Old Griswold gates in action

[cabman701]

Found this on RailVideos.Net. Check out the signals at the end of this video:

http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=4919

[illinoistrains]

that is one fine lookin signal

[Crossingman18]

those could be Safetran EM gates... They look much newer than the masts.

[milwsteve]

great looking gates,I miss these gates with the wish bone gate arms,I remember them from the late 70's to the mid 80's here in Iowa on the Milwaukee Road,Chicago and Northwestern, and the Rock Island.At that time they were very common to find.most of these style of gates are pretty much gone,just a few left. Steve Church Milwaukee Road River Line Division

[Brent]

There were still quite a few wooden gates left on the former Chicago & Northwestern "Old Line" (now UP's Kenosha Sub) into the late 90's. UP eventually came through and replaced them with modern aluminum and fiberglass ones, since the old ones were incredibly faded. Some had their stripes repainted with spray paint shortly before being removed. There are still a handful of the EM mechanisms in use along that line as well, but they're the newer Safetran ones.
The former Milwaukee Road C&M Sub also had some of the old EM mechanisms in service until a few years ago. Most of them were rusted out around the bases and ready for retirement. CP pulled all of them out and replaced them along with the old detection equipment at those crossings. (Andy, any left on the CP up by you?)
I also remember there being a crossing with black and yellow gates on the Racine portion of the Milwaukee Road's R&SW Division before it was pulled up the early 80's. Somewhere on RailPictures.net is a picture of another crossing with black and yellow gates, but I have no idea where to find it anymore.

[AndyWS]

Nope. I think CP is Griswold-gate-free on the Tomah, Watertown and C&M Subs now. They've eliminated most of their 8" lights in the last few years too, except for a few west of Watertown, around Richwood, Doylestown and Astico that have clear L.E.D.s in them. At least they kept most of the mechanical bells, and not ALL of them shut off when the gates are closed.

The WSOR Reedsburg Subdivision from Madison northwestward still has at least 4 crossings with Griswold EM gates complete with all 8" Griswold lights, including E. Johnson Street near the Madison Yard which has four of the signals total. There may still be five crossings, if the ones at Rock Springs didn't drown in the flood last June.

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/L-P ... /Baldwin1/

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/L-P ... E_Johnson/

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/L-P ... K/Forster/

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/A-K/Baraboo/Walnut/

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/R-Z ... /Broadway/

Judging from a CD-ROM of old pictures by Verne Brummel that I have, the subdivision used to be even more rife with these signals, and they used to all have black-and-white striped wooden A-gates.

[Brent]

I have that CD Rom as well. Good stuff on there!