Signals with "bats".

Hi Deane,
An old book I have describes the first Highball / lowball signals (Pennsylvania) as a ball which hung from the top of a "gallows arm " attached to a 30 foot mast . The ball was raised or lowered by a rope or chain. I'm wondering if the "gallows arm" is also called a bat depending on the region ? This would have been pre-electricity and going back as early as the 1830's.
 
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I think what our songster has seen are Train Order Board Signals which were usually at stations.

<kuid:373201:100198> PRR Train Order Board C-C
<kuid:106916:10312> CBQ Train Order Board

H-890.jpg


Chain operation is mentioned here..

http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,227182,227324

Going back to my sick bed now, will be back soon.
 
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It's looking like a dead duck, spitting out pieces of it's broken luck.

Hey Aqualung,

reckon it's got to be related to "chain and ball" signals. Perhaps poetically a bat chain raising a ball.

Although it conjures an image of German semaphores for me I've never heard semaphores referred to as bats, rather "arms" or "blades" and batons are hand held signals.
 
Hey Aqualung,

reckon it's got to be related to "chain and ball" signals. Perhaps poetically a bat chain raising a ball.

Although it conjures an image of German semaphores for me I've never heard semaphores referred to as bats, rather "arms" or "blades" and batons are hand held signals.

Here's the last operating Ball Signal in the US.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=288071

This one is located 250 miles/402 km from where I live. I saw it during a drive up that way back in 2013.
 
Thanks for the link, John. Interesting article and beautiful country. I wish I'd made the drive up there when I lived in New England.
I did get to see a Barnam & Baily circus train, beat up cars and put to rest on a siding in Manchester, NH. Maybe it's still there. I've got pics of that too........somewhere....probably with the pics of the abandoned B&M branch in back of Church St in Merrimac....still lost.

Along with the Hi-ball signals, I read in the early days would be a guy who'd climb to the top of a 30 mast with a spy glass, trying to spot the trains from a distance before they got there. ...........even in the winter cold.
 
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For some reason, I think they actually flushed BETTER ! :) I never understood why that design was discontinued. That chain had easy access for both standing or sitting. You could even hang decorations or.......even a wind chime from one. Maybe that's a bad idea, since it would probably make a racket after eating Mexican food. :eek:

Ok Deane, you can have your thread back......
 
I guess I should declare what sparked my interest in signal bats.

There is a very weird song called "Bat Chain Puller" by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band. It's like spending 5 minutes in an insane asylum. Captain Beefheart was an American musician, poet and painter, whose real name was Dan van Vliet. I had heard his music back in the 1970's, but dismissed it then as too unmelodic and hard for my young brain to absorb, but I recently became fascinated with it. I wanted to find what the hell this song was about, if anything. Extensive searches on Wiki and YouTube. To quote;

"A bat chain refers to the chain that hangs down from a signal post on a train line. The signal device that was pulled down was called a bat and different bats had different colours to signal the train driver as to the condition of the track ahead, or whether the train could proceed. The bat chain puller was the person who set the signals for the approaching train according to track status reports received by telegraph."

"He said it was the sound of the windscreen wipers in the rain giving the beat. A magnificent, off-the-wall song."

So it was about trains, more or less. I was toying with the idea of making such a signal, complete with bats, chain and perhaps a human figure, the bat chain puller. It would be my little homage to the late Capt. Beefheart. The plan was to put it on the DLS without explanation, and see if anyone recognized what I'd done and got a bit of a laugh out of it. But I could not find any images to base models on, so I decided to throw the topic open on the forum.

~ D

p.s If you are mad enough to listen to the song, it helps your sanity to have the lyrics close at hand. Wear floppy boots on this tropical hot dog night and enjoy the ride.

Bat chain
Puller
Bat chain puller
Puller, puller

A chain with yellow lights
That glistens like oil beads
On its slick smooth trunk
That trails behind on tracks, and thumps
A wing hangs limp and retreats

Bat chain puller
Puller puller

Bulbs shoot from its snoot
And vanish into darkness
It whistles like a root snatched from dry earth
Sodbustin' rakes with grey dust claws
Announces it's coming in the morning
This train with grey tubes
That houses people's very thoughts and belongings.

Bat chain puller
Puller puller

This train with grey tubes that houses people's thoughts,
Their very remains and belongings.
A grey cloth patch
Caught with four threads
In the hollow wind of its stacks
Ripples felt fades and grey sparks clacks,
Lunging the cushioned thickets.

Pumpkins span the hills
With orange Crayola patches.
Green inflated trees
Balloon up into marshmallow soot
That walks away in faulty circles,
Caught in grey blisters
With twinkling lights and green sashes
Drawn by rubber dolphins with gold yawning mouths
That blister and break in agony
In zones of rust
They gild gold sawdust into dust.

Bat chain puller,
Puller puller.


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I love Beefheart , saw him many times back in the 70s, but he is an acquired taste. Would love to have seen your signal , it would have been cool to have made the train, the Easter egg cars proved popular, perhaps rubber dolphins as locos might have caught on too :). He also wrote a more conventional song about trains called "click clack" which is worth a listen , it's on an album called "spotlight kid "
 
Still got my copy of The spotlight kid. Click clack has some of the best train rhythms I've heard on a record.

Chris.
 
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