Railroad signals

[Weco355aman]

Does any one collect railway signals.
I'll be adding 2 Interlock relay houses and about 10 to12 Signal heads
to my collection, this will give me about 10 high signals and about 10 or dwarf signals. Another 3 or 4  years of repair and wiring to complete.

[ESalter]

I can say that I do(or I'm trying).  Currently all I have is a GRS 2A semaphore(no motor mechanism yet).  I have leads to in the future get several GRS SA searchlights and a GRS tri-color light.  All 3 would be old C&NW signals.  ---Eric

[dpaynter1066]

Back in the day, I worked as an electronic repair tech for Union Switch and Signal.  The top dogs in the tech dept were the relay jockeys.  They worked on neat looking big glass boxes filled with transdimensional inter-rossiters or something.

We worked on the electronic modules that were used for various sensing or signaling functions and for dropping the gate arms and warning bells, lights and so forth.

After working there, I no longer blindly barrel across railway crossings in my car when the lights are off.  I slow down and look both ways now.   Not saying why, just a thought is all.

[ESalter]

I've personally seen crossing detection do some really crazy things before when various things fail, but I've honestly never seen one fail in the clear position.  I've seen one clear and then go back down in the middle of a train passing, but never one stuck in the clear position, that'd actually be pretty scary.

While we're talking about crossing signals, how about Wig Wags and Griswolds!?  Personally, I think Wig Wags are the coolest crossing warning signal ever produced.  I like the WRRS #5 Autoflags the best as that's what the C&NW used.  I'm determined that at some point before I die, I'm going to have one of those in my collection.  Wishing for one of those is like wishing for a Strowger stick in the telephone world.  They're rather similar in price too, actually.

---Eric

[ESalter]

I figured I'd post a few photos of my C&NW semaphore just for the heck of it.  The first two are immediately after I got it.  The green lens was cracked in half and the yellow had a small chip/crack in the middle of it.  The blade was also painted solid red.  The next one shows me in the process of removing the red paint from the blade.  This signal is from 1911 and was removed in the mid to late 80s, so it was quite a bit of time out in the elements.  It has a total of 11 bullet holes, about half of which were filled and painted over by the RR.  The blade is porcelain covered steel.  It was originally red with the white band, which makes it an absolute signal.  I stripped the red off to make it like that again and tried to leave as much as the bullet repair touchup paint as I could.  The last photo you can see somewhat how the blade looks now.  I looked but couldn't find a good photo after I was done with it.  Since the last photo I replaced the two broken lenses, now I just need to get a motor for it!  ---Eric

[dpaynter1066]

The US&S crossing guard signal control was all transistor relay logic, no IC's at all.

A long section of track at the crossing was energized with an oscillator and resonated at some given frequency which wasn't important.  just that it was resonating.  When a train approached, the resonant frequency shifted doppler-like due to the moving short circuit of the wheels and that triggered the arms to drop.  if the train stopped just short of either side of the crossing, the frequency stopped changing and stabilized at some value and after a time delay, the arms lift.   It only responds to a constant shift in frequency  caused by something moving along the track.

There was also an additional circuit that kept the arms down if they were stopped directly on the crossing such as when switching cars or something.

Sort of a neat way of doing things.  I'm guessing it's all digital something or other now.

[dpaynter1066]

Neat semaphore, I've always liked those.

[twocvbloke]

I think about all that goes on here in the UK with "collecting" railway signalling stuff is with metal thieves pulling stuff out and trading it in for scrap, really annoyed me cos some areas are getting hit so bad that the trains are struggling to run... 

[NH102.22]

I don't collect signals, but I am a signalman who operates them in Sydney, Australia. Keep up the good work.