I am not so sure about the word "easily".
I remember a trip south on the River Line back in the Penn Central days
when we went down the siding at CP-13 (at that time it was CP-13) and
dispatcher told us to pull right down to CP-7. We met a train or maybe
two trains and eventually stopped at CP-7 with a red dwarf signal. The
dispatcher than told us to crank the switch over and call him back after
we did that. We went to the locked box where the tools were supposed to
be kept but there was no hand crank. We had nothing on the engine to
use so we were hanging. There were often railfans in the area with cars
and before long, one showed up and offered to help after having heard us
on his scanner. We looked in his trunk and presto, lets try the tire iron
which was awkward to use but eventually we got the switch lined over for
the siding and made it to North Bergen where we got relieved.
I know the railroad considered the switches on the River Line to be dual
controlled but I did not, if the dispatcher could not line the switch from his
machine for one reason or another, they could only be lined by the use of
a hand crank which sometimes could be found in the locked tool box at
the location and in the above case there wasn't one to be had.
A true dual controlled switch had two levers on the machine both protected
by switch locks, one of which would change the operation of the switch
from power to hand throw and the second lever would actually throw the
switch. During my time on the River Line, I do not recall any switches of
this nature on this line but later on when I was working out of Selkirk to
Buffalo, there were some interlocked switches on both the Mohawk and
the SR&B where these switches were used. Times were much better
during that period and we rarely if ever had to hand throw these switches.
Noel Weaver
