kalamazoo picture on "that other site"....

[Todd Cline]

I recently saw a photo by John Barriger posted on the MRR site. It shows the Penn tower, with BO in the background. There was a question as to who was the operator standing in the doorway of the tower. I know who it is, but Dale Berry still has me banned from his forum after about 7 years. So, I can't post there. Funny, Dale never participates in his own board, he might be into it for the spam pop-ups/ commercials kickbacks... but I'll not get into all that.... Anyway, maybe someone here can transfer that thread onto this site. I can tell you for sure that the operator in the doorway of the old "Tower#1" was indeed Bill Pontius. That is the front fender of his pride and joy, 1957 Ford that he customized. Bill was a small fellow but , he had a gigantic personality. He spent several years at the (tower#1"), before he went to "BO". ( tower#2).
Like to get into more discussion about BO, and other K-Zoo stuff, so let's get the party started! Over Here, not over There....
I really can't figure Dale out... Not going to waste my time though... Life is too short...

Todd

I can tell some stories about "Wendys", and the "Coney Dog place". ... And then some........

[pbmaxno15]

I shared it on MRR. Thanks for the information.

[GP30M4216]

From MIRRs, I'll try to break it out in some kind of logical way.....

First the photo:


And the url in the album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerli ... 332135493/

Thanks for the link to the Barringer collection! I've always heard that he took lots of historically interesting photos, but never knew how to access them. Unfortunately many (most?) of them don't seem to have any identification as to location or date???

That is the MCRR mainline looking east in Kalamazoo. Tower #1 (GR&I and Kalamazoo Branch Wye) in front with BO in the background (GTW, Kalamazoo branch, CK&S Wye, and CK&S).

That could be me standing in the tower doorway.

Man, does that pull on your heartstrings![/uquote

I wonder of they're trying to crowd source that data. I noticed that some of the NYC listings also contain Nickel Plate (NYC&StL) photos, and also some NP! So who ever is doing the work is not too attentive to detail. Not to mention the backwards and upside down ones. So I suppose we can tag what we know.

Was the mast home signal on track 2 also so close to the diamond as those dwarfs are? Or was it further back closer to the location where it currently is?

[Todd Cline]

I think the home signal for the PRR diamond was right there at the tower. Most likely reason is the close proximity of the passenger station.
Thanks GP30, for moving the thread.
Todd

[PatAzo]

I recall Bill saying he was working at Tower One when he was called into the army. When he got out Tower One had been torn down.

It's an interesting picture.

[railohio]

More on the Barriger library project:

Inside the Barriger Library: Check out our Flickr site of historic rail photos

[Ben Higdon]

Was the mast home signal on track 2 also so close to the diamond as those dwarfs are? Or was it further back closer to the location where it currently is?

The home signal may have been set back at least a little ways from the PRR diamond, as the switch for the connection to the NYC came off track 2 immediately west of the PRR diamond.