Rule 261 and new signalling between Patchogue and Speonk

What I always found interesting, and important for safety, was that position light and semaphore signals with lights, gave an extra added benefit of being able to see the "message" twice or two ways; color position like the B&O had was even better. But redundency is not in the vocabulary of 21st Century businesses, certainly not in those run by the bottom line rather than safety and service. Still, color lights have been used by more railroads around the world longer than anyother system (save semaphores without lights) with a very high degree of safety. Learning the system is not really hard, either, in that a color or combination of colors make an aspect rather than a straight line. Color signals can be single search light, tri faced search light, or stacked like road traffic signals, and do seem to operate quite well where applied. Look in any book of rules and compare the different "systems" based on each railroads different application. (If the LI people think they will have it rough learning one new system, think of those at NJT who have had to learn the PRR, the N&LB, the CNJ, the LV, the RDG, the Erie, the DL&W, the NYC, the EL, the Conrail, and the NJT systems because there is or has been all those signal programs in effect at the same time at one time or another!)

Well with the color lights being almost standard all nearly all roads, will that be easy translation for say and amtrak engr to run out to speonk with a pilot for PCs and references?

As for the color lights on the long beach, thanks UN caus they were long gone long before I was a sperm flake lol.

as for the atlantic branch, I only road it twice and 1x in the RFW and only remember the signals along the elevated portion.

I'm learning a lot here, keep the info comeing. I guess the color lights arent as bad as I inically thought.

amtrak uses norac on the NEC

Hi guys,

Badneighbor, right on times change, so does technology… I’m sure the railfans of yesteryear were upset when the position lights came and the semaphores were removed.

7285, Out on the PRR main line, NS which took over Conrail’s PRR routes still use some position lights, true they are being changed out but this past summer I was able to get some great shots of the position lights in service. Take a look, looks like LIRR signals (minus the NS Dash 9)…






Now here is some trivia for you guys… While in PA I noticed some signal sets have red outer colors for stop, but they are position lights, any signal experts know why?

Barry

Hey Barry,

The "western" side of the PRR (generally everything west of Pittsburgh) used red for stop-signal and stop-and-proceed for a loooooong time. The pivot bulb would be dark with only the 3:00 and 9:00 positions being red. All other aspects were standard yellow. I forget this history of this but Amtrak went with this style when they decided to "colorize" the position light signals in the NEC in the recent past.

Hey Un Block,

Thanks for the explanation. In Altoona, at CP SLOPE the signals are like that, with the dual reds for stop. When I first saw that I thought it was a Conrail add-on, so I didn't photograph them as much. I guess that extends a little east of Pittsburgh… I noticed Amtrak’s NEC is signaled like that, as you said. Another railfan I met said PRR did that in all non-electrified areas, but I soon ruled that out. It sure is interesting to venture 300 miles from Long Island and see the same familiar signals. Definitely reminds me of Long Island’s heritage!

Barry

9C1LT1 wrote:looks like LIRR signals (minus the NS Dash 9)

and also minus the LONG freight train trailing those NS engines hehe. I think the longest freight I've seen on LI in my lifetime was maybe 30 cars tops.

I've always been a signal buff; I like every type of signals. Someone said above about buying off-the-shelf equipment. That probably hit the nail on the head. It's likely cheaper to buy "standard" electronics and signal hardware than to pay more for custom designed equipment to work with position-light signals that are only found in the Northeast. Actually, more standardization would probably be better.

Economics is usually the driving factor in any major business decision.

Anyway, even if LIRR begins to standardize on color-light signals, it will be many years until all the P/L's are gone. So we can still enjoy the pos-lights for years to come. At least from the station platforms, if (ahem) not from the front window.

Pddly, US&S has dropped PL from their catalog, but still lists the B&O style color PL.

So, I guess it's finally not a catalog item anymore...

Oh god barry, you had to get me lit. Thats a friggne sweet shot, looks so much like our signals the nazi southern units runes it, slap a keystone and tuscan/brunswick and were talking business.

I beleive that the 2 outer red light you were talking about alos appeared on the absolute stop, witch was the 2 reds flashing, I only read something once a while back so i don't remember 100%

wasn't there high opisition of the color lights hiting horse shoe curve?

a LIRR motorman told me that the colored signals were because most of the new workforce on the LIRR have a hard time decoding what the PL signals aspects are. the LIRR figured that they would be more acclamated to traffic lights so they went with that instead.

<img src="http://www.cityofcalabasas.com/images/signal.gif">

Here are a couple of vintage position light signals and antique bases.

The train is the Patchogue-Babylon "Scoot" westbound approaching Great River. The Montauk Highway overpass is in the background.


Photo by Jules P. Krzenski, D. Keller Archive, posted on website of East Islip Historical Society.

Dave

Here's a shot of the old side-by-side with the new out at PD:

Hey Dave,

It looks like the letter "S" fell off the number plate of 448.

Jeff

And even older yet:

Showing newly-installed train order light to replace this:


Being a dinosaur HAS its moments!

Dave