Railroad interlocking towers were once a vital component of a railroad's network. These buildings centralized a group of signals along a very busy stretch of mainline such as a junction, crossover, or diamond into one location. An operator would manually set the signal or signals to the appropriate reading, either to proceed, stop, or caution, etc. It was a demanding job requiring constant vigilance. As the Twentieth Century improved technologies it has allowed for dispatching and signal control to be centralized and not so localized for a given section of railroad track. Today's Centralized Traffic Control system has ceased any future romanticized stories from those operators. Pictured is a 1953 Allan Kass illustration for Bower Roller Bearings.
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