Re: (erielack) Railroad Telegraphy.

[Gordon Davids <gdavids_@_bcpl.net>]

The term "Banjo Signal" is colloquial, but generally referred to a type 
of signal developed by Hall Signal Company and used primarily on the 
Reading.  They had a large wood housing, circular on top and tapered on 
the bottom, with a hole in the middle.  Colored panels were placed in 
the hole by a relay mechanism to provide the aspects.

Most Erie "Telephone Train Order" signals were position light signals 
similar to those used on the PRR.  They did not supercede the 
indications of interlocking or block signals, but indicated whether a 
train was to stop and telephone for instructions.  These were mostly 
used at outlying crossovers or sidings in double track automatic block 
signal territory.  The instructions given to trains that stopped and 
called were usually not train orders per se, but verbal instructions to 
either take siding, to proceed, or to pull up and then back through the 
crossover to the opposite track to enable a following train to pass.  In 
dobule track ABS territory these moves did not require train orders, but 
merely instructions or permission from the train dispatcher.

During later days of the Erie Lackawanna, there were no open train order 
offices or controlled points at night on the old Delaware Division 
between Gulf Summit and Mill Rift.  Trains entered at one end, and came 
out the other if everything worked OK.  If not, the dispatcher would 
contact a train either by radio (hopefully) or by setting a Telephone 
Train Order Signal, and then have that train take siding (not many of 
them) or pull past the trailing point crossover and back to the opposite 
track to allow the following train(s) to pass.

The closest Telephone Train Order signal to Hoboken in 1968 was at BT 
(Passaic Jct) at the crossover near the NYSW interchange track switch.

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