Pleasant Street Tower is open again!

[~Z~]

ah yes...forgot to post that I saw the lights on in the tower on Tuesday night. Thanks for bringing this up, as I was wondering what was going on, but was too busy getting pics of the coal train and D708 parked at Pleasant. Thanks Doktor No!

[donnieland]

back in the 60's, 70's before the combining of the c&o and the conrail
trackage going north to fuller from sunnyside and the watson (iirc)
diamond, the installing of the ctc north to fuller with ctc panel on the third floor of plaster creek tower ( that combined the pleasant st, sunnyside,
plaster creek and lamar interlockers at plaster creek).
before that the operator at plaster creek controled the sunnyside,
plaster creek, and lamar interlockings ( west absolute signals for
sunnyside were just west of grandville ave, also the old passenger
lead to the downtown freighthse was still in place) all the switch and signals levers were auto funcation by one single push button, but iirc
you had to hit a safety route check button first before the single push
would line the route. bud was the operator at that time.
the interlocker at pleasant st tower handled the pleasant st plant only
east absolute signals were just west of century ave with a double
diamond north and south for conrail( penncentral) iirc the west track had
a diamond on #1 track with 2 power switches on #2 track, on the east
track the diamond was on #2 track with 2 power switches on #1 track
i don't remember if the old nyc diamond to downtown was still in place
after 1970? the only power switches on the c&o were east of the conrail trackage, a single crossover from #1 to #2 track - and to the old albany
st yard( so a eb yard job could cross over from 2 to 1 then into the yard)
the west absolute signals are still in the same location now as then.
iirc the c&o had to leave the tower in place even after the operator and
ctc control was moved to plaster creek was due to the signal connections
used to control eveything from plaster creek to pleasant st, pleasant st still stands today, even after plaster creek tower was demo'd when all
control was moved to jacksonville.
nice to read doc's message about the operator ( old term ) working
24/7 at pleasant st again, let alone using train order terms ,
dispatcher -yellow board east here's 19 copy three
operator - yellow east
dispatcher - to c&e eng 3000 east
c&e engine 3000 east run extra lake odessa to wedt ensel----------

sometimes the old ways are still as good as the new it would seem

[SD80MAC]

That's great news! If only the tower saw more traffic.........

[donnieland]

hi doc
i would ride my bike down buchanan ave and wait under the franklin st
overpass and watch 80 go eb and 59 wb during summer vacation before
1965, you know no fear when you're young.
the nyc yard was on the west side of buchanan no more then ten tracks
and a small roundhouse between hall and franklin.
on the east side of century the penn rr mainline bent to the west and
ran north along century from hugart yard, the tower that stands now
was built when us131 was built, before that a depot served as yard office.
it sat between the nyc ml on the east side and the yard on the west.
almost in line with the bottom of griggs st hill
the penn roundhouse was large ( would have to get the mdot 131 plans
out to count the stalls one of these days) it was north of hall st about the north end of the delta prop factory bld.
2nd ave tower sat in the middle of the triangle formed by the c&o, penn, and nyc tracks leading to the downtown union station.
as you said there where many sidings to ind on the c&o from godfrey to
seymour. iirc there were min two or three yd jobs switching those sidings.
plus out to mpi, kroger, to super foods at fox.
like you said memories that bring a happy smile