Morning journal and courier., 1893-07-21
WORKED RY SIGNALS.

WORKED BY SIGNALS. There is Good Reason Why Xardmas- l ter Jacobs and H. ID. Beach arc
 HapPy-The Switch Tower at the Round House is a Success and 1t Is ! Worked by Consolidated Road Men. and That, Too, Without Any In- structton From Men Imported From EnEland-There is no Opportunity for an Accident-An Annunciator
 Will be in Use in a Few Days That
 Will Simplify Matters.
 The proudest and happiest men in this country are H. D. Beach and Walter E. Jacobs, and evidently, also, the officials of ths Consolidated road. Every body in New Haven knows Mir. Jacobs. He Is the yardmaster of the Consolidated road in this city and he is more familiarly known as s'Ike" among all railroad men and yachts men, being shining light in the New Ha. ven Yacht club. Mir. H. D. Beach is stranger comparatively in this city but his joy is equal to that of Yardmaster Jacobs, and perhaps it surpasses it triae. They have great reasons to be proud and happy. It is the fact that there is in the yard of the Consolidated road, near the repair shops, one of the bsst equipped switch towers in the United States, and which ranks in some instances the third in the world.
 Until few weeks ago all of the switches in and about the myriad of tracks from the depot to the Cedar street bridge were turned by hand. Numbers of switchmen were employed and whenever 1t was neces- gary for an engine to move from one track to another there was great deal of run ming about and the shouting of several men. Oftentimes an engine and car or two left the tracks and there would be more shouting and rushing, with now and then curse to spice matters. But that has all been done away with. The switch men have been relegated to other places. All is now quiet, with the exception of the pufing of locomotives as they rush back and forth, now with train of passenger or freight cars, and again with nothing at- tached to them. Three men now do the work of dozens, and they do not rush about in doingit, either. They are confined in 8 tower, and while they are exceedingly busy at all times, there Is no rushing about and shouting, as there was until a few weeks ago.
 All of the switches, all of the signals, all the movements of trains and engines in and out of New Haven south of the depot are controlled from this small tower, All of the work is done by levers, and the com bination is enough to give person not familiar with it an attack of locomotor ataxia or some other equally dangerous disease. But the men who work 1t, and H. D. Beach, thelever engineer, under whoee supervision it was constructed, says 1t Is as simple as the alphabet. Perhaps it is, but l to the COURIER reporter who watched the work for two hours yesterday it appeared as simple to him as the Hebrew alphabet, | Ssnscrit I Engineer H. D. Beach and Yardmaster Jacobs ard the officials of the Consolidated road have great reason to be proud of the l tower and the new mode of switching. i The plan is the invention of an English engineer, the civil engineer on the Great l Northern railroad of Great Britain. It was first used in this country at the Grand
 Central depot in New York city. When \ it was first put in operation there no mer
 could be found who were able and willing l to work it. Men were especially imported
 from England to do tho work and to act aa
 instructors to the New York men. Ever
 then months were spent before the towe,
 men were familiar with the levers and ths
 switch chart. Wrong levers were throwr
 and trains were sent on the ground ,havin.
 run If the tracks.
 Such has not been the case in this city
 The employees of the Consolidated roat
 have more intelligence than their fellov
 railroad men at the other end of th
 route. When the levers were placed il
 position and ready for operation no me,
 were imported from England to shov
 them how to work them. The men wh had been "throwing switches about tn
 passenger car yard for years were put a
 once to work. Engineer Beach stood nea them for few days. They studied tn
 chart of tracks above their heads, and , was less than week when they became 8 , l perfect in their work as veterans of man . ! years.
 It is no easy matter to throw the switchs
 by the aid of the levers. There are thre lever men at all times in the tower hous At times the combined strength of a three is necessary to make what is called B combination. The switches are much mo1 } complicated than gre those at the Gran
 Central depot in New York. And the,
 are many times when it is necessary t change two and sometimes a dozen sigma, f in order to let train into the city frol the lower end of the road. Such work f l not necessary at New York. But even wit all the labor involved, the extreme watcl
 fitness that is called for and the numbe l 1 of trains that are constantly running U , l and down, not an accident has happene 1 nor has an individual been injured. The tower is 8 model of workmanship So is the network of rods, made of stes 7 pipes, which control the switches, and th
 wires by which the signals are changed
 In the tower there are eighty levers. Fly | 1ek AoI ) eighteen are switch levers, six are pa 8 levers and the rest are devoted to the sil
 nals. The greatest lever of all Is numbere eight. Wonderful work can be done wit T it. By its aid about ninety-seven combiE l ations can be made. It not only throw l. switches but frogs ss we'll, and that tc a l with the accuracy that finely adjuste
 chronometer denotes the time. It ca T send train over a combination of track 8 and switches from one side of the networ
 of tracks to the other. And while it
 doing this not another train can interfel
 with it. There is no danger of a collision \ Should an engineer not heed the signal ] Set against him his locomotive would ru
 of the track before he came anywhe, near the moving train.
 There is still another thing that Is ( great value. A bar of iron runs along sid of the rail for fifty feet where there Is F switch. An engine cannot move on ths bar while the switch is against it. This another added protection to railroad mel 3 And then again there is another. It . this: A train might be on it's way to Ne
 York. The operator in the tower sees ths
 there Is hot box on one of the cars, (
 that something is wrong with 8 car. E @ throws over lever. A signal at tt q Cedar street bridge, or below it, is at ono h set. So is another far behind the trai,
 The engineer sees the signal in front (
 him. He stops, looks back and sees tf
 other one. Then he backs up to the dept n where the repairs are made or the ca |, thrown from the train and new one sul
 stituted.
 Y It is because of this that H. D. Beac , and Yardmaster Jacobs feel happy an proud. They have able assistants in tt
 tower. One can gain some idea of the wo,
 done when in the twenty four hours fro a pm. last Saturday to p. m. last Sunds ;. ], ,768 throws of the levers were made. In addition to the levermen there a three operators. Levermen and operate 2 work eight hours. There axe always ol I operator and three levermen on duty. H.
 Hopkins is the operator from a. m. to 4 D. I
 and the levermen are: Head Levermt f Michael Moran, Levermen Benj jamin Re :. holds and John Carroll. From D. m. c 12 m., Operator E. E. Clements, Head Le Il erman John Horan, Levermen John Reil and Daniel Brennan. From 12 m. to 8 m., Operator J. W. Fitzgerald, Head Le l. erman Charles Moran, Levermen Jeremi'