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October
2004.
there
is only one left.
The
famous Erie railroad "southern tier" semaphores protected the Erie mainline
through the southern Tier of New York state
for
the majority of the 20th century.
These
semaphores were placed in service starting around 1910, and into the early
20's.
They
were used all along the Erie mainline.
By
the mid-1980's, when I first started taking train photos as a teenager
in Waverly, dozens were still in use by Conrail.
mostly
clustered between Binghamton and Hornell.
The
Fulton st. blade in Waverly was my favorite.
I
also photographed the signals out in Barton and East toward Binghamton.
In
the 1990's Conrail began to accelerate their removal.
As
a signal would fail, rather than be repaired it would just be replaced.
and
now, in 2004, only one solitary semaphore remains.
in
Endicott.
I
went out to visit the last survivor on October 8, 2004.
This
semaphore has been in continous use for 80-90 years!
notice
that at some point a repair was done to the spectacle.
a
large chunk of steel has been welded on near the pivot point.
No
one knows how much longer she will stand..
but
odds are not very long. :(
Here are some of my photos of the Waverly semaphore from the 1980's.
SEVEN
Conrail SD40's and SD40-2's pass in Waverly.
The
tower for the Waverly semaphore still exists, (the blade is gone, naturally..someone
has it on their wall probably! ;)
im
going to go and take measurements of it (the tower) so I can build a model
of it..
For
more photos of the Southern Tier Semaphores,
check
out the excellent albums on www.semaphores.com
Photo
Album
here are some more great photos. (these arent mine..)
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=77100
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=75182
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=63904
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=75358
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=19486
AND!
speaking of building a model of the Waverly semaphore!
im
going to start out by scratchbuilding 2 models of "standard" Erie semaphores..
like
the last survivor in Endicott..
I
will make 2 of them so I can have them on both sides of a double-track
mainline,
like
the pair that stood in Barton.
in
1/29 scale. ("G scale")
I
would like to thank Eric at www.semaphores.com
for
some excellent drawings of the US&S type S semaphores.
they
will be very usefull for making the models!
As
soon as construction begins, I will make a new webpage and post it here.
Update!
as
we knew it must, the end finally came.
The
semaphore's last day of operation was the morning of Wednesday, September
7, 2005.
here is the official NS bullitin:
-------------------------------------
Harrisburg Division-Norfolk
Southern
Operations Bulletin
for
September 6, 2005
Southern Tier Line-Physical
Characteristic Change
CP-Johnson CP-Waverly
Effective 12:01 PM Wed. Sept. 7 2005
Automatic Block Signal No. 2242 governing Eastward movements on No. 2 Track permanently removed from service.
New ABS No. 2232 in service east of former signal.
As information, ABS
2242 was the last working semaphore on the Harrisburg Division. It will
be moved to the
Charlotte Roadway
Shop for modifications and then to Norfolk, VA where it will be displayed
in a museum.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
at
12:01 PM (noon) on September 7, the semaphore was officially retired and
replaced with a new target signal
that
had been installed during the previous weeks.
the
semaphore has been donated to a museum in Norfolk, VA by Norfolk Southern.
Scot
Lawrence,
Rochester,
NY
(originally
from Waverly)
sscotsman at yahoo dot com
