Showing posts with label Signals and Signs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Signals and Signs. Show all posts

Thursday, October 10, 2019

POTD - Electric Wig Wag Lights A Lonely Crossing Under A Distant Moon

Lonely Vigil

You've driven hours on miles and miles of lonely two-lane highway to reach a lonely, seemingly forgotten county road crossing on the open plain of eastern Colorado. The wind stirs and a bite in the air tells you that you are not so far from another winter's chill. You smell the hint of agriculture, and it seems a feed lot must not be too far away. But the air also carries a bit of juniper from Devil's Canyon from the north and west.

You feel it before you see it. A slight hum in the rails and then a flash of a beam cuts through the night. Within moments, the bell and the light activate at the crossing, though it's just you it warns as it wags almost lazily back and forth in time with the bell. A second or two later, the Southwest Chief is upon the crossing. A blast of wind and a whiff of diesel, a blur of streaking lights, chrome and steel wheels, it flies over the rails!

Photo of the Day: Jadon H.
All too quickly, the end of the train flashes past and the marker lights recede around the corner, taking one of the slight bends in this straight line part of the state. The signal stops, its job accomplished for the night. It will not see the next train, the westbound Chief for hours. The moon passes behind the crossbucks and you see again the myriad of stars and galaxies wheeling slowly onward above. A meteor, like the Chief, flashes for a brief second and is gone, swallowed up in the night. You turn for your vehicle. Suddenly, a warm mug and a soft bed don't sound so bad right now. ⚒

Friday, January 29, 2016

Last Surviving Wig Wag in Colorado Still Wags For Amtrak Twice a Day

As a young kid fascinated with trains, I would get my folks to take me often enough to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden. Usually, it was my dad, but it could just as easily have been my mom and her mom as well out to stretch their legs and wander the small network of trails. Usually there was nothing running, not even the Gooses (sic) back then. But one time I remember stopping to view the strangest contraption I'd seen there or any on other right of way to my memory. When I got the courage to ask a volunteer, they said it was their wig wag signal. "Wig... wag? What's a wig wag?"

Long before the crossbucks and alternating red lights had become standard at railroad grade crossings, there were different means of attracting motorists' attention to the very real but too often unseen danger of a train approaching. A sensible solution by Albert Hunt, a Pacific Electric technician, decided that mimicking a crossing guards' lower half wave with a red lantern, then the railroad's universal indication to stop, would be the simplest and mechanically easier than a lot of other options. The gantry mounted wig wags were supplemented by other mounts, usually a pedestal in the median or off to the right of the lane approaching the crossing. The pedestal mounted a counter-weighted target with the box upside down, causing the target to wag like a person waving for attention.



The signals were deemed obsolete in 1949 when the now-common alternating red lights and crossbucks was standardized. Nevertheless, the ones in place since then have been wagging like the family dog for every train that crosses their stretch of rail.



While there doesn't appear to be a conspiracy afoot to remove these arcane contraptions, the number of active signals is dropping fast. The relative quiet of the original Atcheson Topeka & Santa Fe Railway route through Colorado's southeast and over Raton Pass allowed semaphore line signals to remain in place for years. That same quiet allowed the wig wags to survive as well, until the last decade. Wig wags at Manzanola and Rocky Ford have been retired, leaving a lone survivor in Delhi. A thoughtful aficionado with the know-how and resources has even placed a sign with it's unique status as "COLORADO'S LAST WIG WAG." Each day, Amtrak's Southwest Chief hustles by at track speed, one train in each direction, and precious little else. The rest of the day is reserved for quiet observation with cars and coyotes, along with the occasional antelope.

Surviving Wig Wags

The following map details a number of surviving wig-wags across the nation, mostly from Dan's Wig Wag Site. The red ones have been retired in the last 15 years or so. With less than 40 remaining, you might want to grab a photo of the survivors while you can.



ColorStatus
Active at last check
Retired or removed

Surviving anachronisms? Sure. Historic? Yes, and until BNSF or Amtrak decides differently, the signal at Delhi will keep wagging each way, twice a day.◊

Friday, July 31, 2015

POTD - Full Moon Lights An Empty Main Line

Photo of the Day: Kevin the Krazy 1
On the night of a full moon in early April, near Salida but far from the city lights of Denver and Pueblo, photographer Kevin A. Sadowski opened the shutter on his Canon for a full 30 seconds, allowing as much starlight as possible to reach the sensor at the back. Waiting in the stillness, the quiet of the Royal Gorge Route over Tennessee Pass has not been broken by a revenue freight for 18 years. At the end of the half-minute, Mr. Sadowski was probably a bit colder, and in possession of the Photo of the Day.◊

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

New Sign Using LED Tech To Grace Colorado Highways

Photo: CTC, Inc.
Railway Age says that Colorado's Department of Transportation has purchased new LED-lit warning signs to call highway drivers' attention to railroad grade crossings. A CDOT spokesman is quoted in the article:
"Any tool that we can use to save lives is a welcome addition to our transportation tool kit," said CDOT Statewide Utilities Engineer Mat Flores. "The flashing lights disrupt a driver's expectations and should draw his or her attention to the crossing, resulting in a significant safety benefit."
CTC, Inc., based in Fort Worth, Texas, provides communication and signaling systems, products and services for the highway and rail, specializing in highway-rail grade crossings that are interconnected with traffic signals.

LED-lit signs do make it harder for drivers to ignore them, but I wonder whether this is just another sign (ha!) that our society is suffering from "warning fatigue."◊