ABSTRACT 
 
 
 
Title of Document: 
THE MAINTAINERS OF SAFETY AND 
EFFICIENCY: THE BROTHERHOOD OF 
RAILROAD SIGNALMEN, 1900-1940  
 
 Robert Charles Williams,                             
Master of Arts Degree, 2008 
Directed By: Associate Professor David Sicilia,  
History Department  
 
 
The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen is a little-known technical and 
political organization that gained power during the opening decades of the 
twentieth century through the increasingly complex nature of members? work, 
the vision of its leaders, and their abilities to gather support from other unions 
and the federal government. This thesis is organized around three themes:  
first, how the growing complexity of signal systems continually challenged 
signalmen to broaden signalmen?s skills, which, in turn, gave them an 
advantage in asking for recognition as a skilled craft union; second, how the 
skills that signalmen employed brought them into conflict with other unions 
over signal department jobs; and third, how, despite having only between 
10,000 and 19,000 members, the organization?s leaders learned to negotiate 
using reason, evidence, and logic to demonstrate the union?s importance in the 
industry as the custodians of public safety and rail traffic efficiency.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
THE MAINTAINERS OF SAFETY AND EFFICIENCY: 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD SIGNALMEN, 1900-1940 
 
By 
 
 
Robert Charles Williams 
 
 
 
 
 
Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the  
University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment 
of the requirements for the degree of 
Master of Arts  
2008 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Advisory Committee: 
Associate Professor David Sicilia, Chair 
Professor Robert  D. Friedel 
Betsy Mendelsohn, Lecturer 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
? Copyright by 
Robert Charles Williams 
2008 
 
 
 
 
 
 Acknowledgements 
 
The Genesis of the thesis came when Stephen Patrick, director of the City of 
Bowie Museums, showed me two greasy, seventy-five inch levers stacked against the 
wall of the Huntington Train Station and Bowie Museum. He asked if I could make 
the levers the focal point of an exhibition on the people and the technology used in 
keeping trains from crashing into each other.  Stunned at both the opportunity and my 
lack of knowledge about interlocking levers, I quickly agreed to build the exhibit. 
That was in 2006 when I was searching for place to perform my museum practicum. 
Since then, I have had the pleasure of meeting many people who gave their 
expertise and support in helping me gain enough knowledge to write my thesis on 
railroad signaling technology and the workers who have made train travel safer than 
most other forms of transportation. Unlike the early decades of the twentieth century, 
the public today finds train collisions and accidents to be exceptional rather than the 
commonplace. 
In the History Department at the University of Maryland College Park there 
are a number people who have helped me discover the pleasure of unearthing 
historical truths buried both in archival materials and in artifacts. I thank my advisor, 
David Sicilia for continually pushing me take what I had found and then to crystallize 
my ideas in words.  His suggestions on direction and structure for my thesis, as well 
as for my career at Maryland were most effective. He and Robert Friedel gave me 
useful methods for discovering the stories hidden in the past and directed my studies 
in ways that challenged my abilities and intellect. I would also like to thank other 
supporters in the history department that includes Thomas Zeller who always had an 
 ii 
 
 
open door to discuss ideas and directions in my graduate work. Betsy Mendelsohn 
also was instrumental in listening to my ideas on other thesis topics and I am grateful 
she joined my thesis committee. 
My search to learn about the men who worked to keep the trains on time and 
from colliding with each other began at Prince George?s County Genealogical Library 
of the Bowie Museums Archives and at the Library of Congress. There I poured over 
local railroad documents, engineering journals and technical books from the early 
1900s. I marveled at the logic and the skill by which the mechanical, civil and 
electrical engineers of the period set about in trying to prevent the catastrophic 
accidents that plagued the adolescent railroad industry in the early 1900s. 
In my research for the exhibit, I traveled to other museums and archives to 
gain an understanding of the complex technologies and the workers who operated 
them. At the urging of Stephen Patrick, I went to the Railroad Museum of 
Pennsylvania in Strasburg, which has a pristine example of a Pennsylvania Railroad 
interlocking block tower.  I then went to the Hagley Museum, Library and its archives 
in the Soda House outside Wilmington Delaware. There the archivists were most 
helpful in opening their collection of documents concerning the Potomac & Baltimore 
Railroad, a clandestinely owned branch line of the PRR that connected Bowie with 
the rest of the country at the turn of the twentieth century. At the Soda House and 
Hagley Library, I found blueprints, company documents, and parts catalogs that gave 
me the background I needed to understand the predicaments railroads faced and the 
solutions they formulated.  
 iii 
 
 
Around the same time, Historian Mark Aldrich published Death Rode the 
Rails, American Railroad Accidents and Safety 1828-1965, which opened my eyes to 
both the urgency of some engineers and managers, and negligent apathy of some 
carriers, in developing technologies and methods for preventing train collisions. 
While I studied innovations in signaling technology, I keep wondering about the 
people whose responsibility was to keep train travel safe.  I found little about what 
labor, particularly the signalmen, did in process of making railroad travel safer. Most 
histories delved into roles of the carriers or the operations employees -- the train 
crews, tower operators, dispatchers, and managers. Most historians seemed to 
disregard the non-operations workers, which included the signalmen and signal 
maintainers, and what they did to make train travel safer.  
In the interim, I gained access to the archives at Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 
Museum in Baltimore. While working as an intern in the Museum Collections 
Department under Senior Curator Sarah Davis, I was able to pour over their collection 
of company records, engineering plans, and railroad industry and engineering 
journals. I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to study and 
photograph their collection while learning about the larger history surrounding the 
industry.  
However, handling artifacts and reading journals is nothing like standing in 
the B O Tower on the CSX line in West Virginia, watching Tower Operator Larry 
Lee line up train routes through his train yard. There I meet CSX Signal Maintainer 
Ed Mac, who would be instrumental in helping to acquire part of the tower?s 1950s 
Saxby and Farmer Interlocking machine, which I donated to the Bowie Museum. 
 iv 
 
 
Both Lee and Mac schooled me on the technologies and the problems operators and 
signal maintainers faced daily in keeping trains on running safely on time.  
At the tower, I decided to find out more about the human side in the art of 
signaling. I contacted the Grand Lodge of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen 
(BRS) in Front Royal, VA. There Kelly Haley, BRS Communications Director, 
introduced me to a number of signalmen and Grand Lodge staff. Over my many 
visits, they opened up more and more of the history stored in their archive. I would 
like to thank Dan Prichard, President of the BRS for allowing me access to the 
archives, and Tim DePaepe, BRS researcher, Walt Burrows, the BRS Secretary-
Treasurer, and Haley for putting up with my questions and requests, and for access to 
the union?s papers. There besides the minutes of their conventions and Grand 
Executive Council meetings, I found personal journals and union histories written my 
past presidents and officers. In particular, I found several histories written by BRS 
Presidents Anon Lyon and Wilmot Pettit whose works provided the backbone to my 
research. Through the BRS, I met retired Long Island Maintainer Tony ?Signals? 
Maniscalio, who met with me on several occasions and kept up a running 
correspondence with me. He once walked the tracks running through Luray, VA with 
me as he explained what it was like working on signal systems trackside, dodging 
commuter trains and freights coming out of New York City. Haley, Mac, and 
Maniscalio provided tremendous support and interest in my exhibition and thesis.  
I was privileged while at the University of Maryland, to undertake my 
museum studies in conjunction with my graduate work in the history of technology, 
with four excellent professors in the museum field. It was the spark in Robert 
 v 
 
