Today its all treed in on the right side and only 2 mains, one for the CN on the left and the right one BNSF with a cross over's. Keep posting, love to old shots
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| Posted by on November 7, 2008 | |
Somehow I can't see the local tower operator here in Greensboro suggesting I climb the signals! Great photo.
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Another classic gem! Thanks for sharing these wonderful and historic bits of North American railroading.
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Portage burned down in 68 or 69 and for a while was "stop and proceed" under operator's flag authority. The outhouse was near the building, on the water side, and not far from the bank. Whenever the Mississppi flooded, I suspect that the water came close to the tracks shown here and a visit to the outhouse was ill advised. Thanks for posting, Ray.
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To clarify some details about the Portage siding: it was about 3/4 of a mile long and could hold 60-80 cars. The east end switch was controlled by a lever in the plant. The west end switch was hand operated by the train crews. There was a cross-over from the eastbound track to the westbound track just west of the west end switch. Operators could tell an eastbound to stop, cross over, and enter the siding by closing a knife switch mounted on a wall near the operator's table. During the time I worked at Portage, it was always a storage track for tank cars and locals would pull cars off of the west end only.
To clarify some details about Menominee: the industrial spur to the plant was actually a wye off of the westbound track. There were two cross overs just east of the wye so that, in theory, an eastbound could switch the plant, but this was rarely done. The westbound local, No 61, usually did the switching.
The "thanks for posting" in my previous comment, should be to Mark & Mike Nelson, not Ray--my local sounder was plugged into the wrong line ;-).
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Yeah I run thru here quite a bit and man it has changed over the years. Great shot.
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