Photo of Arthur Tower

[NW Mailing List]

Attached is an undated photograph of Arthur Tower, shot off the rear end of
a westbound passenger train.

Interpretation and Commentary:

1.  The tower sits at the middle crossovers of the Arthur Middle Track and
has Train Order semaphores for both directions.

2.  Due to the poor quality of the image, I cannot determine whether the
crossovers are hand-thrown or  controlled by roding from the tower.

3.  It appears that at least two switches have switch markers, which may
indicate they are hand operated.

4.  The home signal at left, next to the face of the cut, is a two-arm
upper quadrant semaphore; the ends are squared, indicating they are home
signals via-a-vis automatic block signals, but there appears to be (under
magnification) a number plate under the bottom semaphore arm, which would
be strange for a home signal.

5.  The pipeline at right appears to have a minimal amount of rods, likely
just two for two arms on the eastward home signal, and one for a dwarf
signal governing eastward movement on the westbound main track.

6.  The pole at far right has transformers on it, and there is a heavy
lead-in cable running to the tower, indicating that the railroad is tapping
its private 4000 (?) AC power line at this point for signal and perhaps
other purposes.

7.  The low, dark structure with the sloping roof,  behind (to the right
of) the tower, is most likely the coal bin.

8.  The pole directly behind the tower is an "office pole" (i.e. cross arms
on both sides of the pole, which is the practice when dropping circuits
into a structure,) but there do not appear to be any wires attached to the
office pole.  Perhaps the office pole is now unused and everything now
comes into Arthur on the cable mentioned above.

9.  The roof appears to be surmounted by a stove pipe, rather than a brick
chimney.

10.  Is that a concrete battery well nestled snugly beside the tower,
almost directly under the letter "A" in the painted name?

11.  No outdoor toilet and no hand water pump are visible... wonder where
they were located?

12.  Why in the world would anyone build a substantial structure like this
on such a precarious hillside where substantial filling had to be done to
provide a perch...?

-- abram burnett

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Sent to you from my Telegraph Key...
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Moderator:
 http://nwhs.org/mailinglist/2014/20140201.Arthur_Tower.jpg
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