(erielack) Tower Telegraph Designations

[Jim G <"jimg_@_newcommunity.org">]

It looks like most of the important towers and other telegraph
designation points on the former Erie & DL&W have already been
identified.  However, here are a few that I am not sure were mentioned:

NY Division interlocking points manned in the 50s:
GR  Granton Jct. Tower:  junction of the Northern Branch and NYS&W;
abandoned some time in the 60s.
FX  Graham Tower: former junction of the Graham Line and Main Line from
Middletown, before the realignment in the early 50s which abandoned the
old passenger main through Otisville, shifted all trains through the
Otisville tunnel portion of the Graham Line, and moved the Graham Line
junction east to "GD" Howells Jct., a TCS point controlled by the
Dispatcher.  I don't think that GD ever had a manned interlocking. The
single-tracked Otisville Tunnel is known as OV, with the TCS
interlockings controlling the double-to-single track switches known as
East OV and West OV.  FX Tower was once famous as the point where steam
helpers on eastbound freights out of Port Jervis were cut off. (Picture
in Erie Memories).
BE Drawbridge, Passaic: On the Main Line between Carlton Hill and
Passaic;  no tower, but the drawbridge tender did operate interlocking
signals and derails protecting the bridge, did O.S. trains to the
Dispatcher, and was selected from the NY Division tower operator
roster.  The bridge was abandoned in the 1963 realignment of the Main
Line through Passaic.
XW Tower, Paterson:  Junction of the Main Line, Newark Branch, Paterson
Yard, and Paterson Station Lower Level leads.  Tower abandoned and
interlocking cut over to TCS in 1963 as part of the Main Line
realignment project.

Buffalo Area, interlocking points still manned by Erie in late 50s:
IQ  Buffalo Tower
FW Tower, PRR Crossing
GB  Tower, Blasdell

Cleveland Area, interlocking points still manned by Erie in late 50s:
HD  Cleveland Bridge
WE  West End Tower

Youngstown Area, interlocking points still manned by Erie in late 50s:
P   Deforest Tower
NK "NK Target"
VY   Valley Street Tower  (P&LE Junction)
AB   Hubbard

Dayton Branch, interlocking points still manned by Erie in late 50's:
NY  Maitland
PA   Peoria

This list excludes other towers or interlockings along the Erie that
were manned by other railroads, e.g. JO Tower in Akron, where the Erie
and B&O / PRR crossed; the tower was staffed by PRR operators, I
believe.  Tates Point in Dayton also comes to mind.

Another interesting twist regards interlockings controlled by operators
housed in stations, not towers.  An earlier thread already mentioned JU
Ohio City, which was an interlocking plant controlled from within a
station.  Another example was GN Goshen, NY.   I was told that there was
once a tower in Goshen called "GP", where the Pine Island Branch and
Montgomery Branch crossed the Main Line (recall that the L&NE used
trackage rights on those branches to reach the Maybrook interchange with
the New Haven until the L&NE quit in 1961)(oh, Maybrook Yard was know to
the Erie as XC).  However, in the early 50s, the Erie put a small panel
in the station to control that interlocking.  GN continued to be a three
trick job until the EL discontinued the interlocking and converted the
switches and crossovers to hand-throw sometime around '63 or '64.
Another example of this was at Great Notch on the Greenwood Lake line,
where double track ended and the Caldwell Branch split off. There was a
GA Tower (picture in Erie Memories), but it was abandoned when an
interlocking control panel was placed in the adjacent station building.
The station continued to use the GA designation, and was a two trick
job.  Control of the interlocking was transferred to the Hoboken
dispatcher as part of the 1963 Greenwood Lake - Boonton Line realignment
(connected to the realignment of the Erie Main Line through Passaic).

Also, by the mid-50s, the station operator at Susquehanna, PA had a
panel controlling the former JA interlocking at Jefferson Jct. (former
JA Tower), SR interlocking at the west end of Susquehanna yard (former
SR Tower, where eastbound freights got helpers for the climb to Gulf
Summit), and the interlocked crossovers at Gulf Summit.  Being on a busy
mainline, this job was three trick, and was designated NS.  Sometime in
the 60's, I believe, this panel was transferred to the control of the
Hornell Dispatcher.  I was also once told that in the 1950s, one of the
stations along the Delaware Division (Cochecton?) had a small
interlocking panel controlling a siding off of the westbound main (the
Delaware being double-tracked back then), where a way freight or a
slow-moving westbound road freight could get out of the way of a
passenger run, say the early afternoon westbound Erie Limited.  I think
that the interlocked crossing of the NYO&W main and the Erie approach to
Maybrook Yard was once controlled by an NYO&W operator in a station
known as "CH" (Campbell Hall, NY), although there was formerly a tower
there.

Finally, here is a clarification as to my earlier thread about there
being three points in the New York area using the designation "WR".
This would seem to run against a cardinal principle of railroading, i.e.
"avoid confusion".  However, I later found out that when these telegraph
designations were assigned, probably before the turn of the century,
each point was along a line which was operated and dispatched
independently.  To wit, WR West Arlington (New Jersey) Tower /
Drawbridge was along the Greenwood Lake Line, which had independent
divisional status even into the 1950s.  WR Woodridge (New Jersey)
Station was along the New Jersey & New York Railroad, later known as the
Pascack Valley Line; earlier in this century, the NJ&NY had a higher
degree of operational independence from the New York Division.  And
therefore, the original New York Division itself only had one WR, i.e.
the station at West Cornwall, New York (along the Newburgh Branch).  Of
course, the WR Tower in Huntington, IN was on the far off Marion
Division, so there was little possibility for confusion there.


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