Train - Controls - In the signal tower 1940 Poster

Colorized photo from 1940 Original Title: Mr TJ Long, president of the tri county farmers co-op Location: Du Bois, PA This is an interlocking tower, its used to switch tracks. Each lever is tied to do a certain job, it may switch a track, and it can send the signals that something did switch. When certain levers are pulled forward, the ones near it can't be moved forward, this prevents accidents. The actual lever is physical, meaning they have a direct connection to the track itself. Underground there is a pipe, and in that pipe is another pipe. This inner pipe is connected to the lever, its done that way to keep it out of the weather, but its hollow to keep the weight down. Some of these levers might be attacked to hundreds of feet of metal, and you often have to put some weight into pulling it back. These lever are often called Armstrong levers for this very reason. Each color means something: Red - Home signal Yellow - Distant signal Black - Switch/Derail Blue - Point locks Brown - Crossings White - Spares Each train yard will have different colors depending what they have, and they will have a number of these towers as well, because its all manually operated. The operator would see a train coming from a distance, using a chart on the wall, showing the layout of the yard, he would look for the letters that were on the tracks. From there he would convert the letters into a number system, and each lever would have a number. A simple instruction may mean pulling 2-3 levers, and something more complex would take 10 or more. The switch tower was often the first things to be built in the town. Because of that, it also become the first city hall, because it had communications, heat and light. The guy in charge is in the background, his name is Mr. Thomas Jackson long, he was 56 years old and a telegraph operator. Sadly, 3 months after this was taken, he was shot in a hunting accident and died.