(erielack) Denville tower

["Philip Martin" <martinpl3_@_earthlink.net>]

A little more info for listers who never worked a Union Switch & Signal interlocking machine, using the picture of Ray Ruff in Denville tower.  The top row is switch levers.  The black ones are in service.  Levers leaning tro the left are normal, and the ones leaning to the right are reverse.  37 switch is reversed.  The bottom row are signal levers.  Red ones are in service.  A signal lever straight up and down is at stop.  In this tower, pulled up to the left is eastbound, and pulled up to the right is westbound.  46 signal is pulled east, and 38 and 40 are pulled up westbound.
Below the levers are two rows of lights, angled out from the machine, two lights under each lever.  It's so long since I worked that kind of machine, that my memory is not good, but I think that one light lit with the switch number on it meant that you could throw the switch.  It seems to me that the light below it went on when you threw the lever and then out again, allowing you to complete the throw.  It was on at other times when the circuit was out, as for instance, when a train was going over it, or if there was a defect, like a bond wire off, etc.  If a train wrecked, and tore up all the switches, all the circuit lights would be on, (or out, in towers where they were out when occupied.)  The two lights below the signal levers were R and L. When these light were lit, it meant that the circuit in front of the signal was clear, and that you would get a signal when you pulled the lever up.  If the L or the R wasn't lit, and you pulled the lever off that way, you could get a stop and proceed, (or maybe a restricting, I forget the difference,) if you pushed the "call on" button, below the lights for the signal.  I think you can see light reflected off one, in the picture.  (On the Pennsy, we called it a "hanger".)
In the picture, behind the slow releases on the left end of the machine, (sorry, I don't know what else to call them,) at the east end of the building, there was a toilet, with a curtain around it-classy.  (UN tower at Port Morris, had a toilet next to the desk, without a curtain-less classy.)  At Denville the stairs from the front door led up behind the machine, to a couple of feet from the curtain. If my memory is right, the levers that operated the crossing gates (that Artie Erdman wrote about,) were about where the guy taking the picture was.  The operator could look out the windows on the west end of the room to see the crossing, when he lowered the gates.
UN had a cast iron spiral staircase, and a US&S machine like the one in Denvulle, ( it might have been an older case, with glass panels on the top.)  It aslo had a ctc machine for Lake Jct.  It must have had ctc to control Greendell.
Philip Martin

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