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MY DAD MAINTAINED CEDAR's AUTOMATED DIAMOND by Harry

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MY DAD MAINTAINED CEDAR's AUTOMATED DIAMOND by Harry MY DAD MAINTAINED CEDAR’S AUTOMATED DIAMOND by Harry B. Chase The New Haven Railroad’s Old Colony (later Boston) Division line from Mansfield to Lowell, Massachusetts, formerly the Old Colony Railroad’s Northern Division, abounded in railroad crossings at grade. The southernmost crossing was at Mansfield where Old Colony in spring of 1888 installed double slip switches and movable-point frogs by which their New Bedford-Lowell tracks crossed the Boston & Providence Railroad. In the 50.10 miles from Mansfield to Lowell the Old Colony ran at cross purposes to six other railroad lines radiating southwest, west and northwest from Boston: at Cedar, 6.91 miles north of Mansfield, the Wrentham Branch from Norwood Central to Adamsdale Junction at Walpole, 8.50 miles, the Readville-Putnam line at Medfield Junction, 13.67, the track from Needham Junction to West Medway at Framingham, 21.37, the Boston & Albany and at South Sudbury, 28.12, and West Concord, 35.02, the Boston & Maine. All but Mansfield were diamond crossings, and all were interlocked but Cedar which in 1928 was automated. Until 1916 Cedar was called Walpole Junction. [1] On April 12, 1888, about the time Mansfield’s 97-lever interlocking plant was placed in service, the Old Colony Railroad leased the Boston & Providence Railroad. Walpole Junction, later Cedar, came into existence December 1, 1890, when Old Colony opened a track running west to North Attleboro. A diamond was in place at Walpole Junction by mid-February 1892, when Old Colony opened an eastward line to Norwood Central. [2] On March 1, 1893, the Old Colony Railroad was leased in its entirety to the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad. Long before my first visit to Cedar the junction had a passenger station. Why anyone would buy a ticket to or from such a lonely, out-in-the-woods spot is a mystery. Only one dirt road led there from South Street in Walpole. Passenger service on the Wrentham Branch ended August 16, 1938, with a train hauled by I-3 class 4-6-2 #1094. [3] From 1930 to 1948 my father, Harry B. Chase, for whom I was named, was one of two New Haven Railroad signal maintainers based at Walpole. (The other was, first, Arthur Conrad of Mansfield, then William R. Chambers of Walpole.) Three crossings – Cedar, Walpole and Medfield Junction – came within their 18-mile signal territory. Occasionally dad invited me to spend a day with him on the job. That/s how I became familiar with the three crossings he helped look after. Walpole tower 232 with its 52-lever “armstrong” interlocking machine was impressive, but to me the most fascinating was the fully automated crossing at Cedar. Originally, movements over Cedar diamond were controlled from tower O-360, erected probably between 1885 and 1892. [4] After the removal of Cedar tower on April 6, 1928 [5] an unnumbered signal cabin was installed in its place. The passenger depot lasted a bit longer. Eventually its windows and doors were boarded up and it was bought by Jay Easton who around 1934 moved it to U.S. Route 1 where he or another converted it to a restaurant which later burned. [6] From then until its abandonment the crossing at Cedar was protected by four lower- quadrant home signals 200 feet from the diamond and four lower-quadrant inoperative distant signals with blades fixed in a horizontal position, about 1,800 feet from the crossing. When two trains on conflicting routes simultaneously approached Cedar, the home signal would clear for the first train to shunt the 0.6-volt direct current in the rails of the approach block. Cedar was an exception to the old rule, “If anything can happen it will happen.” Non- railroaders who knew something but not everything about the automatic installation invariably asked dad, “What if two conflicting trains reach the approach circuits at the same moment?” His answer: “It never happens.” For occasions when the signals didn’t work as intended, the employes’ time tables in “Special Instructions, Boston Division,” provided directions, though the rule numbers changed from one time table to another. The directions do not appear in time table no. 13 for October 29, 1961, though a photo taken July 22, 1967, shows the cabin still in place. [7] These special instructions, regardless of rule number, all read the same: “CEDAR. Automatically operated home and distant signals govern movements over crossing. “The normal position of home signals is stop. “The entrance of a train upon the approach track circuit will cause home signals to change to proceed indication, provided route is clear. “Four hand releases located in signal