Lackawanna Cut-Off - Part 32: Tour of East Stroudsburg (PA) Tower

Join us for a tour of the Stroudsburg Tower of the Lackawanna Railroad with our host, Kendrick Bisset. Kendrick will show us how the 1908 tower worked for controlling switches, signals and even grade crossing gates. While the tower is no longer in use, almost all of the original hardware within the tower--including all 38 original levers--still exists and Kendrick will explain how it worked, as well as how the CTC (Central Traffic Control) machine that was added in 1943 supplemented the operations of the tower, including the control of trackage from East Stroudsburg to Slateford Jct. on the Lackawanna Cut-Off.

[@stripervince1]

Beyond awesome. I was lucky enuff to sometimes work in and around Santa Fe Mission tower in Los Angeles as a signalman more than 30 yrs ago. It was beyond amazing, 5 RR went there, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, Amtrak , Santa Fe and Metrolink. Just amazing watching the tower operators throwing the levers non stop

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Thanks for sharing

[@jonathanwreck8914]

Great to see the tower was saved with a beautiful restoration. I was in the tower when it was in service and the operators were always friendly. I also passed the tower many times as a Conrail engineer

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Very cool!

[@Arturo-sm1tb]

Thank you for my virtual visit to this great historical site. I learned something I never knew about.

[@RussellNelson]

13:48 I would totally renovate Slateford Tower into a residence!!

[@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont]

Nice restoration. Great demonstration of the locking features of the "armstrong" frame! I remember seeing an article in the late 1980s in either Trains or Railfan and Railroad about the cutoff and a bit about the tower, and a visit with the operator who "had more time for memories than railroading". I think it was open just one shift a day at the time of the writing. Nice that the CTC machine was also saved. Interesting about the Johnson / US&S lever frame - the ones built on the Saxby and Farmer patent were much more common. Some B&O towers I visited had a "button" in the floor in front of the lock lever that had to be stepped on before the lock lever could be moved.

[@johnringoo756]

I was inside of the suffern switching tower in the 80s.. our taxi company had an account with Conrail..

[@richardgerlach5156]

I remember seeing this tower many times in Railroad magazine back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. This is a real treat to see the inside of it!

[@JasonTrew2018]

I think I remember eating at that depot back in 2003 and I had a good time for that weekend's NASCAR race

[@RussellNelson]

So .... you've visited every station, gone over or under every road crossing, visited every rail crossing, done a top 27 sites, bicycled the entire thing, flown over it, talked to people who operated it, now ... you should talk to Mike Helbing, head of Metrotrails. He leads a 15 mile hike every weekend, and sometimes a night hike in the middle of the week. I'll bet you that he has already hiked the entire Cut-Off. He's also hiked the Great Alleghany Passage, the 9-11 Trail, the Morris Canal route (including riding the light rails that runs in its prism), all of the D&H Gravity and most of the Canal, and for the coupe-de-gras the entire perimeter of New Jersey. You should interview him.

[@michaela.chmieloski3196]

While many, if not most, railfans would find this aspect of railroading boring ("Where's the steam locomotive?!"), for me it is quite fascinating. That interlocking of the levers wasn't just throw together out in the field, the design engineer(s) needed to know the track and signal layout under control in order to make the entire installation work--both properly and safely. And when flaws in the plant's design/operation were found, devices such as the timers were invented and installed. Really neat stuff, thank you for showing it. May you, Mr. Walsh, your wife, son, and videographer daughter, Larissa, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks again for the early present. See you next year.

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Thank you, sir. A Merry Christmas to you as well! I agree, the workings of an interlocking are fascinating, especially if you consider the fact that over a century ago they had figured out a way to mechanically prevent mistakes from happening that without the fail-safe aspect to these machines would have resulted in probably daily accidents. Even experienced towermen such as Artie Erdman (Part 31) say that the machines saved him from making mistakes.

[@johnschweinberg8085]

We've seen that tower many times during our annual trip from Pittsburgh and while visiting the (old-before the fire) Dansbury Depot Resturant, but never actually went over to look at it, wish I had now. We were just in East Stroudsburg in Nov. 2021, specifically to see the restaurant only to discover it's all new. We miss the old place with much of the history on display and the museum either inside or next to the restaurant. This video was amazing to watch, I'm sure I'll watch it again. Thank you for making this video available.

[@LackawannaCutOff]

I miss the old restaurant, too.

