CH Tower Cowan, BX Tower Christiansburg - Construction Date

[NW Mailing List]

The January 1910 issue of Railway Signal Engineer (vol. 10, no. 1) contains
a eight page listing of signal work in progress or recently completed on US
and Candaian railroads. I am attaching an abstract of the relevant pages.

The "Under Construction" table lists both "Low Grade Tunnel" and
Christiansburg. The references are obviously to CH Tower at Cowan and BX
Tower at Christiansburg.

The Cowan interlocking is shown as an electric machine with 32 spaces, but
only 6 working levers. So there was "room to grow" available for future
expansion. The 6 "working levers" equates perfectly to two one-switch,
double-track-to-single-track interlockings, one at each end of the Low
Grade Tunnel (Bluff on the east, and Cowan on the west.)

The Christiansburg interlocking was a little more complicated, having both
mechanical and electric levers. I believe the mechanical levers (16 lever
frame, only 9 levers installed) were for the crossovers and switches at or
near the tower itself (which was some distance east of the station,) and
the electric levers (16 lever frame, with 16 levers installed) were for
control of switches and signals at Pelton and perhaps in the station area.

Now come the observations, questions, conjectures, & cetera ...

(1) I am convinced that, prior to the construction of the interlocking at
Cowan, the railroad was single track between Pepper station and Belspring.
And that, coincident with the opening of Cowan, the double track was
extended westward from Pepper to the new location named Bluff. At the same
time, the double track was extended eastward from Belspring to Cowan, so
that there was only one mile of single track through the tunnel (Bluff to
Cowan.)

(2) Prior to the construction of BX at Christiansburg, the whole area was
no doubt hand-switch territory. But where was the Train Order Office and
Block Station? Was it in the old freight station, or in the new passenger
station?

(3) The 1917 "under construction" date for BX Christiansburg Tower matches
up nicely with the 1916 date given in other sources for the construction of
the "Walton-Pelton Freight Running Track." Thus, the east end of the new
Freight Running Track would have been interlocked from (or perhaps almost
from) the beginning.

(4) What types of interlocking machines were used for these new
interlockings? Union Switch & Signal had introduced its Type F
electro-mechanical interlocking machines for AC current shortly before, and
the N&W, seemingly having preferred AC equipment from the beginning,
probably ordered these.

(5) How does the railroad name "Cowan" relate to the history of that area?

(6) Bill Harman, a 1940 (?) hire, now of Blessed Memory, told me his
father's generation stated that the telegraph call "BX" represented the
name "Buffalo Crossing"... the point on the Allegheny Mountain where the
buffalo crossed the mountain in olden days. Perhaps romantic myth, perhaps
not. Mr. Jeff Hawkins, who now sitteth on top of the Mountain, can
demythologize the story.

(7) What did the N&W use for Train Order signals at these two new towers?
Was there a separate semaphore, located at the tower itself, and in
addition to the eastward and westward home signals, used as the Train Order
signal? Or did they continue the 60 year old practice of "flag or lantern
on a post, or hung out the window" to indicate Train Orders?

So many questions. So few answers. And the more answers we get, the more
questions are engendered.

-- abram burnett

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http://nwhs.org/mailinglist/2014/20141005.Railway_Signal_Engineer_Jan_1917_Signal_Work_for_1916-1917_abstract.pdf
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