 
Friedel?s eyes when I approached him with my exhibition ideas that let me know I 
was finally on track. Meetings with Mary Sies provided concise critiques and 
practical suggestions as I undertook the exhibit design project. In addition, studying 
the history and philosophies of museum work with curators Barnard Finn and Ellen 
Roney Hughes at the Smithsonian?s National Museum of American History helped 
me to understand the unique culture of museums where I had worked before 
attempting graduate school.  
Outside the University, I would be remiss if I didn?t thank Leaona Kanaskie 
and Christine Straub whose comments helped make something so technical 
understandable. Les Lorenz and Clay Kolle also provided their technical skill and 
strong backs in helping me dismantle and bring back the interlocking machine that 
will someday be the focal point of the exhibition, Avoiding Train Disasters at the 
Huntingdon Railroad Station and Bowie Museum. 
Finally, I will never forget my wife Ivy Yates and my son Henry who gave up 
weekends and evenings with me so I could finally finish this work. I could have never 
completed this thesis or finished graduate school without their support and 
understanding. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 vi 
 
 
Table of Contents 
 
Acknowledgements....................................................................................................... ii 
Table of Contents........................................................................................................ vii 
Lists of Figures ..........................................................................................................viii 
Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................. 1 
Chapter 2: Signalmen Gain Skilled Craftsmen Status through Technological 
Innovation ..................................................................................................................... 6 
Signal Systems Explained....................................................................................... 15 
The Interlocking Machine....................................................................................... 16 
The Block System: Methods for Spacing Trains .................................................... 21 
Track Circuits Pave the Way for Automatic Signal and Train Control.................. 30 
The Prohibitive Costs of Installing Interlocking Block Tower Systems ................ 32 
Chapter 3: The Efforts to Remove Human Agency from Train Traffic Management 35 
Power Interlocking and Automatic Signal Control................................................. 36 
Operating Costs Drop with Electrically Operated Systems.................................... 42 
The Wasted Era of Automatic Train Control.......................................................... 44 
The Added Benefits of Centralized Train Control.................................................. 52 
The Fallacy of Failsafe Signal Systems.................................................................. 63 
To Keep Systems Failsafe, Devices Required Skilled Mechanics ......................... 64 
The Call to Professionalize the Signal Department Employees ............................. 74 
Chapter 4:  Signal Work Is Particular Work?Fighting for Recognition within 
Railroad Institutions.................................................................................................... 84 
Approaching Management: Come Let Us Reason Together .................................. 90 
Wilmot Pettit, Seeking Representational Authority.............................................. 103 
Chapter 5: The Fight for an Identity and for Jurisdiction over the Signal Department 
Jobs ........................................................................................................................... 105 
Changing the Historic Balance between the Workers and Bosses ....................... 115 
Gaining Recognition from the Federal Government ............................................ 116 
With Federal Recognition Comes New Prosperity............................................... 126 
The Great Depression Nearly Bankrupts the BRS................................................ 128 
Exhausted, Daniel Helt Steps Down..................................................................... 132 
Jurisdictional Battles with the IBEW Define the BRS ......................................... 134 
Chapter 6: Conclusion, Expanding the Role of the BRS.......................................... 143 
Appendix................................................................................................................... 153 
Abbreviations for Unions and Institutions............................................................ 153 
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 154 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 vii 
 
 
 viii 
 
Lists of Figures 
 
1. A rear-end train collision in Indiana, 1877......................................................?....10 
2. The ?B O? Block Tower, Hancock, WV???.???????.??.???..12 
3. Lead out pipes, Hancock, WV??????????????????.?....13 
4. Large interlocking for a terminal??????????.???????........18 
5. Saxby & Farmer Interlocking machine................???????????.?...19 
6. Interlocking connected to a train order signal.....??????.??.??.??..20 
7. Semaphore signals?????????????????????..???.26 
8. Position Light Signal Indications Chart............................................................?...29 
9. Track Circuit diagram??????????????????.?..???.. 31 
10. Three Aspect Automatic Block System diagram????????????...40 
11. A Centralized Train Control office of the P & I Railroad..............................?...61 
12. A mechanical compensator.............................................................................?...67 
13. A motorized track car carrying signalmen to work sites?...................................73 
14. The ?B O? Tower, Altoona, PA............................................................................91 
15. H.G. Detwiler, First Grand Chief Signalman????????????.?...93 
16. A Delegation from BRS Mountain Lodge No. 1??????.?.??.??..100 
18. Wilmot J. Pettit, Grand Chief Signalman, 1913--1915????..??.???102 
19. Daniel W. Helt, Grand President, 1917?1935............................................?...109 
20. Grand Lodge officers at the 1919 BRSA Convention?????.?......?.?.113 
21. An all-electric interlocking, the ?A? Tower, PRR, NYC............................?....120  
22. Anon E. Lyon, BRS President, 1935?1956.......................................................132 
23. Signal 029???????????????????????.??.......141 
 
 
 
 
 
Chapter 1: Introduction  
  
?I question whether there is a man here without signal experience [who] can speak 
on our position five minutes under questioning ... the greatest trouble we have, [is] 
men not familiar with the duties we perform.?
1
  
 
My thesis will examine the rise of the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen 
(BRS) from its beginnings as a fraternal organization from 1900 through the 1930s, 
the period when the union became a small but politically powerful organization 
among the other railroad labor unions.  Their ability to gather support surprised 
railroad executives and lobbyists, who discounted the BRS?s political abilities and 
size. In 1937, the BRS successfully lobbied Congress for passage of the Signal 
Inspection Act of 1937.  The knowledge they gained from this law spurred them to 
amend other federal laws, including the Hours of Service Act of 1907, which finally 
gave them work status as safety-sensitive workers and a 48-hour workweek in 1976.  
Before that, they could be on call seven days a week, even during their off hours.
2
  
A central challenge for the BRS was how to gain recognition as a skilled craft 
union among the other unions that competed for control over signal department jobs.  
                                                 
1
 Daniel Helt, BRS Grand President, said those people sitting on the Federal boards have little 
knowledge about what signal work is, as do representatives of Railroad Employees Department of the 
American Federation of Labor, Minutes of the meeting held with the shop crafts of the Railway 
Employment Department and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Kansas City, July 17, 1919, 
BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.  pp. 169?183. 
2
 Hours of Service Act of 1907, amended 1969 and 1976, Title 45 chapter 3, Sec. 16(4), 102 Stat. 635, 
related to signal system employees' hours of service, See sections 21102, 21104 to 21107, and 21303 
of Title 49, Legal Information Institute, US Code Collection 
http://www.thecre.com/fedlaw/legal12/uscode45-61to64b.htm, Cornell University Law School, 2008; 
Ian Savage, The Economics of Railroad Safety, (Boston, Kluwer, Academic Publishers, 1960), p. 214. 
 