[@PeterT1981]

Chuck! What a treat!

[@bp4170]

Cant thank you enough, great video!

[@banditfarmer1900]

I'm really glad your keeping history alive by showing this, To many button pushers now that dont know what work really is. Keep up the great work Chuck ! Bandit

[@daviddauphin838]

Brought back a lot of memories of Penn-Central with Market Tower at Oak Point yard and also Harold Tower and Shell station.

[@90pontiac]

Thanks for sharing this information. I was born there in Stroudsburg. I have family whom reside by the cut off at pequest Rd. Over pass. I remember growing up and going to the fire station with my grandfather we go over the tracks in greendell there overlook the station and rail road line.

[@kbeeistley]

Thank you and nice work, Chuck and Larissa!

[@Erie-Lackawanna_Railfan]

Great and very informative video Chuck!

[@clrblock]

Hey Chuck, the picture (9:59) that you have of switch heaters is Hall Interlocking on the Long Island Railroad looking east from Jamaica Station

[@billwolverton1144]

Great video, keep it up Chuck

[@Brianrockrailfan]

Awesome video Merry Christmas 👍🎅🎄

[@medwaymodelrailway7129]

Very nice job you done there .Thanks for sharing.

[@bsalightning69]

All that info is interesting. Pretty in depth stuff considering it was a hundred years ago, and they didn't have a cnc machine or a computer to design it. I find all of this useful since I am tinkering with a o gauge train layout.

[@johnschultz9023]

The "jelly jar" timers are called clockwork time releases.

[@alexsmodelrailroad2795]

Hey I was there that day!!!

[@mmayhem29]

Great video!

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@warrenwilson4818]

Great job. I didn't realize that the Cut-off had so many grade crossings. Attn: Mr. CC person: coal chute, not shoot. I'm a huge Cut-off fan. I'm 77. Grew up in Bound Brook NJ. It's Mar. 11, 2022.

[@GeorgeWilloughbyZ]

Great description of the interlocking !!!

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dockshund5916]

Oh, there it is.

[@paradoox02459]

So, a couple of questions (I'm only at the 40 minute mark; so if this is answered later in the video my apologies): 1) What about the remaining existing switches (passing tracks, sidings for remaining customers, etc)? Are they manual control by the train crew at the location or are the controlled from a central location (Scranton?) 2) How are the existing crossing gates (I'm pretty sure the ones on route 423 near the Tobyhanna Station etc are still functional) operated? By train presence in a block or something else?

[@dockshund5916]

I would like to see the mechanical linkages below the floor.

[@LackawannaCutOff]

We do show them. There's really no way to get any closer than where we were in the lower level of the tower.

[@iraginsburg1156]

New subscriber here.... so bear with me ok? Is the track on the Pennsylvania side the same track that Amtrak will replace in it's plan to extend service to Scranton? Does the existing track extend to Scranton with bridges and grade crossings or will Amtrak have to clear the ROW of overgrowth and put in new grade crossings and new bridges to eliminate grade crossings?

[@LackawannaCutOff]

The track from the Delaware Water Gap to Scranton was never removed, and although it lay dormant for a few years in the mid- to late-1980s, it has since been used continuously by the freight operator Delaware-Lackawanna and occasionally by Steamtown. Amtrak has inspected the line and further improvements will be necessary, although much of the track is already rated FRA Class 3 (60 mph passenger, 40 mph freight), The plan would be to upgrade it to FRA Class 4 (80 mph passenger, 60 mph freight).

[@garthmcgibbon4285]

Can you hoop orders out the upper window of the tower?

[@LackawannaCutOff]

No. And the mainline wasn't adjacent to the tower, so I think they had to climb down to pass train orders on.

[@robertschiavone7275]

Was the donated US&S Microlok equipment ever used?

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Kim Williams might know.

[@mikeweidinger1356]

The gentleman doing the demonstration and explanation sounds like he is going to pass out due to lack of oxygen

[@ernestpassaro9663]

Very interesting

[@garthmcgibbon4285]

Makes you sick seeing this! More jobs lost because of modernization and “progress”.

[@LackawannaCutOff]

Well, it is what it is.

[@edwardgray154]

i recall on conrail we still had some armstrong machines they later converted them to electric so all that did was when you moved a lever you were just making contact with a small electric switch not moving a half mile of pipes but alas came the computer disp centers and all of that stuff is now gone forever. i was sad to see that happen the rr was hell bent of getting rid of the towers.