RAILROAD SIGNALS of the U.S.

TRIP 1
Aberdeen MD to Wilmington DE
To search out remaining B&O CPL's and Pennsy PL's

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RAILROAD SIGNALS HOME

Michael Watnoski and I live north of Baltimore in surrounding Baltimore County, in areas known as Towson (the county seat) and Cockeysville, both named after people from a long, long time ago.

The day started out kinda sunny, and then went downhill from there, but thankfully, it didn't start spritzin rain until 5:30 or so, allowing us to get in a full day of chasing.

We headed up 95 and got off in Aberdeen, stopping off at the B&O depot designed by Frank Furness.  This depot is in a bad state of disrepair, and they have been trying to get it saved for at least 5 years, when I worked at the APG and attended meetings held by Harford County on what to do with the station and how to do it.  Since I was there last, several pieces of roof have fallen in.  They are trying to get it moved a hundred feet or so from the tracks, and turn the former Aberdeen yard into a county park.

After snapping a few update photos, we headed up the B&O track to the signals at MP 63, named "E. Aberdeen" on the B&O maps.  We walked down the tracks to the signals, unknowing that we could have driven right up to them behind the Moose Lodge.... darn.  Oh well, I needed the exercise anyways.

When we got back to the depot, I snapped off a few shots of the crossing cause it's got some old stuff there.

Next, we headed across town to the Amtrak/MARC station, where we took pix of the station, a NB passenger train headed by engine 656, and a signal bridge just north of the station at MP 65, with signals labeled "652" (NB) and "651" (SB).  There are three signals for each direction.  Map books aren't available for the Pennsy like they are for the B&O (thru the B&O Historical Society), so I'm ignorant of the Pennsy designations.

We scooted up Rt 40 to the next set of Pennsy signals.  The tracks have been a little realigned, so a new cantilever bridge was installed, and there is a NB and SB bridge since there are a couple of crossovers.  The southern NB bridge has 3 signals, the northern SB bridge has 2 signals, and the cantilever bridge has a single SB signal for the realigned track.

Then we flipped over to the other side of 40 and got the B&O signals at "Osbourne".... signals "610" and "611", and a unique whistle sign with a border, unusual for around here.  Access is easy for these guys behind a brand new shopping center with a Bill Bateman's restaurant.

I dunno, we mighta missed another Pennsy signals, but the next bridge we saw thru the trees was a set of "tri-lights" illuminated with LED's!!!  Getting to them was tough, had to do some hiking.  This set of 3 signals is for NB traffic before the tracks go from 4 to 2 to cross over the Susquehanna.  A little north of there are 2 single pole mounted US&S "tri-lights" for SB trains coming off the Susquehanna bridge (also with LED's).  You can clearly see the LED's in the photos below.

After the "tri-lights", we went back on the other side of 40 to the B&O and got the CPL signals called "Havre de Grace" ("588" and "589").  These won't be around very long, for new color lights are already standing, just waiting for the wiring to be completed.

Next, across the river to Perryville to get pictures of pedestals, PL's, and dwarfs at the Perryville wye and MARC station.  What a feast for the signal-fan!!!

We went up the road a little to get the next signal bridge north of the Perryville station, another walk in the woods.

When done there, we went back over to the B&O to snap off a couple of the signals at "Aiken", which all three are absolute.  There is also a track leading down to the Pennsy from here.

Time was getting short, and it was starting to cloud up, so we headed up to the Wilmington Amtrak depot, a beautiful piece of work.  We went up to the platform and got a few shots of the high pedestals on the north side of the station for NB traffic.  The left of the two looks like it has white LED's in it, and the lower section of the right signal looks like it does too.  We got the rest of the signals in the station area, before heading across the little river on 4th street.

Next up was a stop at the west side of a swing bridge, but there are all new color light signals all over the place... no Pennsy signals left here......

It was getting pretty dark, so we headed down to Newark in the last shreds of light to catch the pedestal Hank Sundermeyer put us on to.  As luck would have it, there were also four pedestrian crossing gates there too. 

With the very last snippets of light, we went up to "Davis" interlocking and got shots of the signal bridge there, along with two dwarfs, one on a 7ft pole, as two were at Perryville.

Few, that's enough for one day!

To make up for past inadequacies, i snapped off around 1200 pictures with the digital, and about 4 rolls of slides (yea, I still prefer them, they last longer and look better).  It'll be a while before I get these all downsized and on their own pages..... stay tuned.

New 14-Apr-2008
Last Updated: 08-Jun-2014