Berea Tower operator Dick Lacy uses binoculars to check for traffic on the Chicago Line east of the tower on Oct. 8, 1994. I was on the property with permission as part of information gathering for an article published later in Trains magazine. It would be my first byline in the magazine. The Tower would close in February 1997.
Photograph by Craig Sanders
Another interlocking tower has fallen. On Dec. 28, workers razed Botsford Tower in Kalamazoo, Michigan, after efforts to save and move the century-old structure failed.
Known as BO, the tower was built in 1914 by the Michigan Central to guard an interlocking crossing used by trains of the MC, Pennsylvania Railroad, and Grand Trunk Western.
Until closed in October 2016, BO Tower continued to control a crossing of tracks used by Amtrak, Norfolk Southern and the Grand Elk.
The tower once had a 44-lever interlocking machine. The tower structure itself was owned by the Michigan Department of Transportation, which was not opposed to preservation efforts.
However, Railfan and Railroad magazine reported on its website that the cost of moving the tower to a new location provided to be too much.
MDOT wanted the tower moved because it was too close to the tracks to remain in its current location.
Nova Tower was razed in late 2013, but for many years it was a “must visit” site on any photo expedition on the western end of the CSX New Castle Subdivision.
Shown above are a pair of trains that I caught passing the “leaning tower of Nova” on Aug. 7, 2009. I must have spent some time there because both trains are eastbound on Track 2.
It was not my first visit to Nova. I was there a year earlier and perhaps even that had not been my first sighting of Nova Tower. I have a hazy recollection that my first visit to Nova Tower occurred on an outing with Marty Surdyk in which we drove past the tower but no train was coming so we continued on.
At one time Nova tower controlled signals and a crossover here when the rails were the Baltimore & Ohio. Going back even further the Lorain, Ashland & Southern crossed the B&O in Nova at grade.
Nova can still be a good place to photograph trains, but without a former interlocking tower as a photo prop.
Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders
The former New York Central tower in Fostoria that once held the nation’s first centralized traffic control panel has been razed.
Trains magazine reported on its website that Jackson Street Tower was demolished as part of a program to remove old and unused structures.
The first CTC operation was installed in 1927 and controlled 40 miles of the former Toledo & Ohio Central eastern branch between Stanley Yard in Toledo and Berwick Most of the line is now abandoned.
The operator in the tower also controlled the CTC panel, which has been donated to the Smithsonian Institution.
The tower was located on the north side of Fostoria and is not to be confused with F Tower.
Many if not most Northeast Ohio railroad photographers have in their collection somewhere an image of Nova Tower.
Located in its namesake town on the CSX New Castle Subdivision, Nova Tower continued to stand for many years after it was closed. It became a landmark for photographers for its decrepit condition, which included a noticeable lean.
How that tower managed to survive for so long is a mystery except to some supervisor at CSX who finally gave the approval to raze the structure in December 2013.
My hazy memory is that the railroad was amenable for a railroad museum saving if if the museum moved it off the site. That never happened although a tourist railroad operation in the West salvaged some components of Nova Tower to use in recreating an interlocking tower on its property.
Shown above are two views of the tower in its latter years. In the top image, an eastbound auto rack train passes by on June 21, 2010. At that time, Baltimore & Ohio color position light signals were still in use as were block signs. Both have since been removed.
The bottom image was made May 26, 2013, and also features an eastbound. The tower already was looking rough in 2010 and looked rougher three years later.
Note the railfan standing on the tower steps to get a photograph. Given the condition of the tower at that time, that is not something I would have done for fear the steps might collapse.
Top Photo by Robert Farkas
Years of planning and fundraising paid off in Union City, Indiana, on Tuesday when a moving company moved the town’s railroad interlocking tower about a block west to a park.
The brick tower, which closed in 1968, once controlled the crossing of the New York Central”s (Big Four) Cleveland-Indianapolis line with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s (Panhandle) Columbus-Logansport, Indiana, line.
Local interests raised more than $56,000 which was matched by a $50,000 grant from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Agency.
Union City, located on the Indiana-Ohio border, had faced a late March deadline to commit to moving the tower or else it would be razed by CSX.
The former Pennsy line through Union City is gone, but the former NYC line is today the Indianapolis Line of CSX.
Three city streets were closed so the tower could be move on dollies by Wolfe House & Building Movers.
