoot rubber bands at the rats. Of course, when I was a tower operator, I could only do those interesting things in between writing train orders, lining trains, and communicating with the dispatcher, nearby other towers, and the trains.

Face it, BO Tower's lifetime ahead is short.

[Saturnalia]

How many windows are there even to clean? 2-3 max? IIRC almost all of the. Are boarded up!

[SD80MAC]

BO Tower still controls 19 miles of track. They handle all of the Grand Elk, CN and Amtrak moves in the territory.

[J T]

Ever give ponderance that the Operator at BO Tower could be female?

Lots of work for a tower operator to be doing. Sweep the floor. Clean the windows.

Sounds like the perfect job for a woman!

[ConrailMan5]

Last time I was there the operator was female... just saying.

I would bet the bar crowd gets interesting as I seem to remember lots of foot traffic when I was there.

[GP30M4216]

Maybe things have changed a bit since I last lived in Kalamazoo in 2008, but at that time, the BO Tower operator not only lined the switches and signals for all moves passing through the BO Tower plant, and West Bostford, but manually lined the mainline switch at Gibson, and controlled the territory on the NS Upjohn Industrial, the BO Secondary and maybe the CN Kilgore branch as well. At the time, on a weekday, between the 8 daily Amtraks, 4 daily NS freights, 4(ish) NS local jobs, and the CN Kalamazoo branch local, there was plenty to keep an operator awake. Not overwhelmed necessarily, but definitely awake. I recall at least a few 3-way meets, etc. which required some real forethought and skill to line everyone through in a practical order.

Today, there are fewer Grand Elk trains than in NS times, but the BO operator still has an interlocking to control and track to govern.

And at that time, at least one of the operators was a woman. There was also a woman who was a regular at Delray and at least one at NS Bridge at that time as well.

[ConrailDetr​oit]

There was also a woman who was a regular at Delray and at least one at NS Bridge at that time as well.

Still are at Delray and NS Bridge.

[~Z~]

Back when NS controlled Grand Rapids to Elkhart, friend of mine got to be a flagman at the 44th St crossing in GR for about a month while 44th St was under construction. 10 or 12 hour shifts, and had to flag the crossing for any train traffic. Some days, there were no trains that ran as 46e and 47e ran at night and construction was just during the day. Most of the day was just sitting in his truck with nothing to do.