gate towers, aka crossing towers

[c. s. giscombe]

I’m writing about gate towers or crossing towers.

I grew up in Dayton, Ohio and the PRR maintained two manned crossing towers there until 1969 or 1970, long after the advent of automatic protection. (Other Dayton crossings on this very busy line, the old Panhandle Route, used automated gates and/ or lights.) Can anyone speculate about why these towers remained in place so long? They were very labor-intensive--I remember watching the tower operator (in 1968 or 1969) using a long pole to _pump_ the gates down, pausing occasionally to stick his arm out the window to ring the bell. My thanks for any responses.

[gedunk]

The Pennsy, and later the PennCentral, was really constrained by the labor contracts with the employees unions. Those towers survived until the operators (undoubtably of very high seniority) quit or retired.

[AndrewFields]

Does anybody have a picture of these towers?

[c. s. giscombe]

My thanks to Gedunk for the answer to my question.

And, Andrew Fields, I _wish_ I had photos of the towers. Looking around quickly on the WWW the closest approximation to them--what they looked like--is here, at this model site: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wt ... I=ATLU0701.

Thanks again.

[weatherdan882002]

Not sure if this was one, but in this picture, there's a buiding known as "the XO Tower":



No one seems to know what it was used for back in the day when trains used to be our city's biggest industry (used to be a BIG railyard that they're currently trying to bring back to life). IDK if that was used as a rail tower or not. For the record the building on the extreme left used to be an old train station, which I guess they're trying to turn into a museum.

[Smjh1979]

I don't know if this is what c. s. giscombe was asking about, but here is a signal tower in Blue Island, IL.

[Andrewsaxamophone]

Vermont and Broadway (in that picture) both use crossing towers because there are to many tracks and switches, it would be a complete night mare to do all the wiring, plus all the malfunctions that would occur just from trains switching over.

[AndrewFields]

Towers like these are also used at interlockings.