PRR Lewistown Cab Signal & Train Control Tests in 1923 a big fiasco?

[NW Mailing List]

After WWI, train size, weight and speed were all increasing. The 16 hour 
law restricted some of the worst abuses of working a crew beyond 
exhaustion, but non-stop weeks at this level of work wore men out.

     Too many high speed collisions were occurring with passenger trains 
involved. Crew inattention  was often named as cause, and some were 
starting to ask about crew fatigue.

     Under public pressure, government responded after consulting with 
RR mgt.  The RR's did not want to slow down, or reduce hours worked, so 
a "fail-safe" system was devised as the "low-cost" alternative.  While 
the system may have been cumbersome, it did reduce accidents.

     From that we have other safety programs. If one thinks about it for 
a minute, I'm sure most of us would rather have RR safety systems and 
Air Traffic Control.

     WJPowers



On 7/19/2018 8:02 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> The Gubbmint's big 1920s "train Control" fiasco/boondoggle occupies 
> much of the signal literature of that decade.
>
>
> And thus it is that the July 1923, issue of Railway Signal Engineer 
> (vol. 16, p. 288) carries a several-page listing of which form of 
> train control the various roads had chosen, and on which territories 
> it would be installed.
>
>
> The entry for the Norfolk & Western is very interesting, to wit:  
> "Territory on which installation is to be made, not specified.  Device 
> Selected:  This road is a party to tests being made of Union Switch & 
> Signal Co's device on the Lewistown Branch of the Pennsylvania RR."
>
>
> The branch on which the referenced "tests" were conducted was the 
> Sunbury & Lewistown Branch, 50 miles long, in Pennsylvania, some of 
> which is still in service.  It was in these tests that the first cab 
> signals were tested and, as part of the test package, 
> electro-pneumatic equipment was included which would apply the brake 
> if an engineman exceeded certain speed thresholds imposed by cab 
> signal aspect.  The principles of coded track had not been invented at 
> this time.  The first experiments used a principle called "loop and 
> track currents," by which two AC currents were present along the track 
> and, depending upon whether these two currents were in-phase or 
> out-of-phase with each other, the cab signal responded in different 
> ways, employing inductive pick-up.  The experiments lasted over two 
> years and were the subject of a number of articles in the technical 
> trade press.  The NRHS Library in Washington holds a number of 
> original photographs taken during the tests.
>
>
> I would love to know the agreement by which the N&W was "a party" to 
> the tests, which N&W personnel participated and what reports they filed.
>
>
> Attached is a PDF-ized  article which appeared in Railroad Magazine in 
> 1952, describing the tests.  It is a "popular" and human-interest type 
> article, not a technical one.  If you wish to know how the equipment 
> worked, you must go to Railway Signal Engineer magazine.
>
>
> (PS - When the N&W made its first cab signal and train control 
> installation, on the north end of the Shenandoah Division, sometime 
> around 1926, they used the old "track and loop current" technology 
> which was worked out at Lewistown. Every time I look at the circuits, 
> the word which comes to mind is, "Nightmare."  It is a wonder they 
> ever kept all the variables in adjustment.  But those old guys got the 
> job done, using what they had.  The cab signals between Shenandoah and 
> Roanoke, installed later, operated by a different principle.)
>
>
> -- abram burnett,
>
>     defendant
>
>
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>
> Moderator:
>
> https://www.nwhs.org/mailinglist/2018/20180719.PRR_Early%20Cab%20Signals__Schnure__Railroad%20Magazine_Oct%201952_rev%207-19-2018.pdf
>
>
>
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