 1 
 
 
Signalmen argued that they should have a separate union that was based on industrial 
job descriptions rather than along traditional trade lines because of their unique role 
as signalmen. They were responsible for efficient train traffic management as well as 
for the safety of the traveling public, fellow employees, and the railroad?s property.  
Throughout the twentieth century, the members negotiated and fought with other 
unions, management, and agencies of the federal government to distinguish 
themselves as separate from the other support employees.  They needed to set 
themselves apart and above the lower-skilled maintenance-of-way laborers, who used 
brawn and hand tools to replace track and repair roadbeds.  By gaining recognition 
for their union, members could begin to better control their work environments.   
The brotherhood?s history is the story of a little known technical and political 
organization that gained its power through the increasingly complex nature of their 
work, the vision of its leaders, and their success at gathering support from other 
unions and the federal government.  In examining the history of the BRS as it 
established itself as a skilled craft union and as a political force in improving train 
traffic efficiencies and safety, I focus on three central themes that run throughout the 
union?s history.   
The first theme is how the growing complexity of signal systems continually 
challenged signalmen to broaden their skills in order for them to keep up with the 
many technological innovations, which, in turn, gave them an advantage over other 
support unions in asking for recognition.  From its conception in 1901, BRS officers 
understood that the plethora of innovations in signal technology would continue to 
make them more and more vital to train traffic management.  If they stayed current 
 2 
 
 
with the innovations, they would improve their chances of being recognized as skilled 
craft union.  This recognition would help institutionalize their roles in railroad 
operations.  From the late 1800s through the 1940s, signal work and ?the art of 
signaling? was transformed from cleaning the soot off of oil-fired signal lamps and 
greasing mechanical fittings to diagnosing problems with electronically automated 
systems that operated signals miles away from central towers.  
Related to the first theme, the second theme is how the skills signalmen 
employed often brought them into conflict with other unions.  Their quick adjustment 
to new technology in signaling frequently frustrated the signalmen?s attempts to be 
recognized. As their field evolved, their skill sets increased, and they were constantly 
embroiled in jurisdictional controversies over what union controlled signal 
department jobs.  At the same time, top management regarded them as semi-skilled 
laborers.   
The third theme is how the BRS leadership gained support and political 
leverage from influential groups outside the railroad industry and from the other 
railroad unions, despite having only 10,000?19,000 members.  Because the BRS 
represented such a small portion of the railroad employees (from about 1.5 million 
employees before World War I to 500,000 by mid-century), leadership quickly 
learned to negotiate using self-defined validation, reason, evidence, and logic to 
demonstrate its importance in the industry as the custodians of public safety and rail 
traffic efficiency.  
This account of the rise of the BRS as a recognized leader in railroad 
institutions is divided into six chapters.  Following the introduction, chapters 2 and 3 
 3 
 
 
discuss the proliferation of innovations in train traffic management, which propelled 
signalmen from semi-skilled maintenance crews to skilled composite mechanics.  If 
not for the changes in signaling technology, signalmen would have remained part of 
the mass of semi-skilled laborers in the second tier non-operations unions.  In 
addition, without those innovations, accident rates would have remained high, which 
probably would have hastened the decline of the railroad industry. 
Chapters 4 and 5 examine the many efforts by the BRS to gain recognition, 
with two events that stand out as milestones in the union?s early history: the 
formation of the BRS in 1901 and the controversial fight for jurisdiction over signal 
department duties with the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW).  
The latter led to the federal government?s recognition of the BRS after World War I 
and eventually led to a charter affiliation with the American Federation of Labor (AF 
of L) in 1946.   
In conclusion, chapter 6 describes what grew out of these events in the 
development of a politically perceptive union leadership and an educated, skilled 
work force.  The signalmen would go on to use their newly learned political skills and 
acquired status to get important safety legislation enacted, secure benefits for their 
members, and help unite twenty-one railroad unions under the Railroad Labor 
Executives Association, of which BRS President Anon E. Lyon was a founding 
member.    
At the same time, the railroads?because of the huge fixed costs of 
maintaining their plants, inadequate federal rate adjustments, and competition from 
newer forms of transportation?had begun a steady decline from its place as the 
 4 
 
 
leading industry of the early 1900s.  Economic realities that their employers faced and 
the many innovations in signaling technology would present recurrent challenges for 
the BRS to maintain control over their work environments and their role as the 
maintainers of railway efficiency and safety.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
Chapter 2: Signalmen Gain Skilled Craftsmen Status through Technological 
Innovation 
 
Rapid changes in signaling and traffic management technologies during the 
first four decades of the twentieth century played a large part in establishing the 
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) as a skilled craft union.  The increased 
complexity of the innovations propelled the occupation of signalman and maintainer 
from semi-skilled laborer to that of a skilled composite mechanic, as classified by the 
American Association of Railroads (AAR), because they had multiple skills and 
experience in a number of traditional trades.  The union was part of the growing 
number of industry-based unions as opposed to the more traditional craft-based labor 
organizations.  This rift between industrial and craft-based unions will be discussed in 
the in chapters 4 and 5 of this story.  
BRS members embraced innovations in signaling technology, for it was a 
means to better job opportunities and job security.  By the 1930s, signaling systems 
were becoming thought of by management as a better investment, as they improved 
the efficiency of the railroad traffic operations.  Improved safety aspects were an 
added bonus but were not the driving factor in developing and utilizing these 
automated signaling systems.  The signalmen's view of technological innovations as 
the ticket to BRS becoming a more powerful and efficient union and to increasing 
their membership is reflected in Acting President Anon Lyon?s Report to the 1930 
BRS Convention in Denver:  
The progress made by our organization during the past 
two years has been steady and substantial. Railway 
signaling appears to be rapidly gaining the recognition 
it deserves in the scheme of modern railroading and the 
 6 
 
 
outlook for future years appears to be bright. The 
tendency to utilize the different types of signaling 
apparatus more and more to effect operating economies 
can only mean that in the future more and more signal 
department men will be available for membership in the 
BRS, thus making possible a bigger, more powerful and 
more efficient Brotherhood....
3
 
 
However, the problem up to the 1920s was the carriers? insistence that they 
were still semi-skilled laborers.  This unfavorable perception was a holdover from the 
days when signalmen?s daily maintenance routines would consist mainly of greasing 
the many moving parts of mechanical switch and signal changing devices, filling and 
wiping the soot of the signal lamps, and digging trenches to bury cables.  
Historian W. Fred Cottrell seems to follow the views of management by 
lumping signalmen and maintainers in with the maintenance of way department.  
However, he did place signalmen and maintainers at the top of this technological and 
social grouping.  The construction of signaling systems usually attracted highly 
skilled transient workers who were proud of their abilities, skills, and status. Cottrell 
likened them to ?steel erectors.?  Signalmen were often recruited from this group 
when they decided to settle down for reasons such as ?injury, decreased wanderlust, 
or marriage.?
4
  
Another problem was that the complexity of work varied from location to 
location. Cottrell said that among signalmen, the maintainers at complex terminals 
were highly trained technicians, while others traveled the lines, replaced defective 
                                                 
3
 Report of A. E. Lyon, Assistant to President address to the delegates, the Fifth Biennial and 
Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, Colorado, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 
18-23, 1930, Archives of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America, Front Royal, VA, pp. 
97-99. 
4
 W. Fred Cottrell, The Railroader, (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1983), pp. 30?33. 
 7 
 
 
parts, and repaired broken parts at central shops.  ?The day-to-day work of the 
lineman and signalmen could consist of nothing more complex than splicing a broken 
line, replacing insulators, or adjusting some sending, repeating or receiving apparatus.  
On occasion he is called upon for extended effort and a high degree of skill.?  
Generally, they worked in section gangs, filling and cleaning switch lamps, clearing 
switches, and keeping the systems tuned up.  ?They are recruited locally and 
seasonally or imported from major cities only to return to hobohemia during the 
winter.?
5
  
