N&W switch locks and keys

[NW Mailing List]

40+ years ago, I was issued a switch lock key while training on the Sciota
Division.  I carried that key long after I left the NW as a fond reminder
of my time on the railroad.  Attending a train show years later, I saw an
N&W sweetheart lock, used my my key to unlatch the lock and secure it to
the leg of the folding table and then bought the lock when the proprietor
(a personal acquaintance) came back to his table.  My key worked on a lock
that I assume was at least 50 or 60 years old when I bought it 30 years
ago.  I lost that key to a pickpocket 15 years ago.

I attended the Gaithersburg Railroad Artifact Show last weekend.  There
were lots of locks, keys, china, timetables, calendars...... and I bought a
key, an N&W key that looked much like the key in my memories.  I made a
point of looking at lots of keys, one vendor had a bucket with hands full
of keys, including two styles of "new" N&W keys.  "How do you have two
styles of keys?"  The N&W used multiple designs or something to that effect
was the answer that I was given.  I made a point of looking once again at
locks on display and made sure the bit on the key I was looking at aligned
with the slot in the locks I saw at the show.  When I got home I found that
my new key did not work in my lock, even if the bit aligned on the outside.

Questions
1.  When did the N&W stop using the cast sweetheart locks?
2.  How many styles of lock and key did the N&W use?  Was it just
happenstance that my original key worked in the lock that I bought?
3.  Where are all of these locks and keys coming from?  I must admit to
some guilt in buying a piece of hardware that by all rights should be RR
property.  That is part of the reason it took me so long to buy a key after
loosing my original.
4.  What is Norfolk Southern (and the rest of the RR industry) using now?
NW was struggling with a new lock system when I was working in the late
70's.  The new locks suffered from melted interior components when heated
by a fusee to overcome frozen ice and snow.  The new locks had keys that
would not work when the previous users bit was filed off to access other
(unauthorized) locks.  The new locks were easily broken off of switch
stands when the lock didn't work.  Newer was not necessarily better.

What is the story behind switch locks and their keys?
David Ray
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