Interesting how the "Warbonnet" scheme still holds up better than the BNSF "Pumpkin" scheme over the years.
Yeah, they should of stuck with either the "Warbonnet", or just the BNSF "H1", the classiest of the Pumpkin schemes.
I think we can all agree that the Vomit Bonnet is the real MVP around here. I think if they refined that design, it may have actually been kind of a cool paint scheme. They should have toned down the red and done the large BNSF like the H2 scheme.
I remember seeing telegraph poles in the late fifties/early sixties still intact with lines still running between them. I used to often think about signals running through those wires back in the twenties through forties from my great grandfather as he worked for the Milwaukee Road in Southern Minnesota as a depot agent. Doug
In those decades, the Soo was still actually using those wires for their dispatching, daily wire reports, etc.
My memory is hazy, but I seem to recall that railroads used a strict protocol in how they strung their lines to separate communications, signal and power wires. The layout respected avoidance of power wires to safely access communication and signal wires, interference from line inductance and expansion as additional circuits were added. Pole lines also went over mountains instead of through them with the right-of-way to assure that a tunnel fire or collapse wouldn't sever communications. All such neat detail and another element that has vanished from the railroad landscape.
I seem to remember that the insulators also were color-coded as to purpose. Though maybe not all railroads.
Taken today in Laurens, SC, a Carolina Piedmont Railroad crew departs their yard and begins another journey. The line is owned by Genesee & Wyoming and operates about 30 Miles of former ACL and Greenville & Northern rails, and enjoys a well diversified traffic base. Interchange is made with CSX in Laurens.
Iowa Northern returns from UP’s Linden Yard with a short manifest. Waterloo, IA September 26, 2018 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
