Railroad Towers

RAILROAD SIGNALS of the U.S.

RAILROAD
TOWERS

Towers once served as the operational hub at many railroad locations, and kept the railroad moving. Without them, railroads would have gotten clogged up in short order if the train crews had to go out and align all of the switches for a particular move. As a youngster, I was always amazed at the tower operators who could keep one ear on the chatter coming over the speakers and keep a conversation going with me at the same time. In Baltimore, we had a bunch of towers, mostly on the B&O. Having visited such cities as Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City, and Minneapolis/St Paul, I can only imagine what it was like during the heyday of railroading back in the 40's to see everything being controlled from towers. Today there are precious few of them still around and operating. September 17th of 2007 saw the closing of the last B&O tower (HO) on the mainline west from Baltimore and DC.

Fortunately, there are active railfans all over the place willing to commit there time and resources to saving them, as witnessed by the folks in Rosenburg TX saving Tower 17, and in Terre Haute IN saving Haley Tower.

There are many, many sites for towers, and (for instance) the historical society in Texas has done an excellent job of preserving their heritage (http://www.towers.txrrhistory.com/index.htm).

--- INDIANA

Terre Haute -- Haley Tower

--- MARYLAND

Baltimore -- BP Tower, PRR Picture by Steve Martin