Cottrell, like many historians, shares the sentiments of management that signal 
work was mostly manual labor, though most recognize the dangerous nature of the 
work.  It is true that some signalmen worked on isolated stretches of track and had 
limited responsibilities.  However, signalmen and maintainers who worked in the 
more complex train yards, multiple track junctions, and terminals had to employ far 
more skills and perform them quickly and correctly.  When a signal or a connection 
broke down, the maintainers had to be able to draw on a number of skills to diagnose 
the problem, get the job done quickly, and not hold up traffic. Frequently, while 
repairing a problem on the tracks, they would have to keep one eye on doing the job 
correctly and one eye on the horizon, anticipating the next approaching train.  
Additionally, all signalmen were required to continually upgrade their skills, 
study electrical theory, and read about the latest innovations during their off hours.  
They had to be familiar with all the types of signal systems used by their company.  
The only way to gain a better work situation was to be ready to respond to changes in 
                                                 
5
 Cottrell, The Railroader, p. 50.  
 8 
 
 
the systems or be able to work on a different system when a job opened up.  They 
performed the work of a wide variety of occupations shared with other railroad 
unions, including the machinists, blacksmiths, electricians, sheet metal workers, pipe 
fitters, and carpenters.  
 The BRS would have to demonstrate repeatedly their members? wide variety 
of necessary skills before the federal labor boards during the many jurisdictional 
battles that the BRS had with other labor unions. These jurisdictional battles, 
discussed in the chapters 4 and 5, also highlight the rapid changes in signaling 
technology.  
The BRS formed at a time when the amount of train traffic expanded rapidly 
due to the rising national economy, which resulted in the highest rate of train 
collisions and derailments the country had yet to witness.  Between 1890 and 1910, 
freight train miles increased by 70 percent and passenger miles increased by 175 
percent.  While the fatality rates did not increase, the absolute number did.  The total 
annual fatalities increased by half from 1890 to 1910.
6
  At the same time, the power 
and size of the trains grew and started to overwhelm the infrastructure.  The weights 
of freight trains were exceeding 440 tons by pulling, on average, 28 fully loaded 
freight cars.  Passenger trains had tractive forces exceeding 45,000 pounds and were 
easily maintaining speeds over 50 mph.
7
  Braking distances for these new behemoths 
were extended, and the railroads required complex signaling systems that could be 
operated from longer distances. As a result, innovations in signaling technology were  
                                                 
6
 Ian Savage, The Economics of Railroad Safety, p. 23. 
7
Dale Berry Michigan's Internet Railroad History Museum,  
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Railroads/MichiganCentral/MichiganCentralHomePage.ht
m,  
 9 
 
 
Figure 1 A train in a rear-end collision with another near a station in Indiana, 1877.   
Photograph courtesy of the Farwell T. Brown Photographic Archive, Ames Public Library, 
 Ames, Indiana. 
brought into the marketplace to improve train traffic management and to reduce 
human agency as much as possible in directing traffic.  The Interstate Commerce 
Commission (ICC) promoted these systems as technological fixes that would override 
the problems of relying on human judgment.  Human error was blamed in the 
majority of the more than 39,000 accidents reported between 1902 and 1907.
8
   ?In 
1907?[the] peak year?the fatality rate was 110 times greater than that of modern 
airlines,? wrote Aldrich. That year the railroads were the largest single cause of 
violent death.
9
  The fiery crashes reported in the newspapers shocked the American 
public, which spurred the federal government to threaten carriers with safety 
regulations if they did not improve their safety records.  
                                                 
8
 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, American Railroad Accidents and Safety 1828-1965, 
(Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), Appendix 1, A1.7, p. 319. Appendix 2, A2.1, 
p. 333; Hanson Boyden, ?The Block System, what it is and why it failed last Sunday ? How it can 
absolutely prevent disastrous collisions,? Washington Post, (Jan. 6, 1907): p. F1 
9
 Aldrich, Death Rode the Rail, pp. 2?3, Appendix 2, p. 332.  
 10 
 
 
From 1900 onward, innovations the signalmen were required to install and 
repair came quickly as the public demanded safer train travel and shippers wanted 
reliable service.  Semaphore and oil lantern light signals called Banjo signals?once 
operated by a operator pulling a chain hanging down from the signal itself during the 
last half of the nineteenth century?was replaced by semaphore-bladed signals in the 
late 1800s and then by electric position light signals starting around 1910.
10
   At the 
same time, tower operators changed signals and switches, called turnouts, as far as 
800 feet away from second story tower by way of pipes and rods connected to a 
mechanical interlocking machine.  Within the interlocking machine, the pipes were 
attached to levers over seventy inches long; the leverage needed to move the 1-inch-
in-diameter connecting pipes, signals, and switches so far away from the tower.  With 
this machine, one operator could change many signal indications and turnouts in busy 
train yards, junctions, and terminals.  Within the first two decades of the twentieth 
century, electronic, electromechanical, and pneumatic interlocking machines were 
making the operator?s job easier because the electric motors or pneumatic or 
hydraulic pumps moved the heavy rail turnouts and distant signals when the tower 
operator pulled the interlocking lever.   
                                                 
10
 H. Roger Grant, The Railroad, The life Story of a Technology, (London, Greenwood Technologies, 
1943), 98?99. 
 11 
 
 
By 1920, signalmen were working on automated signal systems, which  were 
seen as the way to decrease accidents, decrease labor costs, and improve the 
efficiency of rail traffic by putting 
more trains on the tracks during any 
given time period.  While Automatic 
Train Stop (ATS) and Automatic 
Train Control (ATC) were seen by 
critics, including the BRS, as merely 
technological fixes to the problem of 
poor discipline, poor maintenance, 
and even poorer procedural methods, 
federal administrators saw automated 
systems as the immediate answer to 
the growing number of collisions and 
derailments.  The ICC and Congress 
promulgated regulations that forced 
forty-nine Class I carriers to install ATC on some of their high-speed passenger lines.  
ATC or Automatic train stop devices could either shut off the train?s engine or apply 
the train?s brakes if the engineer failed to stop for a red light signal.  
Figure 2   Built in 1911 by the B & O Railroad, the   
?B O? Tower in Hancock, WV, was replaced after St. 
Patrick?s Day Flood, March 17, 1936.  Photo by 
Robert Williams, Sept. 9, 2006 
 12 
 
