{"id":13261,"date":"2015-11-24T05:48:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T10:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=13261"},"modified":"2015-11-24T05:47:41","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T10:47:41","slug":"searchlights-on-the-wane-but-i-warned-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/searchlights-on-the-wane-but-i-warned-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Searchlights on the Wane (But I warned you)."},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in my Pentrex Publishing days (in the mid 1990s) I wrote an editorial about the ultimate demise of the searchlight signal.<\/p>\n

Even then, this style of hardware was out of favor for new installations, yet thousands of the old signals still remained.<\/p>\n

Today they are fast disappearing, and at many installations they are already gone.<\/p>\n

\"Old<\/a>
Old searchlights west of Ayer, Massachusetts. Once common, this style of signal has been out of favor for decades and are now rapidly being replaced.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two weeks ago, when traveling with Bob Arnold and Paul Goewey, we opted to photograph an outbound MBTA train passing these General Railway Signal searchlights on the old Boston & Maine west of Ayer, Massachusetts<\/p>\n

\"MBTA<\/a>
MBTA train 453AM works west of Ayer with HSP46 2027 in the lead.. How long will this new diesel and these old signals co-exist? Bets anyone? The replacement signals are already in place at Shirley, a mile or so to the west.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted to feature one of the new HSP-46 diesels passing the vintage signals to show the contrast in technology. The window for making this type of photograph is rapidly narrowing, as these searchlight\u2019s replacements are in place and will soon be cut in.<\/p>\n

My book Classic Railroad Signals<\/a>, published by Voyageur Press<\/a>, details many varieties of older signal hardware and tells the story of American signaling with stunning photographs and detailed historical information. Get your copy today!<\/a><\/p>\n

See:\u00a0http:\/\/www.quartoknows.com\/books\/9780760346921\/Classic-Railroad-Signals.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Also see January 2016 TRAINS Magazine for my 10-page article on how to read signals.<\/p>\n

Tracking the Light Posts Original Photographs.<\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in my Pentrex Publishing days (in the mid 1990s) I wrote an editorial about the ultimate demise of the searchlight signal. Even then, this style of hardware was out of favor for new installations, yet thousands of the old signals still remained. Today they are fast disappearing, and at many installations they are already … Continue reading Searchlights on the Wane (But I warned you).<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[4537,930,3102,2825,3104,790,3103],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/MBTA_2027_passing_Searchlights_near_Shirley_Mass_DSCF6887.jpg?fit=4896%2C3264&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-3rT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13261"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13294,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13261\/revisions\/13294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}