Hello:...We have a couple of American Flyer / Lionel railroad sign sets which contain a sign that just has a "W"...Question: What's this for or mean?..As always, many thanks.
In the real world they tell the engineer to blow the horn because they are approaching a grade crossing.
If you run your trains on the floor, the W sign is meant to be stepped on and impaled into your foot. At least that's the way I remember dad doing it a lot of Christmas's ago.
J White
http://tinyurl.com/lvz77ec
Rob
JW has it correct (don't know about the foot part though :)).
Many railroads stylized their whistle signs. Some were just an upright wood post while others had fancy perimeter outlines. The Pennsy had keystone styles, others had ovals. DT&I had their fancy Ford-stylized concrete ones.
Neil
I see Rob put in some photos while I was typing!
JW..Rob..Neil...Well, that really makes sense. Thanks guys.
And some whistle posts didn't have a "W" at all, they had a "_ _ . _" for the whistle sequence, "long, long, short, long"
As an aside, the old Erie Northern Branch north of the New Jersey / New York border is now a hiking trail, and some of the old Erie concrete whistle posts are still there to be seen.
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