We have a control panel that was donated to us which we will exhibit in one of our display cars at the museum. I will include a couple of photos in this posting and then post some additional photos since I can only send 3 photos max in each posting. These first two photos show the approximate size of the panel and its electrical box, and a view from the front. The panel controlled four streets on the far south side of Chicago where the old Panhandle line of the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed close to the intersection of 119th and Halsted (two major Chicago streets) and the streets to either side of that intersection; 118th Street and 120th Street.

More to come!

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

These next two photos show some close ups of the detail of the control panel. The third photo shows the lower corner of the panel which advises that it was marketed under the name SIG-NA-TROL and was manufactured by Western Railway Supply Co. of Chicago, Illinois. This company is presently a part of Western-Cullen-Hayes, Inc. which has two plants still making various items for railroads, one in Chicago and another in Richmond, Indiana. I contacted W-C-H concerning this device, but did not receive a reply. As you can see in these less than perfect photos (my apologies for them) is that the lettering and diagram lines are hard to read by visitors. My guess is that the panel had better lettering whenever the panel was first purchased and installed by the Pennsy in the elevated watchman's shanty there at 119th and Halsted street's. And as you can probably make out from the third photo, the lettering and lines were printed on some type of paper and then a thin clear film placed over it. We can't just put new lettering on that clear film. What we were wondering is if anyone else has a similar panel from this company and if the lettering had also faded on theirs, how new brighter lettering was applied?

Any help appreciated.

Les

Les:
The Pennsy had bunch of those Model Boards made by Western RR Supply and they have all turned to that light gray color. It appears that they were a dark brown, but that clear coat has changed them to gray.
We tried ( Marion Union Station ) cleaning the board we have from Walbridge, but had no luck.

Kevin K

Kevin -

Thanks for the reply. A dark brown color makes sense with white, or perhaps light yellow, lettering and lines for the streets.


Les

It looks like the lining and lettering was applied to a sheet of Masonite then covered with a transparent coating that didn't stay transparent. If you wish to conserve the original panels, fine - make replicas on modern Masonite, cover with clear polyurethane varnish and install them while keeping the originals in light proof acid free archival storage envelopes in a climate controlled vault, or in your garage if all else fails. You can then allow visitors to touch the panels, and perhaps build a model layout of the track plan with working signal gates which will act when the right button is pushed.

Dave -

Thanks for your ideas.

Your suggestion of using the control panel to actually operate a model of the gates is very interesting and one we hadn't considered. Not only was the 119th and Halsted intersection a busy traffic route, it also had a City of Chicago street car line which went west on 119th Street for two blocks, swung over and around and came back north on Halsted Street where it turned east back onto 119th. The main problem with the idea is that I'm not sure exactly how the control panel worked with the buttons and the levers and there is probably no one left around who could explain it.

Les

Can't read the text very well, but my guess is the lever operates the gates and the buttons override individual gates, ie: trapped car escape.

-Hudson

Hudson -

Very logical. Thanks for your thoughts on the matter.


Les

If someone in your group can get their hands on a small PLC (programmable logic controller) you can put together a small routine to energize the proper lights on the panel based on they way the switches are toggled. This way,other than power, the control box can be a self contained live exhibit.

Is the 'clear' film attached/laminated to the printed board or can you remove it without destroying the print? If the plastic is free, the remaining printing would darken up a bit if the plastic film wase replaced in kind. I see three types of damage - fading of the panel and plastic due to UV and cleaning damage to the plastic. By the wipe marks on the face, it looks like the panel was repeatedly cleaned, which would indicate it was not of particularly high contrast originally and the constant coating of nicotine required frequent cleaning to read it. From the pic of the chipped area at the maker's mark, it almost appears the lettering is brighter where the plastic is still present, which would mean you'd get a decent result if you could just replace the plastic coating. If you end up replacing/restoring the printed board, I would also note that the formerly/originally bright white printing has been yellowed a bit by the dirty petroleum in the early plastic.

As for the pushbuttons - I would think that if they controlled early four-quadrant gates, the buttons would only raise the exit lane gates on the relevant side - something else to consider. I like the PLC idea if it were hooked into a more complex system, although it could be (and would have been) done with relays. Many times PLCs are overkill - you can easily use small and inexpensive modern relays to reduce power consumption, particularly if you're only going to control a model. Manual gate controls are so simple a PLC would be unnecessary and you could buy plenty of spare parts with the extra money for even a cheap PLC. P/Bs simply break the hold loop for the exit gate mechanism. Sounds like it would be an interesting model with the trolley line crossings.

My thoughts... The lamps on the track diagram are block occupancy. The lamps centered between the tracks on the street crossings show which gate circuits have been activated.

Typical of these later systems for gate towers, the gates come down automatically. That way, there is NO chance of a train coming through the crossing without the gates going down, should the tower be unmanned for whatever reason, bathroom break, run to store for smokes, etc.

The buttons are overrides so the gateman can raise the gates as soon as the train clears, even if it's still in the circuit. Note the buttons are marked "Raise No. 1 Track" and "Raise No. 2 Track". The toggle switch is just labeled "Raise." I suspect the gateman flipped the switch to RAISE, then pushed the button for the track that was occupied, and that overrode the automatic circuit ON THAT TRACK ONLY. If a train entered the circuit on the other track, the gates would start back down.

This is the way I recall Winneconne Ave. in Neenah on the Soo Line working, the tower that is now at Mid-Continent, but I don't know if the signal equipment was saved. That was a simpler installation in that it only governed one street, which was crossed by a main track and a parallel track that was the drill track for the yard. When the yard job pulled out, the gates would start down automatically. The gateman would make a judgement if they were going to cross the street or not, and kill the gate circuit if they would stay clear. Meanwhile, if a road train would approach on the parallel main track, the gates would automatically go down again, even if the gateman had killed the circuit on the drill track. The whole purpose was to NOT have the gates down all the time there was equipment in the circuit, since the gates would be permanently down while they were switching the yard, and this was the main street through town. The gate circuits were still automatic, and the gateman used his judgement to override them.



The eventual solution was a bridge.

Dennis, Train Detainer and diningcartim -

Thanks for the input. Giving us lots to think about.


Les