BH Tower, Walton: Thoughts on Mr. Gordon's Photo of thee CTC Machine

[NW Mailing List]

> On Apr 27, 2017, at 6:03 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 13.)  Signal levers are on the top row of the machine, switch levers are on the second row.  (You can tell by the number of indication lamps over the levers:  signal levers have only two lamps; switch levers have three.)  This is a little odd, but Union Switch & Signal would configure the lever positions any way the railroad specified.  What this meant is that the operator would not work in a normal top-to-bottom sequence, but would have to start down, then work up, then work down again.  Probably a little inefficient until you got the hang of it.

I believe you mean the reverse. Signal levers have three positions and lamps (left, off, and right) while switch levers have two (normal and reverse). At, for instance, a single switch at the end of the passing siding, all it took was one switch lever and one signal lever. The signal lever could be set to go either way (you could only go one way or the other at a time) and even when going from two tracks to one, only one lever was needed for both same direction signals (main and siding) since which one cleared was determined by which way the switch was set.

-- 
Larry Stone
lstone19 at stonejongleux.com