Signal Question and rule term

[NW Mailing List]

Abram,

Thank you for the insight and answering my next few questions with out even
having to ask. I was going to ask if there were any plans to go with a
speed based system when they decided to use Medium in aspects as that's
usually what would follow. However it seems that is not the case.

-Brandon Kaback

p.s.

Please write that article!


On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 10:32 PM, NW Mailing List
<nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>wrote:


> The matter can be summed up this way:  The N&W Operating Rules for 13

> years used the word "Medium" in the names of three of its signal aspects,

> but that word didn't authorize  "Medium Speed" (30 MPH)  over the turnout.

> The speed over the turnout was "as prescribed" in the Time Table Special

> Instructions.

>

> The  >>ONLY<<  N&W Rule Book which uses the term "Medium" in naming signal

> aspects is the 1951 Rule Book.  (Those aspects are Approach Medium, Medium

> Clear and Medium Approach.)

>

> There is one other key ingredient of a Speed Signaling system which is

> missing: the N&W never used "Slow Speed" (15 MPH)  signals over switches

> having No. 10 frogs.  Slow Speed signal aspects (Approach Slow, Slow Clear,

> Slow Approach) are entirely missing from all N&W Rule Books.  Given that

> the N&W had two arms on its home and distant Position Light signals, and

> enough lamp spaces on its Position Light dwarf signals, it would have been

> quite easy (and beneficial) to have given Slow Speed signals where

> required, but they didn't do it.  Nor did the N&W ever use Limited Speed

> (40/45 MPH) signals.

>

> For these reasons, it would probably be best to say that the N&W never had

> a real Speed Signaling system, the use of the word "Medium" for a few years

> notwithstanding.

>

> As someone on this List remarked a few days ago, the N&W clung to the

> "semaphore mentality."

>

> In one way, not using the equipment they had to its fullest potential was

> a waste.  But in another way, they didn't need a Speed Signaling system.

> Their interlockings were not complex and  they did not operate trains on

> close headways.  They got by with a simple system that did what they needed.

>

> Remember the old K.I.S.S. principle?   "Keep it simple, Stupid!"

>

> Nonetheless, I would really love to get inside the head of W.P. Wiltsee,

> the Chief Signal Engineer in the 1930s and 1940s, to find out what he was

> really thinking... especially with some of that stuff he ordered on his new

> CTC equipment in the 1940s !

>

> -- abram burnett,

>            frustrated electron jockey

>

>

>

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