One of the last manually operated switching towers in Illinois is closing. I didn't realize Springfield had any switching towers still in operation. I thought the last tower closed in 1994, which was the Wabash (NS) Iles tower.
http://www.sj-r.com/carousel/x43866324/Local-piece-of-railroad-history-to-close-in-June
The Union Pacific Railroad is closing the Ridgely Tower in Springfield, one of the last manually operated rail switching towers in Illinois. The tower, south of Sangamon Avenue and west of 16th Street, controls rail traffic along the Union Pacific/Amtrak line between St. Louis and Chicago and the Springfield to Peoria line of the Illinois and Midland Railroad. One of five operators sits in the tower around-the-clock to control rail traffic using a series of levers. “We will be able to move the Ridgely Tower functions to the Harriman Dispatching Center in Omaha by the end of June,” said Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis. “The automation of the tower is part of our annual improvement projects and takes advantage of newer technology that enhances operations and safety.” The tower has been in its current location since the early 20th century. It was rebuilt in 1930 by the then-owner, the B&O Railroad Co., and hasn’t changed much since. The five people who still work at Ridgely — Bob Phillips, Frances Jumper, Dave Gutierrez, Damon Vinson and Dewayne Clinton — are members of the Telecommunications Union. The union is expected to offer them the chance to take other jobs, but probably not in Springfield.
“I’m glad I had a chance to work here and see all this,” Jumper said Wednesday morning, waving her hand toward the old switches. Phillips said he was working for the railroad in New Orleans when a spot came open in the Ridgely Tower and he requested the move to Springfield.
The tower has not been well maintained over the years because the railroad companies that have owned it kept thinking it would close soon and they didn’t want to spend money on upkeep.
Control operators are not allowed to watch TV because it would distract them from the train traffic, but there is a microwave oven, a telephone and a good supply of bottled water. Visitors are not allowed.
The operator in the tower is in radio contact with train engineers and monitors rail traffic via computer. The four-foot-long iron switches — there were more than 30 of them at one time — are pulled in a sequence according to where the rail traffic needs to go. After the tower closes, that will be done by computer from Omaha, as is the case already on much of the UP rail line. The closing of Ridgely Tower does not come as a surprise. Manually operated towers have gradually been phased out. Thirty years ago, Springfield had five control towers that were operated by people. After June, it will have none. “Considering the advancements in technology over the years,” said Davis, “these types of towers use antiquated technology, and replacement parts are not readily available.”
Closing of tower no surprise, former operators say
Every year Jim Aebel worked as a control operator in Ridgely Tower, he heard that he would soon be out of a job. That went on for decades until Aebel retired in 2007.
Now that the Union Pacific Railroad finally is closing Ridgely, Jim and his one-time co-worker Dick Blough, also retired, aren’t surprised. “No, we’ve been expecting that for a long time,” said Blough. “I hate to see it go, but the wonder is that it lasted this long.” Blough worked for railroad companies for 41 years. About 23 of those years were spent up in the Ridgely Tower. He, too, retired in 2007. “That was a good job, in my opinion,” Blough says of Ridgely. “Not everybody liked being up there by yourself, but I feel fortunate to have been there as long as I was.”
Aebel started at Ridgely in the mid-1970s, but also worked at two of the other manned Springfield towers in those days. He went full time at Ridgely in the late 1980s. He said he felt some sadness at hearing that the old tower will close in June. Before then, he plans to make one more trip up the metal steps to the tower office to reminisce. That might include the story of his first day on the job. Ridgely usually had orders for the engineers going past. That was signified by a red arm on display at the tower. That told the engineers they were to pick up orders.
But an ornery dispatcher changed the routine on Aebel’s first day and told him to put up the green arm for the oncoming Amtrak. No problem, said Aebel. He knew which lever to pull to change the arm from red to green.
“I tried to pull the lever, and it wouldn’t move,” he recalled. “Now I’m going to get in big trouble. I’m sweating it.” Panicky about the Amtrak train getting ever closer to the tower, Aebel called a control operator at another tower in Springfield for help. That operator explained that there was a wooden block in that lever handle that kept it from moving, because the arm was always red. The block had been painted over so Aebel couldn’t see it. “Just in time, I knocked that piece of wood out and pulled that lever back and put the green arm up there so the train went on by,” Aebel said.
He has always suspected that the dispatcher knew all along about that wooden block. Rail buffs hope to preserve tower What will become of the Ridgely Tower once its operations are closed in June is unknown. But there is interest in preserving it as a historic artifact. The Chatham Railroad Museum could take the tower, if it can find the funds. The museum is in a renovated railroad depot. A railroad historian, Dick Wallin of Rochester, has offered the museum $1,000 seed money to move the tower to Chatham.
“We sure would hope for it to be saved,” says Bill Shannon, one of the railroad museum’s organizers. “It’s one of the last towers on the Union Pacific railroad. There are hardly any of them left. It’s a Springfield icon, but, due to its location, many people don’t even know it’s there.” The problem, Shannon said, is that it would be expensive to move the tower to Chatham. “Because of the size of it,” he said, “we don’t know if it could be moved in one piece. We’d need to get permission from the village. Then power lines would have to be moved out of the way.”
Wallin, however, thinks the tower could be put on its side and moved without any disruption to power lines. Perhaps, he said, a trucking company might be willing to donate moving equipment. Wallin, co-author of “Chicago & Illinois Midland,” a history of the C&IM railroad, says the tower will have to be moved after it closes because it’s so near the tracks.
He also thinks the Union Pacific could be persuaded to give the tower to a local historical preservation group.
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