The Lynchburg Old Line - Method of Operation?

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 On Jul 21, 2022, Abram Burnett wrote: ... I was only down the west end of that line (Forest eastward) one time, and it was in the dead of the night and in complete, inky darkness, standing on a flat car and shoving slowly through the blindness of night for some miles. There were no radios back then, so everything was by hand signal, and the battery in my lantern was about half shot. And it was freezing cold, to boot. What a terrible trap to put a new man in. By that time, the remaining stump of the Old Line was no longer operated as main track. ...I would like to know how the Old Line was operated. Was it ever signaled, or was it always operated under the Time Table-Train Order (TT-TO) method of operation? If it was signaled, was it simply APB automatic signal territory where either a Time Table schedule or a Train Order was still required as authority to run [like the Winston-Salem District] or was Rule 261 ["Traffic Control" (TC) which the N&W used instead of "Centralized Traffic Control" (CTC) which was a Union Switch and Signal trademark] in effect? If Traffic Control was in effect, from where was it operated? And if the railroad was never signaled but remained under TT-TO operation, were trains blocked between Phoebe, Lynchburg and Forest? ... Time frame is the late 1940s up through about 1960....

Ray Smoot responded on July 21, 2022: At this time, the Old Line saw six passenger trains daily, the westbound Phoebe Turn which usually went west just after No.26 went east, a local freight most days, and two or three movements each way between Island Yard and Durham Junction for connections with Kinney Yard on the "new" main line [Lynchburg Belt Line]. Signals and some switches were controlled from NC Cabin near Union Station. This was a joint N&W, Southern, C&O operation ["Cabin" indicates that it was a C&O one-story "tower" and operator, so N&W and SOU contributed percentages of shared expenses] which also controlled the various interchanges and crossovers between the three railroads near downtown Lynchburg and also the Old Main from west end Island Yard to about a mile west of Durham Junction. I spend many a late afternoon and early evening there and eventually was permitted to operate the signals and switches under the watchful eye of the Operator.  Once I forgot to set the eastbound signal just east of Union Station for No. 26 and this resulted in 26 stopping after just leaving Union Station, a delay of about one minute before we noticed and set the signal to proceed.  Nothing ever came of this. There was a CTC style board in NC Cabin showing all the train movements. I don't recall if the track east of Island Yard to Phoebe or the track from a mile or so west of Durham Junction to Forest was signaled but if it was, it was not operated from NC or any
where else locally and NC Cabin did not issue clearance cards or train orders to trains either through or local.

The transfer traffic between Kinney Yard (N&W), Montview Yard (Southern) and Island Yard (N&W), Lower Basin Yard (C&O) and Southern freight station yard was significant with several connecting movements daily.  Southern ran two or three daily connections to and from the Southern freight house yard connection with C&O to or from Montview and N&W ran two or three connections each day, each way between Island Yard and Kinney.  N&W also ran several connections daily between Island Yard and the Southern freight station yard.

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Not far from NC Cabin was X Tower, a two-story brick N&W tower with was closed when I peeked inside during the 1970s and at one time had an electro-pneumatic interlocking machine.  I speculate that the "NC" call was Norfolk Crossing and "X" was Crossing; X Tower appeared to have controlled the C&O-N&W crossing and the lead into Island Yard.  I think NC Cabin replaced X Tower; X Tower remained because relays and the air compressor for the switch machines were in the ground floor.  NC Cabin was also closed at the time I visited which like most C&O junctions had teletype machines in addition to the CTC machine.  The teletype machines were used for receiving freight consists on punched tape, adding or deleting cars when a train departed for Gladstone or Clifton Forge, with a new tape created and transmitted to the next yard.  I believe the original main line via Union Station was automatic block signaling.  Island Yard appeared to be retired by the time I saw it, being reduced to a limited number of tracks for storing equipment.

My own questions added to this discussion thread are:
1) when was X Tower established and closed?
2) when was NC Cabin established and closed?
3) when was Island Yard established and closed except for equipment storage?

I then have a further question: the N&W Car Department was relocated from Lynchburg to Roanoke per the attached notice on July 27, 1883.  Where was the N&W Car Department office located in Lynchburg?

Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com
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