What is this thing?

[wcfn100]

Here's an example of a similar type of train order stand, in Griffith, IN, with the arm deployed:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2690/4128090946_d8f6cd7926_b.jpg
You can see that the end of the arm splits into a 'Y' or 'V' to hold two sets of orders.
Looks like a flood lamp is attached to the top of the stand to provide illumination for night use.

Great find!

The part that splits isn't part if the arm but the normal 'fork' the operator would have used to hand over the orders.  The arm has 4 clamping positions of which two are used in that pic.

Jason

[Chris333]

Hey I have a pic from that spot too 

[eric220]

I love that for all of that FUBAR trackwork with a grade crossing right down the middle, there's just one poor guy to stop traffic, and they put his dinky little shed right in the middle of the diamonds! I hope that guy was a foamer!

[nkalanaga]

Jason:  Thank you!  The Northwest really did have a time warp in the late 70s...

[cjm413]

Don't see many signals on a cantilever arm specifically to put them FARTHER from the tracks...

I can see why some have nicknamed the CGW the "Chicago Great Weedy".

Except for the color the consist looks like some of the BN's in Pasco in the late 1970s.  When was this taken?

And that boxcar doesn't seem to have end reporting marks.  Maybe I don't need to add them to all of my early freight cars after all?

The consist is a bit unusual given the third unit was GP9m 120 rather than another F3B or F7B.

[Point353]

The consist is a bit unusual given the third unit was GP9m 120 rather than another F3B or F7B.

It looks like a so-called "Perlman Mallet" style consist such as the D&RGW used to run.
A-B-B-A cab units with a hood unit spliced in between the two B units.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=254610

[nkalanaga]

The BN ran them this way as well, my favorite being the A-B-C415-B-A set.  They also ran solid F consists, including at least one with 5 Bs between the 2 As.  And, of course, the odd F, A or B, in a mix of hood units, which they had run since the merger, as did the NP and GN before.  Both the GN and NP still had large fleets of Fs at merger time, and the early BN was always short of power, so they kept what they had.  After Amtrak received their SDP40Fs, they returned a large group of leased BN passenger Fs, which were regeared and renumber, and soon after all of the BN's Fs were moved to the Northwest, probably to minimize the number of shops having to deal with them.

Apparently, the BN only inherited 1 F from the CB&Q, and I don't remember ever seeing it in CB&Q paint. 

As far as I know, they never ran the FTs the inherited from the NP, but they were assigned BN numbers.

[wcfn100]

The two GP7s worked out of Chicago.  This unit is is probably going back the the Oelwein shops for maintenance.

Jason

[wcfn100]

Stumbled across this.



Jason

[nkalanaga]

Jason:  Do you know where that was taken?

And I notice that station has two forks on the arm, one for the engine crew, and one for the caboose.  Very handy.

[wazzou]

Looks like a former GN standard plan depot, presumably in Washington, based on the license plate on the Pinto.

[nkalanaga]

It does look like a GN depot, which is why I asked, and that could be a Washington license plate.  It looks like some of the drier parts of eastern Washington, and the ground is the right color for Pasco, but that could also be "railroad gravel", or dirt mixed with cinders, not local ground.  It wouldn't be in the Pasco area, because that was NP/SP&S country.

If it is WA, Y__ license plates should be Jefferson County.  I doubt that the picture is in Jefferson Co, though, because that's on the Olympic Peninsula, county seat Port Townsend, and as far as I know the GN never went there.   

It looks too dry for most of the GN's west side towns, and certainly isn't Wenatchee or Spokane, the only two GN stations I'm personally familiar with.

[nkalanaga]

Found it!  I Googled the picture, and it gave me two matches, both on Pinterest, and both useless.  I tried again, and got a link to this:
http://www.carrtracks.com/sshrrgtn.htm

And, here's the caption and copyright data:

Train 3 (Pacific Zip) picks up train orders at Harrington, WA on June 22, 1979. Disk 7
Great Northern Harrington, WA railroad depot semaphore train order signal
Photo by John Carr
Copyright (C) 2000-2016 CarrTracks and John Carr
You are at: http://www.carrtracks.com/index.htm > http://www.carrtracks.com/gallery.htm > http://www.carrtracks.com/sspicndx.htm

Harrington is between Spokane and Wenatchee, in Lincoln County, which matches the "dry side" appearance.

[Chris333]

Close-up of the "thing"
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nLms1nmCncA/Vqrcc4FKPLI/AAAAAAAAMH4/i_haYFe_Aj0/s1600/harrington%2Bfischer%2B12%2B14%2B84.jpg