LIRR towers

Hi. Does anyone know if Valley Tower had an Armstong machine? How about Nassau tower? We were talking about PD tower, how many other towers on the LIRR had them? Harold tower, Jay tower and Hall would have to be included in this list.

Ron

Nassau had an armstrong machine. Don't know if it still does.

Harold, Jay, Hall had electro-pneumatic handles.

Old Divide had armstrong levers. New Divide did not.

Old Babylon I'm unsure of. It was one of the brick towers and all the brick towers of which I'm familiar had electro-pneumatic levers (including Park and Fremont).

Ditto for Dunton, also a brick tower.

New Babylon did not have armstrong levers.

SG cabin had a table machine with electric handles, but the switch to the passing siding was hand-thrown outside at the switch.

Bliss had a table machine with electric handles.

Ditto for old Ronkonkoma.

Pond tower had armstrong levers when I photographed it in 1969.

Years ago, stations that handled the block were originally equipped with armstrong levers but were later switched to table machines.

Old CI's (Central Islip) table machine is visible below in the center of the photo on the bay window desk behind the old dial telephone:



The old armstrong levers used to be at the far right of the bay window desk, visible here behind agent George Ayling's crossed arms:



Dave Keller

Nassau tower used to have armstrong levers. Now Nassau just has a desktop board with the little switches on it, similar what we use for model trains.

Indiana

Ron,

If you go back far enough, ALL towers were equipped with mechanical interlocking machines. That was the technology towards the end of the 19th century. So, just about every tower on LI that was old enough to have had a number, before call letters, would've had a mechanical machine.

Dave already summed up the status of these machines in the second half of the 20th century: Pond, Nassau and PD were only ones left by the middle 1960s; Divide's 48-lever Saxby & Farmer machine bit the dust on 11-13-1962. Dave was also correct in stating that all of the towers of brick construction had electro-mechanical interlocking machines. Almost all of them were US&S Model 14 machines with pneumatic switches in the field. Two exceptions were Win and Bedford with their GRS Model 2 "pistol-grip" machines.

Note to FEC Chris:
Yes, PD's old S&F levers were there until 1991, however, sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s the pipe connections were removed and 13 switch received electric switch machines controlled from old mechanical lever 13. I no longer remember if at that point, facing point lock lever 12 did anything any more.

Hope this helps!