A Favorite Ex-NYC Signal Bridge in Ashtabula

I’ve always enjoyed using signal bridges as photo props in railfan photography.

One of my favorites was the former New York Central signal bridge at the west end of the Ashtabula yard near the grade crossing with North Bend Road. 

It was easily accessible without any trespassing on railroad property. The signals shown in these images were for eastbound traffic so the best photos were westbounds.

The top photo shows a Conrail train on April 16, 1989.

The remaining photos were made on May 4 2007. In the last photo behind the BNSF units another road crossing can be seen.

Past that crossing and closer to the entrance of the yard is where a relocated signal bridge is now in use, obviously without NYC style signals.

These are another example of what I’m glad I got when I got it.

Article and Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Neither Failure Nor Complete Success

Sometimes you can wait for hours and never get the train you want to make for the photograph that you have in mind.

Back in August Marty Surdyk, Todd Vander Sluis and myself waited for more than hour with hopes of getting a westbound Norfolk Southern train passing beneath the new and old signal bridges in Huron, Ohio at CP 232.

It was apparent that the NS signal department planned to cut in the new signals any day now and take down the old signals, which were among the few still in operation on the NS Chicago Line with Type G signal heads.

We didn’t have the luxury of coming back on another day if we didn’t get the image we wanted on this day.

It was frustrating to hear the Toledo East dispatcher talking to trains to the west and east of Huron.

Finally, we got a train, but it was an eastbound. I made the image that appears in the bottom of the sequence above.

Not longer after that train passed our opportunity to get a westbound came.

So did a bank of clouds. I got the image I wanted, but not in the brilliant later afternoon sunshine that had been present for much of our wait.

It would be the only westbound that passed through Huron before we had to leave. At least I came away with something.

Old and New

Over the past few years Norfolk Southern and CSX have been replacing block signals that have stood for several decades with modern signals that all look alike.

Many of these older signals featured designs that associated them with a previous owner/operator of the rail line in question.

For example, the Pennsylvania Railroad and Baltimore & Ohio each had distinctive position light signals that immediately said “Pennsy” or “B&O” on their respective territories.

The Type G signal head was not necessarily unique to the New York Central, but it was commonly used by the Central in the Midwest on numerous routes.

NS has replaced most of the Type G signal heads on its Chicago Line so I was a little surprised to recently find a set of them still in use.

Shown is CP 232 in Huron, where the new signals are poised to be placed in service.

I made this image on the Akron Railroad Club’s Vermilion outing on Aug. 25 and the news signals may be in service by now and the old signals have fallen.

There were a number of NS vehicles at the scene, which suggested the cutover was imminent.

Got There at the Right Time

I didn’t journey to North East, Ohio, last spring for the express purpose of photographing the signal bridge at CP 73, which is located east of the Lake Shore Railway Museum.

But since I was there and I noticed that the CSX signal department was out in force putting in new signals, I decided I better get an image of the old signals.

The top and middle images were made on May 23. Note the new signals at the far left of both images are ready to be placed into service.

The bottom image was made eight days later and features Q020 charging eastbound on Track No. 2 of the Erie West Subdivision.

It was a good thing I made this photo because the following week these signals fell. There are only a handful of the old-style Type G signal heads mounted on their original masts or signal bridges left on CSX between Cleveland and Buffalo, New York.

Signal Indication is a Shadow

It’s late afternoon in Olmsted Falls. The sun is swinging around toward the southwest and illuminating the west end of the former New York Central station, which is now owned by the Cuyahoga Valley & West Shore Model Railroad Club.

One of the latest additions to the club’s modest 1:1 scale of railroad collectables at the depot is a two-headed Type G signal.

You don’t see the signal above, but it is casting a shadow on the side of the station.

Changing Times at Oak Harbor

One in a period series of images I made last summer

I don’t get to Oak Harbor that often. It is just far enough away to discourage a day trip there.

But I did get there last summer during an all-day outing that focused primarily on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.

At the far west end of Oak Harbor just east of North Benton Street is a set of intermediate signals.

I remembered photographing NS trains passing those signals during my first visit to Oak Harbor about 10 years ago.

In particular, I set my camera’s shutter speed to 30th of a second so I could create a blur as the train whizzed by with the blur making it seem as though the train was going 500 miles an hour.

During last summer’s visit to Oak Harbor those old type G signals were still in place, but newer signals were standing next to them waiting to be activated.

Given how little I get to Oak Harbor this was likely going to be the last time I’d photograph those old signals.

So I waited for an intermodal train to come, set the shutter speed of 30th of a second and recreated something I had made years earlier on slide film.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders