N&W CPLs, the last generation

[NW Mailing List]

From my experience the PL2s out number anything on the N&W by far Pockey and Scioto div almost 100% 

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Larry Evans

> On Dec 30, 2019, at 3:01 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> There have been several questions about the last PL signals installed on the N&W.  I am no authority, but I have a few facts which perhaps others can use to assemble the puzzle.
> 
> First, let's get some nomenclature out on the table.  Attached is a photograph of the three generations of PL technology, which may be distinguished by the lamp housings.  From bottom to top, they are the PL-1 (the oldest,) the PL-2 and the PL-3 (the newest.)  Each version has an ENTIRELY different optical system.  To keep this nice and simple, let us jettison the details and just say that the N&W did not use the PL-2.  They went directly from the PL-1 model to the PL-3 for change-outs and renewals.  If you want the story of all the permutations, engineering and reasons, it would take a large-size article, and no one here would read it.  
> 
> By the time I hired in 1964, almost all the PL-1s lamp housings had been changed out with PL-3s.  The last place I saw PL-1s in use was at Randolph Street interlocking in Roanoke, in 1982.  I have no doubt that those old PL-1s soldiered on until the desecration of Randolph Street three or four years ago, but I was not there after 1982.
> 
> Now to the question, When did the N&W install its last PL signals?
> 
> 1.  Check the attached PDF, a one page advertisement from the April 1961 issue of Railway Signaling.  The ad announces that Union Switch & Signal had been chosen to supply the signals for the N&W between Singer, Walton and Kellysville.  I think there may have some reverse signaling (Rule 261 a.k.a. CTC) installed west of Singer at this time.  The Walton-Kellysville job had to do with the single-tracking of the N&W and the signaling of the Kellysville Connection.  I do not know when the N&W installed PLs on the Virginian... they were there when I hired.
> 
> I asked a former signal engineer at Union Switch & Signal when his company made its last run of PLs.  His answer was:  **By 1977, Safetran PL signals had been installed on the PRR signal bridge directly in front on the US&S Swissvale plant, which was a slap-in-the-face to US&S.  I would have guessed that PL-3 production ended following the US&S strike of 1981-82, however, the drawing for the hub casting was last revised in 1998, indicating that production continued until at least this date, which was probably a few signals  for the Long Island RR.  As for an embossed tag indicating when the pattern was last revised, I'm not aware of who/when/where/why this was done, except, of course, to differentiate the latest version from previous versions that might be laying around the foundry or machine shop.  That is what the **Q** (raw casting) number is for, so this revision must have been a minor change or, more likely, correction of some defect in the pattern.**
> 
> 2.  An employee who was involved in the 2011 rebuilding of Singer had this to say at the time:  **I found the newest PL-3 I've ever seen during the Singer job.   All signal signal arms were of the PL-2 variety except for one mast, which had PL-3s.  The spider hub has a casting date of what looks like to me to be 6-4-80.  I was told that it was right around the time that a derailment took out one of the bracket signals at Singer.  As far as I know, that was the LAST  PL-3 ever ordered by the N&W.  They also have the US&S logo neatly cast into the lower right corner, unlike the older varieties the N&W had.**
> 
> Perhaps someone can sift through these particulars and come up with a coherent idea about the last PLs purchased by the N&W.  As for me, I have been out of that area for 40+ years and never really didn't knew very much about it anyway.
> 
> (Pardon me for my consistent use of the term PL, instead of the trendy term, CPL.  I am a stick in the mud and simply refuse to capitulate to modernities in any aspect of life...)
> 
> -- abram burnett,
> purveyor of turnip schnapps 
>