The tower is slated to be restored with the lower level being used as a visitor center with restrooms, and the upper level returned to its appearance when the tower was still open.
It is located in the southwest corner of Artisan Crossing park and faces the CSX tracks in the same manner that it did before it was moved. The park is adjacent to the CSX Indianapolis Line and across the street from the restored former PRR passenger station.
In the top image, the tower is being wheeled west on Pearl Street. The bottom image shows the tower in its final resting place.
The former railroad interlocking tower in Union City, Indiana, is scheduled to be moved to a new location on July 27.
The tower was saved after a lengthy fundraising drive. It will be moved one block west to a city park.
The city plans to have a festival on the moving day that will include food trucks and other activities.
Now located adjacent to the CSX Indianapolis Line, the tower once guarded the crossing of the former New York Central (Big Four) and Pennsylvania (Panhandle) railroads.
The former Pennsy route from Columbus to Logansport, Indiana, is abandoned through Union City.
Union City, located on the Indiana-Ohio border, still has its PRR passenger station, which has been restored and is now used as an arts center.
The second day of my trip to the East Broad Top Railroad in Pennsylvania was spent on the east slope of Norfolk Southern’s grade over the Allegheny Mountains.
Mid Grade tower, or MG for short, is located about halfway up the grade about two miles west of Horseshoe Curve.
It used to be an important place on this busy mainline and while still busy it has been negated by technology.
Sadly, the tower has fallen upon hard times and is scheduled to be demolished. Here are a few photographs from my visit.
MG Tower as seen on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 2013 during an excursion pulled by Nickel Plate Road 765 trip heading back toward Horseshoe Curve then Altoona for a lunch stop. (Photograph by Edward Ribinskas)
A historic former Pennsylvania Railroad interlocking tower near Altoona, Pennsylvania is set to be razed.
Norfolk Southern is seeking bids to demolish MG Tower two miles west of Horseshoe Curve.
“We have put the demolition out to bid and are awaiting responses,” NS spokesman Jeff DeGraff told the Altoona Mirror.
He said the demolition is for safety reasons because the structure is deteriorating. How soon the tower will be razed will depend on cost estimates the railroad receives.
The tower was built during World War II when the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia mainline boasted four racks.
Joe DeFrancesco, executive director of the Railroaders Memorial Museum of Altoona, said MG was not a viable candidate for preservation because it is far from a public road.
Moving the structure would be difficult and expensive, he said.
“You preserve what you can preserve,” DeFrancesco said. “Some things are beyond reach.”
Interlocking towers once dotted the railroad landscape in large numbers.
But the vast majority of them have been closed and their functions of lining switches and signals transferred to a dispatcher’s desk hundreds if not thousands of miles away.
Railroads generally don’t like to let vacant building stand unused next to their rights of ways so scores of former interlocking towers have fallen victim to the wrecking ball or a front end loader.
Somehow the tower in Union City, Indiana, has survived. But it may be living on borrowed time.
At one time, Union City Tower guarded the crossing of the Pennsylvania Railroad (Pan Handle) route between Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, of the New York Central (Big Four) route between Cleveland and St. Louis.
The two railroads crossed at a sharp angle by Columbia Street. In fact the crossing was movable switch points rather than a set of diamonds for the double track mainlines of both railroads.
The tower closed in 1968 and changing traffic patterns led to the abandonment by Conrail of the former PRR line through Union City.
But the tower remained standing. CSX would like to knock it down, but is willing to allow Union City interests to have it provided that they move it at least 50 feet back from the tracks.
The cost to do that is $60,000 and the city doesn’t have that kind of money. There is a fund raising campaign underway but small towns struggle to raise that level of money.
The latest report is that the city hopes to talk CSX into allowing the tower to remain in its current location but be surrounded by a fence.
The railroads is willing for now to give the city more time to raise money to pay to move the tower and its uncertain how it will respond to the fence idea.
Union City has been told that the tower is off the demolition list, at least for now.
But just this past July IU Tower in downtown Indianapolis and railroads, like any other company, can be notorious for doing what they want with their property.
Nostalgia and history don’t contribute to revenues, increase stock prices or help pay dividends to stockholders.
During a recent outing to Union City I made sure to capture a train passing the tower.
The auto rack train is headed westbound on the Indianapolis Line. I hope that it is not the last image I made of this tower, but you never know.
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