So here comes the 5586 Westbound down the Clark Fork valley between Spring Gulch and St. Regis, MT. At the time, there was a section of track warrant territory between Superior and Paradise, MT that somehow escaped the installation of CTC. As such, semaphores remained along this 35 mile segment into the 21st century. There were also a few pockets of semaphore territory at the time of this photo including portions of the old Erie and Monon, the UP/SP Carrizozo Sub and, of course, the still extant remnants of the Santa Fe system in New Mexico. The Northern Pacific era semaphores date to the 1920s, and the blunt edge blades (as opposed to the typical pointed blade used by NP) were evidently reclaimed from former Great Northern semaphores as replacements where necessary. Fuji Astia
