Page written by: WEHRAR17.

 

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All these signals belong to a gentleman by the name of Paul Knutson. His house near the railroad crossing on Lodi Street is hard to miss with the front and back yards packed with railroad artifacts. I had met him on a couple of train chases along this line and on this day he was kind enough to show me around and turn on the signals for me. All the crossing signals, including four WRRS wigwags and a Griswold rotating stop sign signal, are fully restored and working.

 

Paul's collection also contains several wayside signals including a semaphore; a traffic light, and numerous antique railroad signs.

 

Picture 1 shows a good side-by-side comparison of WRRS' version of the "peach basket" wigwag on the left, with their low-mount "Harpes" style wigwag on the right.

 

Picture 2 shows a WRRS Harpes high-mount wigwag, like those found at Yahara Parkway #2 in Madison, or at Military Rd. in Dane.

 

Pictures 3 and 4 show the Griswold rotating stop sign signal along with a standard 8" signal. That signal came from a crossing in Madison that went defunct in 1999, although the antique signs were not on it when it was in service.

 

You may have seen these signals before from looking at this page:

http://www.whrc-wi.org/Signals/paul_sig1a.htm