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.
Anything with a blue link will take you to a page that is
generally a railfan guide of the area the tower is in.
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).
The tower was in continuous use from 1917 to 1991. It originally had a US&S F style machine, which was then replaced with WABCO NX machine. The NX
machine is now in a museum. The tower is currently used by the signal department. A big thanks to Dale Martin for
the info and the pictures... he worked at the tower for 20 years!
Shattuc
Former B&O RR and CB&Q RR's Shattuc Tower.
Tower razed in December 2014. CSX cut the E/W rails in July 2015 in Flora and Caseyville. The STB was after CSX to re-connect them.
Rails connected so sub-division could be used for storage of coal cars.
The lines passing thru here are E/W: CSX's (ex-B&O) Illinois Subdivision, East St. Louis to Vincennes IN (and previously on to Cincinnati);
and N/S: BNSF's Beardstown Sub (ex-CB&Q), Bushnell IL (just south of Galesburg) to Metropolis IL and Paducah KY.
BTW, one theory for the rash of razings around this time is that CSX finally got
a tax bill for all of these properties, and saw it was cheaper
to pay for a vacant lot than one with a structure on it.
More info:
http://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/2015/11/shattuc-il-junction-tower-and-b-route.html http://thetracksidephotographer.com/2016/08/25/a-lesson-learned/
EB Chessie Steam Special, 1981, photo: Steve Goaring photo
photo: Dennis DeBruler
photo: Dennis DeBruler
photo: Dennis DeBruler
sign on BNSF's Beardstown Sub, photo: Tom Gatermann
Baltimore
Former Pennsylvania RR's B&P (Baltimore & Potomac) Tower
This tower used to be located at the south end of the Penn Station complex. This tower was disassembled and moved to Bowie MD where they wanted to set it up, but the
plans never went thru, so the town of Sykesville MD took possession of it, built a new base for it, and used what salvageable material there was to reconstruct it as closely
to the original as they could. It houses the visitors center and post office.
Picture by Steve Martin
Baltimore
Former Pennsylvania RR's Gwynn Tower.
My buddy John Engleman used to work there before going to the B&O as an engineer, too bad I didn't get pictures when I visited the tower :-(
On the Northeast Corridor and so named for the Gwynn Falls that runs under the Pennsy right-of-way.
Baltimore
Former Baltimore and Ohio RR's CX (Carroll) Tower
Newark
Dock Tower. An ex PRR tower on the Northeast Corridor controlling the interlocking and bridges north of the Newark station. Newark Railfan Guide
Tyler
Cotton Belt RR's Tyler Tower 183. The tower is long gone, wasn't even around when I lived here in the early 1960's. Tyler and Tower 183 Railfan Guide
CONNECTICUT
EB Chessie Steam Special, 1981, photo: Steve Goaring photo
photo: Dennis DeBruler 
photo: Dennis DeBruler 
photo: Dennis DeBruler 
sign on BNSF's Beardstown Sub, photo: Tom Gatermann
Picture by Steve Martin
Pictures by Steve Martin
Picture by Steve Martin
Pictures by Steve Martin
From Alan Brougham's Bullsheet.
From Alan Brougham's Bullsheet.
Photo by Steve Martin and Fred Dunn
Pictures from 2006
Picture courtesy Rich W. of Newark.
