"Pole and Paddle" semaphores

[NW Mailing List]

Frank = 

That’s a train order signal and has two arms, one for each direction; if one of the arms is horizontal, the signal light will be red and will tell the approaching train that there are train orders to be picked up.  When the arm is hanging down, the light is green indicating no orders.  These signals have nothing to do with the automatic block signal system.

EdKing

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 3:04 PM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: "Pole and Paddle" semaphores

Ed:

Thanks.  I am referring to the 2-arm semaphore as in the p. 32 photo in your N&W in the Appalachians.  I do not know the correct nomenclature for this device, which is why I put "pole and paddle" within quotation marks.  Can you tell me the correct designation?

In N&W literature I find this top-of-the-pole, 2-arm (paddle) device commonly pictured outside telegraph offices--at interlocking towers and many (not all) stations.  I believe I have read that they were integral to the telegraph block system predating the automatic block system.

So you are saying, I think, that the p. 32 devices, erected before ABS, were not deactivated with the coming of ABS, but in fact soldiered on even with ABS.

I am modeling Boaz-to-Bedford, and photos verify the Villamont interlocking tower and all stations (except the Bedford freight house) with devices as on your p. 32.  Not static at all, I believe you are saying, but operating still mid-century in connection with telegraph offices.

Rail signaling strikes me, not a student of the field, as rather bewildering, so here's a salute to you and others who can unscramble the field for the untutored.

Frank


On 8/5/2013 5:28 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:

  Frank - 

  I never heard the term “pole and paddle”.   To what, exactly, do you refer?  Do you mean the bi-directional signals seen at interlocking towers and some stations?

  N&W adopted the automatic block signals three or four decades before your modeling era, and originally used lower quadrant semaphores and then upper quadrant semaphores which in turn were supplanted by position-light signals.  

  If you refer to the train order signals used at stations and towers, they didn’t have anything to do with automatic block signals.  They were not preserved to salute railroading in years gone by – they had a different purpose entirely, which was to let trains know to pick up train orders at that particular point.  In years before ABS, they were used to block trains.

  EdKing

  From: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2013 11:38 PM
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Subject: "Pole and Paddle" semaphores


  I model N&W c. 1950 and plan to install 2-arm "Pole and Paddle" semaphores which I believe were rendered obsolete with N&W's adoption of the Automatic Block Signal system.  

  Is it true that the "pole and paddle" devices were deactivated upon the introduction of ABS, yet preserved as static salutes to railroading in years gone by at N&W interlocking towers and stations where telegraph offices were located?

  When, roughly, did N&W adopt ABS?

  Thanks.  Frank Gibson

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