 
Nevertheless, technical problems with ATC and its expense led carriers to 
invest also in cab signals, which as the name suggests were signals installed inside the 
train cab.  Cab signals gave signal light indications and warning bells that made it 
hard for the engineman to miss, even 
in inclement weather.  Carriers also 
started to invest by the 1930s in 
Centralized Train Control (CTC), 
which greatly reduced the labor costs 
associated with stationing tower 
operators as close as two miles apart in 
heavily congested junctions and train 
yards.  
With CTC, a dispatcher in a 
central office could direct trains many 
miles away by using electric powered 
signals to tell enginemen where to go 
and what speeds they were to adhere 
to.  The dispatcher could tell from his office on a lighted diagram of his assigned 
block of tracks the location of each train at any time.  Not only was CTC more 
economical and increased the carrying load of a given line, it quickly proved it could 
decrease the chances for train collisions, especially when two or more trains were 
sharing the same track and going in different directions. Though the changeover on 
many lines to CTC was stifled during the Great Depression, the jump in traffic 
Figure 3 Lead out pipes were used to control signals 
and switches as much as 800 feet away from both 
sides of the tower.  B O Tower, Hancock, WV, Photo 
by Robert Williams, Sept. 9, 2006  
 13 
 
 
volume during World War II and the stricter enforcement of signal inspections, as 
required by the Signal Inspection Act of 1937, gave the carriers the impetus needed to 
upgrade more lines to CTC.  Nevertheless, the primary decision to install CTC was 
driven by the economical gains of decreased labor and maintenance costs.
11
  With 
this financial incentive came a side benefit?CTC proved to provide increased 
margins of safety. 
                                                
All signal systems were touted by the carriers to the public as having failsafe 
qualities to assure that when a problem occurred, such as a power failure, the signal 
would fall to its default ?stop? indication.  However, every signalman knew that 
false-positive signal failures could be expected, which meant the signal would show a 
?clear ? proceed? indication on a section of track that was already occupied.  The 
consequences of a false-positive indication could result in a tragic rear-end or frontal 
collision with another train.  No matter how failsafe a technology was designed, if it 
was not installed or maintained properly, it could be more dangerous when it was 
broken, as people tend to trust the technology to safeguard their lives and property, 
and be less wary of the consequences of it failing.  
In order to show the growing complexity of the signalmen?s work situations 
and to understand their role in keeping trains running safely and efficiently, 
knowledge of the rapid changes in signaling technology and the procedures will help 
clarify the signalmen?s predicament.
12
 
 
11
 ?W.J. Patterson, Railway Age 127, (Sept. 24, 1949): pp. 50-52; Railway Age 126, ?Signaling 
Construction,? (Jan. 8, 1949): p. 80. 
12
 Throughout the twentieth century, signalmen and maintainers worked on many other signaling, 
highway-crossing, traffic-control, and train-sorting devices not explained in this thesis. These basic 
systems and the innovations that derived from these systems are used as examples of the types of work 
that raised their skill levels. 
 14 
 
 
Signal Systems Explained 
Up through the 1930s, there were four essential elements in all signaling 
systems: (1) the interlocking machine that was used for switching signals and 
switches from a central tower; (2) the block system, which was used for keeping 
trains safely spaced; (3) the signals, switches, detectors, compensators and all of the 
individual appliances that when connected completed the system; and (4) the most 
important element, the electric track circuit, where each section of track was made an 
electric circuit by running electricity through the rails attached to relays that 
controlled the signals.  Whenever a rail broke or a train or any heavy metal object 
touched and bridged the two track rails, the circuit shunted, or shorted out, and the 
signal would fall to its default stop position.  The signal would indicate to 
approaching trains that there was an obstruction or another train on the tracks ahead.  
Starting with the machines that tower operators used to manage train traffic, 
each of the four elements in the art of signaling will be examined, followed by more 
advanced signaling technologies that evolved from these elemental technologies.  In 
each new technology, even today, the four basic elements are present. All new 
technologies are just improvements on the basic systems. Today, through the use of 
solid state electronics, digital computer systems, and fiber optics, these elemental 
technologies perform the same functions; they are just packaged in smaller boxes, 
said Ed Mac, CSX maintainer on the West Virginia line near Hancock, WV. With the 
new systems, the number of dispatchers who direct train movements from a central 
location is greatly reduced.  For instance, dispatchers in Jacksonville, Florida, govern 
 15 
 
 
and coordinate all CSX train movements and grade crossings for the eastern seaboard 
as far north as Maine and into Canada, and as far west as Illinois.
13
  
The Interlocking Machine 
As railroad systems grew and became more complex, signalmen had to be 
able to repair and maintain the mechanical interlocking machines, which were 
developed to help dispatchers and operators direct train traffic through increasingly 
congested junctions, train yards, and long stretches of track.  The interlocking 
machine, invented in 1856 by John Saxby, an English engineer, is still in use in nearly 
its original form in the twenty-first century. Modern railroad workers call the 
interlocking an ?early mechanical computer? for its ability to keep operators from 
throwing the wrong switches, potentially running trains into each other. In this sense, 
the machine has a number of failsafe qualities. Yet from the 1850s through to the 
1920s, the federal government and engineers set out to develop automatic signal and 
train controls that they hoped would reduce the need for human judgment in train 
traffic management.  Despite improvements, modern electronic systems and 
centralized train control (CTC) still incorporate the basic interlocking technology 
invented by Saxby. 
At the heart of the mechanical interlocking machine was the ?locking bed,? 
which was a mechanism that prevented other switches and signals from being 
changed.  The locking was done by physically blocking the other levers that would 
misdirect trains, potentially causing derailments or collisions. The device was nearly 
                                                 
13
 CSX is reconsidering having all the train operations governed from one location in light of the 
possibility of a terrorist attack that would take out this command center for the Eastern Seaboard. 
Officials are considering going back to regional dispatch centers that would be linked together, Ed 
Mac, CSX Maintainer, West Virginia, phone interview with author, March 18, 2008.  
 16 
 
 
foolproof. When an operator completed the throw of a lever, he unlocked other levers 
that he could move in sequence, thus setting up a route to direct a train through his 
section of the line.  The levers of the machine were seventy-five inches long to give 
the necessary mechanical advantage to move a series of ?lead out pipes,? which led to 
the track switches and signals as far as 800 feet away from the operator.  When he 
had completed the sequence of lever changes and the train had entered his section 
(called a block), the operator could not change the direction of the switch or signal 
until the train had run safely through that section of track and switching devices.  
Detector bars installed on the track mechanically prevented the operator from 
reversing the levers too early by mechanically blocking the other levers in the 
interlocking machine.  As long as the train wheels kept rolling over the detector bar, 
the operator could not reverse the throw of the interlocking lever.  In this way, the 
levers are interlocked, giving the machine failsafe characteristics.  As improvements 
of this basic failsafe technology were developed, interlocking machines were joined 
together in a larger controlled block system, also called the interlocking block tower 
system, which would become the basis for all future innovations in train traffic 
management.
 14
  
 
 
                                                 
14
 W. L. Derr, Block Signal Operation, (New York, D. Van Nostrand Company, 1897), p. 57; Mac, 
described the interlocking bed as a ?early mechanical computer, in an interview; however, he did not 
coin the phrase, Sept. 26, 2007; Ray R. Rockwell, Railroad Track Circuits and Interlocking, (Scranton, 
PA, International Textbook Company, 1933), p. 32-38; Frederick C. Lavarack, Locking; Being an 
elementary treatise on the mechanisms in interlocking lever machines by which the movements of the 
levers are restricted to certain predetermined ways, rendering it impossible to operate conflicting 
switches and signals on railways, (East Orange, New Jersey, self-published - F.C. Lavarack, 1907), p. 
8; General Railway Signal Co., Catalogue of Mechanical Interlocking Signaling Devices made by the 
GRS Co. (Buffalo, NY, 1905), p. 350. 
 
