The Size of N&W RED Flags ?

[NW Mailing List]

Abe 

 Looking at drawings in the archives The N&W Standard signal flag was 18x18 back as far as 1918  DRW. A19233.   And 18X18 in DRW B25173 with Rev 2/9/44 except M in the W service  used 28X30 


Larry Evans

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Subject: The Size of N&W RED Flags ?

This post concerns the size of RED signal flags used on the N&W.

And one desperately hopes that the old maxim still holds true: The only Dumb Question is the one which was never asked. So here goes...

Flags of different colors were used on the N&W for signaling purposes. Red, of course, was the Flagman's signal and was used for signaling a train to stop. Blue was the color used on flags protecting men working on or about cars. Yellow was the Switchtender's signal, used to signal the notion, "Come ahead, the route is lined." The colors carried on as "Classification Signals" on the smokebox were White for an Extra train, and Green for a train running sections (displayed by all sections except the last.) And finally, everyone knows that the Blue Ridge Pushers, by Time Table Special Instruction, displayed a Yellow flag to the rear, in lieu of marker lamps. (The "yellow flag for pusher engines" thing may have been used elsewhere on the N&W, too, but I have never seen evidence of it.)

And now the question ! In later days (say from the 1940s forward) the size of flags used by the N&W was somewhere around 18 X 18". However, DID THE N&W AT ONE TIME USE A MUCH LARGER RED FLAG ?

Over the years I have seen in the literature tangential references which might indicate that other railroads used Red flags which were much larger than the smaller ones used in our own time.

One specific case, with testimony, involving the use of one of these very large red flags is a rear-end collision on the Cumberland Valley RR, between Harrisburg and Hagerstown, on January 1, 1904. Westbound First Class train No. 7, the New Orleans Express, was being hauled by 1875-hire Engineman James Shenabrough, age 51. Nine miles west of Carlisle, Pa, a westbound freight train had pulled into a passing siding (known as 29 Mile Siding) to be passed by No. 7.  When the freight train pulled into the siding, the Conductor dropped his inexperienced Flagman off at the switch and instructed him to "go back and flag." The new man stood at the switch with his flag, never went back, and never closed the switch.  Along came No. 7 and the rest of the story was written in blood. No. 7 ran through the open switch and in on the siding, turned over several of its passenger cars, and collided with the rear end of the standing freight train. Ten passengers were killed and a number were injured.

Fortunately, the farmer, through whose lands the railroad ran, was standing at the switch and conversing with the Flagman. The farmer, Samuel Shover, testified at the Coroner's Inquest that the Flagman had a Red flag "about a yard square" but never waved it until No. 7's engine was too close to stop.

The Coroner's Jury ruled that the accident was caused by Engineman Shenabrough running past a flag, but the railroad's management interpreted the facts more wisely, and Engineman Shenabrough was still running engines for the Cumberland Valley in 1915, when he died of pneumonia at age 62.

And now a photograph turns up showing one of these large red flags ! The image (which is attached) is from the National Park Service museum at Steamtown, Scranton, Pa. It is a Lackawanna RR company photograph showing a Flagman holding one of the old-style "large red flags." (The photograph appears to have been taken in the yard at Scranton, so it does not depict a Main Track Rule 99 flagging situation.)

Now to Pop the Question... Is there any evidence the N&W used red flags of such large proportion for flagging purposes ?  And if so, when was the change made to the smaller flags remembered by people of our generation ?

(If anyone wants my little ten-page essay on the smotch-up at 29 Mile Siding, including coordinates for the wreck, just ask.)

-- abram burnett
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