cabin at crossing, are provided, one for each home signal, and instructions for operation posted in cabin. “When all home signals indicate stop, conductor must operate hand release for route desired. “When operation of hand release does not clear signal, conductor will immediately communicate with Boston Division train dispatcher for instructions. “When home signal governing movement indicates stop and home signals governing conflicting routes indicate proceed, conductor must immediately communicate with Boston Division dispatcher for instructions. “When so authorized, conductor must operate hand release, which will cause home signals on conflicting routes to indicate stop. “In either case, movement over crossing must not be made until conductor and engineman observe that home signals on conflicting route indicate stop and a proceed hand signal is given by the conductor on crossing, and after train has passed signal, release handle must be restored to normal position by turning handle to the right as far as possible. “No attempt should be made to force hand release. “Home signal indicating stop, which cannot be cleared, must not be passed unless authorized by Boston Division train dispatcher, who will confer with Providence Division train dispatcher before authorizing such movement. “Passenger carrying motor cars must in addition to proceed fixed signal indication, receive a proceed hand signal from the conductor on crossing, before proceeding.” [8] A phone that allowed the conductor to talk with the dispatcher was mounted in a white- painted wooden box attached to a nearby pole. For my personal memories of the Cedar of 70 years ago let me go back to the first of my several visits on Columbus Day, October 12, 1945. It was a work holiday for me but not for railroaders, so my father took me to Walpole. Back then, signals on secondary lines were oil-lit. On that day dad was covering the job of Walpole lampman Archibald “Archie” Steele of Mansfield, who was sick, while Bill Chambers handled the maintainers’ duties. Dad and I rode from Walpole to Cedar with track patrolmen James “Jim” White of Foxboro and his helper, known as “Old John,” on their motor hand car #894. After getting off at Cedar, dad refilled the fonts of the eight home and distant signal lamps with “Fortnite” Long Time Burner Oil, a job that had to be done once a week. While we were at Cedar, white-flagged I-2 class Pacific #1313 passed with a northbound “troop extra” (World War II had ended two months before; these troops were returning home}, followed by R-1-b Mountain type #3314 on Providence-Framingham freight PC-2, engineer Harry Chase (no relation) of Taunton, Massachusetts, and fireman Robert R. Tweedy of Cranston, Rhode Island. Later in the day I learned that Harry, a fast runner, took PC-2 from Walpole to Medfield, 3.85 miles, in four minutes flat. As #3314 approached, dad pulled from his overalls pocket a packet of Dexter cigars, clipped it to a message hoop and held it high. Bob Tweedy, with a grin, speared the hoop on his forearm, deftly swapped the Dexters for White Owls and tossed the hoop so it landed at my father’s feet. Detaching the White Owls, dad explained. “Bob can’t find his favorite smokes but I can, and I can’t find mine but he can. This is how we solve the problem.” As we walked to the cabin, dad laughed. Since his last visit, kids who were more artists than vandals had drawn a train around all four sides of the shanty: engine to the right of the door, caboose to the left, and a long consist of cars in between. After we’d hiked back from the east side distant signal, rain began, so we holed up in the cabin, where dad started a fire in the small wood-stove. As the interior warmed up, angry wasps began falling on us from the rafters. For the next 15 minutes, in self defense, we swatted dozens of them with leather gloves. The rain letting up, I roughly sketched and measured the cabin. For the benefit of modelers, it was 12 feet by 9 feet 9 inches, stood 9 feet high from the concrete foundation to the eaves and had a sheet metal roof and a tin chimney considerably taller than is shown in my drawing. [9] It was painted the standard New Haven buff with brown trim. Windows on the north and south sides were boarded against vandals. The door was on the west side, away from the track. Inside, besides the stove in the southwest corner, was a large can and a box, both filled with kindling wood, and a keg (what it contained I can’t recall). Against the north window were four shelves of relays and other electrical equipment. On the east wall, above a closet door, was a row of six indicators, miniature lower quadrant semaphores that clicked when they moved and displayed track occupancy (why six instead of four I don’t know).
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