 17 
 
 
 
Yet with all the miles of track, connecting pipes, and signal appliances 
coupled with exposure to all 
types of environmental 
conditions, including waste and 
chemicals from the trains, 
something always needed 
attention. For this reason, 
signalmen and maintainers were 
stationed at terminals or on a 
section of track, called a 
territory. Their responsibility was
to keep the interlocking and
its mechanisms greased an
operational. Among the many 
problems these early systems 
could have, a bent lead-out pipe 
or a stone caught in the switches, that prevented the completion of the connection 
could cause the train to derail or send it into the path of another. 
 
 all 
d 
Figure 4 Mechanical Interlocking for a terminal or large 
train yard located on the second floor of the Interlocking 
Tower at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, 
Strasberg, PA. Photo by Robert Williams, June, 2007. 
 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 
Figure 5 Diagram and list of available number of levers for a Saxby & Farmer Interlocking. The length 
of the Tower was decided by the number of levers in the interlocking. General Railrway Signal 
Catalog, Mechanical Interlocking Appliances, June 1915, Plate A0101. 
 19 
 
 
 
Figure 1 A mechanical interlocking connected by lead out pipe to a train order signal, with front and 
side view of signal. General Railrway Signal Catalog, Mechanical Interlocking Appliances, June 1915, 
Plate B0303. 
 20 
 
 
The Block System: Methods for Spacing Trains  
To accommodate a growing number of trains in the mid 1800s, while 
maintaining train safety, railroads introduced the train schedule, which allowed more 
than one train to run on the same track.  Also called the time interval method for 
spacing trains, the train schedule gave some trains definitive rights over others that 
had to be respected by all trains and their crews.  The problem was that the train 
schedule was not flexible.  The spacing of the trains based on time proved inadequate 
because with trains leaving a station every five minutes, there was no way to keep the 
trains spaced five minutes apart or running at the exact same speed to keep them 
properly spaced.  Many variables such as weather, geography, track conditions, and 
differences in the trains themselves made time interval spacing impractical.  Keeping 
a steam locomotive, much less all of the locomotives running at any given time, at the 
same speed was next to impossible.  In addition, trains became more numerous and 
the length of runs became longer, exacerbating the problem. 
15
 
An English electrical engineer and businessman named William Fothergill 
Cooke devised the first block system in the 1839 as a more practical and safer method 
for spacing trains. His reasoning given in 1842 was that: 
Every point of a line is a dangerous point, which ought 
to be covered by signals. The whole distance, 
consequently, ought to be divided into sections and at 
the end as well as the beginning of them, there ought to 
                                                 
15
Sedgwick N. Wright, Centralized Traffic Control, Bulletin 154, (General Railway Signal Company, 
Rochester, NY, Aug. 1927), p. 9; W. J. Patterson, Director of the Bureau of Safety, Interstate 
Commerce Commission, Address to the Delegates of the Twenty-Eighth Regular Convention of the 
BRSA, Jacksonville, FL, Aug. 21, 1946, Original typewritten document by Patterson, dated Aug. 21, 
1946, p. 2, BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box. 
 
 21 
 
 
be a signal by which means of which the entrance to the 
section is opened to each train when it is free.
16
 
 
Cooke divided the track into two- to two-and-a-half mile sections he called 
blocks with a ?linekeeper? stationed in a signal hut.  Each hut had two telegraph keys. 
The right hand key was connected to the hut that governed the next block to 
linekeeper?s right and the left key was connected to the hut that governed the block to 
the linekeeper?s left.  The keys used magnetic needles that could only display two 
messages: ?line clear? and ?line blocked.?  Using a semaphore signal or turning disk, 
the linekeeper could signal the engineman to stop if his block was occupied.  This 
was called the space interval method, and as the section of track is a fixed 
geographical location, space interval is a progressive system that prevents trains from 
running any farther than the length of the blocks as no two trains could occupy any 
given block.  The problem with the English block system, however, was that trains 
could enter a block unless a flagman waved for it to stop.
17
 
Claiming he knew nothing about the English block system, an American civil 
engineer, Ashbel Welsh (1809?1882), developed ?the manual block system? used in 
America. Welsh?s system was inherently safer and offered greater protection in 
preventing train collision.  Welsh?s block system was different from the English 
block system in that under the American system, trains could not enter a block unless 
the engineman had orders to do so.  Welsh?s manual block system is different because 
it required an affirmative order for the train to enter the block instead of the 
                                                 
16
 Brignano, Mary, and Hax McCullough. The Search for Safety: a History of Railroad Signals and the 
People Who Made Them. Commissioned by the Union Switch & Signal Division, American Standard, 
1981, pp. 55?56. 
17
 Ibid, p. 58.  
 22 
 
 
assumption that the block of track was already clear unless flagged by a signalman, as 
in the English system.  Welsh placed ?offices,? manned 24-hours-a-day, about six 
miles apart, each connected to the next by an independent telegraph wire connected to 
both a receiving and transmitting key.
18
  The operator would need permission from 
the next down the line before he could let the train enter the next block. ?The thing 
should be presumed to be wrong until the engineman has affirmative evidence that it 
is right,? Welch explained, ?that is to say ? Safety Signals should be used, and never 
danger signals.?
19
  
The early block systems in the late 1800s divided railroads into sections that 
ranged from one mile in length in heavily congested areas to three miles apart in more 
open country.  The operator was responsible for the movement of trains through his 
block and used the interlocking machine to control the track switches and signals.  
Operators connected by telegraph to adjacent tower operators and to a central 
dispatcher communicated with each other under a set of rules that became more 
complex as the system matured.   
The basic premise of the block system was that no train could enter a block as 
long as another train occupied it.  The tower operators, upon orders from the central 
dispatcher,  regulated train movements by using different types of semaphore signals 
to alert the engineman to ?stop,? to proceed with ?caution,? or to signify the block 
was ?clear ? proceed.?  When a train entered the block, the first operator signaled the 
second operator that the first block was occupied.  The second operator would hold 
                                                 
18
 Ibid, p. 59. 
19
 Ashbel Welch, ?Report to the committee on Safety Signals, Presented to the General Railroad 
Convention,? held at the St. Nicholas Hotel, New York, Oct. 24, 1866, republished in The Signal 
Engineer 1, (May 1909), p. 512; Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, Business, 
Technology, and Politics, 1840?1920,  (England, Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 86.  
 23 
 
 
trains in his block from entering into the first operator?s block.  A central dispatcher 
decided what train should have the right of way based on a complicated system where 
certain types of trains had superior rights over other trains.  Typically, the faster 
passenger trains had superior rights over the slower freights.  The prevention of trains 
from entering any block that was not clear is called the ?absolute block system.?  
Trains could come from either direction on a single track; therefore, operators would 
have to clear their blocks by sending trains of lesser superiority on to sidings.
20
  To 
make the operator?s job harder, unscheduled excursion trains carrying dignitaries or 
vacationers were sometimes thrown into the mix and were often the cause of 
collisions.  
Variations of this fundamental method of dividing roads into blocks for 
protection are still in use today.  Only the technology that signals whether the block is 
clear or protected, the methods for switching the track and signal appliances, and the 
rules that govern the system have become more sophisticated.  These innovations 
came about because the railroads, the first national corporations, extended in large 
networks all over the nation.  Coordinating traffic and developing methods for 
safeguarding train travel while trying to run as many trains on line at any given time 
(increasing the carrying load or carrying capacity of a section of track) required new 
technologies and procedures  to be developed as the needs arose.  Procedural 
innovations, new rules, and improved methods of maintenance were part of the 
                                                 
20
 Brignano and McCullough, The Search for Safety. 58?60; Edmund J. Phillips, Jr., Railroad 
Operation and Railway Signaling, A Handbook of illustrated questions and answers of the who, what 
and why of railway signaling and train operations, (New York, Simmons-Boardman Publishing 
Corporation, 1942), pp. 5, 43;  Patterson, Address to the Delegates, p. 2. 
 
 24 
 
 
experiential learning that was taking place on the part of both management and the 
signalmen over the first three decades of the twentieth century.  
When the railroads moved from mechanically operated signal systems to 
electronically operated systems, and introduced telegraph and later telephone 
communications by 1914, signal department employees began to be responsible for 
learning electrical theory and its applications. 
Railroads employing the space interval method could further control train 
movements using the Morse Telegraphic Train Dispatching System, which made it 
possible for a central dispatcher to change or nullify parts or the entire schedule by 
train orders.  Train orders were essentially telegrams on prescribed forms that were 
delivered to each train affected by the changes.  The tower operator handed up the 
train order?sent to all affected block sections by the dispatcher?tied to a string in a 
hoop attached to a long pole to the engineman.  As the train passed his tower, the 
engineman stuck his arm through the hoop and the loop of string with the message 
would lasso his arm and break free of the hoop.  The engineman knew to expect the 
train order when the operator activated a train order signal near the tower.  The order 
gave information on changes made by the dispatcher (who in the case of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was in Philadelphia), track and weather conditions, 
speed limits for that block and the next, and whether something was blocking the 
track.  However, having to slow or stop to receive train orders limited the carrying 
capacity and lowered the line?s efficiency, which led the way to more complicated 
train traffic management.  Railroads ?employed the principle of rights by class and 
rights by direction to lessen the work of the dispatcher by enabling the train crews to 
 25 
 
 
dispatch themselves to a greater extent.?
21
  There was, however, still the problem of 
either enginemen failing to stop for home signals at the ends of the block, 
accidentally or on purpose, or 
passing stations without picking up 
train orders. 
These procedures and rules 
over which trains had superior rights 
were part of the development of 
more complicated traffic systems 
that would handle the more mundane 
decisions for the dispatcher, freeing 
him up to plan more efficient routing 
of trains, increasing the carrying 
capacity of the line, and limiting the 
number of decisions, which could 
result in train traffic accidents.  
Early manual block systems 
were safety oriented rather than a method for increasing the carrying capacity of a 
line because there were only signals at the beginning of each block and train order 
signals.  The limitations of these block systems in the early 1900s meant trains 
frequently were required to stop or proceed with caution (under 15 miles an hour) 
because the signals did not provide information about the next block beyond that one 
Figure 7 A set of semaphore signals, possibly giving 
indications for an approach to the next block or to a 
station block, interpretation dependent on the 
carrier?s instruction manual.  File photo, Archive of 
the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, no date or 
location. 
                                                 
21
Wright, Centralized Traffic Control, p. 9; Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 125; 
Patterson,  Address to the Delegates, 1946, p. 2-4. 
 
 26 
 
 
the train was entering.  Trains could go only as fast as they could safely respond to 
the next signal they approached or to situations that they could see down the tracks.  
In addition, the length of the train was limited to the length of the block.  To make 
matters more complicated, trains could bunch up, and enginemen sometimes did not 
stop for signals or ignored the train orders.  The system was dependant on the 
enginemen following directions. 
22
 
With the introduction of home and distant signals, trains could run closer 
together, and the railroads installed these types of signals more for increasing track 
capacity than for safety.  The home signal governed the action of the engineman as 
his train entered the block.  The distant signal set hundreds of feet up the track?the 
distance based on complicated tables of braking distances that were always under 
revision as train speeds and weights increased?forewarned the engineman of the 
position of the next home signal so he could prepare to stop, proceed with caution, or 
maintain speed through the home signal.  Most railroads employed semaphore blade 
signals for their home signal and distant signals by the end of the nineteenth century, 
though there were many variations, markings, and sizes.  The semaphore is a position 
signal and does not rely on colors to indicate how the engineman should govern his 
train speeds.  On the PRR, the semaphore blade had three positions: horizontal for 
?stop,? set at a 45 degree angle for ?caution,? and vertical for ?all clear ? proceed.?
23
  
 
The biggest problem was making trackside semaphore signals visible to the 
engine crew in all types of weather at all times.  During the late nineteenth and early 
                                                 
22
 Phillips, Railroad Operations, p. 88; Brignano and McCullough, The Search for Safety, pp. 59?60. 
23
 James Latimer, ?Railway Signaling,? The Signal Engineer 1, (Feb. 1909): p. 344. 
 27 
 
 
twentieth centuries, railroads experimented first with oil burning signal lanterns with 
colored lenses that moved in unison with the semaphore blades to make them more 
visible at night.  Engineers also experimented with different blade shapes and 
markings to make the blades more visible.  By 1910, the efforts shifted as the science 
of optics provided innovations in lens manufacturing that could amplify electric light 
sources.  Electric position light signals began to replace semaphore blade signals as 
colored light signals could be seen as far away as 1,000 feet even in daylight. 
Engineers decided to use colored tinted lenses after accidents were caused by 
enginemen mistaking the lights of nearby vehicles or houses for the white lights 
initially used on trackside signals. The PRR was the first to use electric position light 
signals with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad quickly following suit.
24
 
To further increase carrying capacity, or the number of trains a line could 
safely handle in a day, American railroads frequently went to ?permissive blocking,? 
which allowed a freight train to enter a block already occupied by another freight 
train.  Under this system, trains had to proceed with caution or ?under control? at 
speeds of fifteen miles per hour in order to stop in time for a train on the tracks 
ahead.
25
  Keeping the train moving reduced its inertia, which meant less wear and 
tear on the track and the train as well as decreasing fuel consumption by not having
start up again from a dead stop. 
 to 
                                                
However, critics argued that allowing an engineman to disregard a stop signal 
left the rule open to confusion and left the enginemen to their own interpretations of 
the rules.  This type of ambiguity was sometimes the cause of collisions or 
 
24
 Grant, The Railroad, The life Story of a Technology, pp. 98-99. 
25
 Edmund J. Phillips, Jr., Railroad Operation, p.43; Brignano and McCullough, The Search for Safety, 
p. 61. 
 28 
 
 
derailments.  Railroads and the courts frequently left operators, signalmen, and 
enginemen carrying the blame for many of the accidents that did not involve track 
failure.  In addition, carriers often gave conflicting orders; they demanded enginemen 
follow the rules while at the same time they pushed enginemen to break rules to stay 
on schedule.
26 
 
 
It would not be long, however, before railroads developed procedures 
that made permissive blocking safer, and this method became commonplace in the 
1930s with the use of automated signal systems.  
More complicated three- and four-indication (called aspect) blocking systems 
were employed in the 1920s and ?30s, by which enginemen running their trains by 
signal indication alone could 
follow preceding trains more 
closely. The signals for the 
next three or four blocks woul
be coordinated as one tra
followed another.  Train traffic 
flow increased and longer 
trains could move thr
consecutive blocks faster with 
fewer delays. Nonetheless, to 
d 
in 
ough 
                                                
Figure 8 Position-light Signal Aspects (indications). This type 
of signal increases the amount of information given to a train 
crew.  It is used with Automatic Signal Systems.  J.B. Calvert, 
?Position Light Aspects (PRR),? Early Railroad Signals, 
2004. 
 
26
 Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 125, The doctrine of assumed risk used by the courts 
made employees responsible for accidents even when under carrier?s guidance, if the employee 
knowingly understood the risks involved. The fellow servant rule absolved employers of culpability for 
accidental injury of one employee by another. Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 
291; Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, p. 187. 
 29 
 
 
join the blocks together required automated signal systems and the invention of the 
electric track circuit.
27
 
Track Circuits Pave the Way for Automatic Signal and Train Control 
Probably the greatest innovation in train traffic management that signalmen 
had to understand was the closed electrical track circuit invented by teacher, inventor, 
and promoter William Robinson (1840?1921).  Electric current ran through the rails 
with relays at each end of a block. When the train wheels entered the block, the metal 
wheel-axle-wheel assembly would bridge the two electrified rails and short out the 
circuit.  Power to the relay at the end of the block would drop, which would drop the 
semaphore signal to its default stop position.  In addition, using Robinson?s closed 
circuit system, patented in 1872, the circuit would short out, or open when there was 
track or battery failure, or when a part of the previous train or debris was left on the 
tracks.  The semaphore signal returned to the vertical or ?all clear? position when the 
train exited the block or the debris was cleared, and the flow of current resumed.  
?This gave them a failsafe quality,? noted historian Steven Usselman.
28
  In addition to 
adding another layer of protection against collisions, the innovation had the effect of 
monitoring track conditions beyond the sight of the tower operator. 
Electric track circuitry paved the way for controlled manual blocking where 
the signals of consecutive blocks could be controlled.  Train movements through 
these blocks were governed by the cooperation of adjacent tower operators.  
Interlocking machines in adjacent towers could now be linked together and controlled 
electronically.  One operator was required to ask permission of another before  
                                                 
27
 Brian Solomon, Railroad Signaling, (St. Paul, Minnesota, MBI Publishing, 2003), pp. 103?05. 
28
 Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 129?130. 
 30 
 
 
 
 
Figure 9 The locomotive?s wheels and axle assembly shorted out the track circuit, which shut off 
power to the delay, changing the signal to the stop position. Diagram from Canadian National 
Railways, CN Signal Training, 1979, p.  248. 
 
 
 
allowing a train to pass through his block.  In addition, no other train could come 
from an opposing direction unless authorized by the next operator down the line.  In 
each train movement one tower operator could restrict a train from entering his block 
by electronically blocking the interlocking of the previous tower operator.  The closed 
electric track circuit provided yet another layer of failsafe protection.  This system 
 31 
 
 
took the place of train orders (in normal operations) and superseded the authority of 
time schedules.  As more systems relied on electric track circuits, automatic signal 
systems and automatic train control systems were developed that would forego the 
need for tower operators.  Covering miles of track, a dispatcher could both monitor 
and control signals and the movement of trains from a central location.
29
  
 
The Prohibitive Costs of Installing Interlocking Block Tower Systems  
In upgrading such far-reaching networks of tracks, railroads balked at the 
costs of constructing, maintaining, and staffing an interlocking block tower system.  
When railroads were coerced by the ICC into installing them during the first two 
decades of the twentieth century, the automatic signaling systems and train controls 
began to look more attractive.  The cost for a two-story signalman?s cabin was around 
$500 in 1901.  The addition of manually controlled electric or pneumatic semaphores 
added between $65 and $85 to the installation cost per tower.
 30
  
 In 1900, the operating costs estimated by the ICC were $200 a mile for 
towers stationed three miles apart.  However, if carriers chose manual signal towers, 
the operating costs in 1901 were significantly higher (electric systems had fewer 
moving parts and with electric systems one operator could control a larger plant).  
Railroads paid $100 a month to operate a manual signal tower 24 hours a day, of 
which labor was a major portion of the cost.  Operators who did not handle switches 
worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week and were paid by the PRR $45 to $55 
monthly.  Where the work was more complex and operators used interlocking 
                                                 
29
 Edmund Phillips, Railroad Operation, p. 96. 
30
F. D. Chase, ?Signal Tower for Saxby & Farmer Machines,? The Signal Engineer 2, (Aug. 1909): pp. 
82?84.  
 32 
 
 
machines, the pay was $50 to $70 a month for working an eight-hour day, seven days 
a week.  If switchmen, who moved and switched cars in the train yards, were 
employed at the station, the costs went up, because switchmen were paid 20 percent 
more than the operators were.
31
 
The ICC commissioners estimated the annual cost for labor and maintenance 
for each manual tower at $1,200 to $1,500.  According to Steven Usselman, a 
hypothetical installation of a tower every three miles would bring annual costs to 
between $400 and $500 a mile. When the PRR had to install them two miles apart 
along the busier sections, the cost went up to between $600 and $750 mile. The ICC 
commissions saw the block to be a very expensive system and looked to other 
technologies to bring costs down.
32
  The cost of tower, plant maintenance, and labor 
coupled with the problems carriers had in maintaining a disciplined workforce of 
signalmen and operators prompted carriers to try to find ways to remove human 
agency from the block system. 
Not until after 1910--when the Safety First Campaigns coupled with the layers 
of failsafe traffic devices, and rule changes covering more and more types of 
emergencies--did the railroads start to move toward improving worker attitudes 
toward safety.  In addition, now that the courts held carriers liable for unsafe 
conditions, the carriers started to take safety issues more seriously. Other safety 
technologies demanded by the ICC through the veiled threat of increased regulation 
and through increased powers given under the Safety Appliance Act of 1897 included 
                                                 
31
Braman Adams, The Block System of Signaling on American Railroads, the Methods and Appliances 
Used in Manual and Block Signaling, also descriptions of hand-operated and power-operated 
interlocking machines, (New York, The Railroad Gazette, 1901), pp. 23-24. 
32
 Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 303. 
 33 
 
 
air brakes, steel-framed cars, and automatic couplers. These changes improved the 
public?s perception and increased their confidence in the railroads.  Also contributing 
to the public?s confidence was a decrease in accidents. In addition, increased control 
over the behavior of employees through better organization, management, surprise 
inspections, and improved physical examinations (that included tests for color 
blindness) helped decrease human error, the single leading cause of railroad 
collisions. As the safety technology and management improved, railroads saw 
benefits in higher profits and more production.  In addition, as innovations were 
proven successful and became industry standards, the new devices dropped in price. 
However, the ICC, during the first few decades of the twentieth century, should be 
credited for continually trying to educate and persuade reluctant carriers to improve 
their safety methods.
33
  However, persuasion did not work on the carriers, many of 
which had managers who refused to spend money to improve safety measures unless 
the status quo situation was definitively proved not to be working.  Action in this 
pursuit of safety would hinge not so much on human altruism but on whether the 
safety technology would improve production.
34
   
                                                 
33
 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, p. 305. 
34
 Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, pp. 1?12; General Railway Signal Co., pp. 5?9. 
 
 34 
 
 
Chapter 3: The Efforts to Remove Human Agency from Train Traffic Management  
 
In the opening decades of the twentieth century, the Interstate Commerce 
Commission (ICC) and Congress saw automatic signal and train control technology 
as the way to reduce human judgment in train traffic management.  Basing its actions 
partly on Braman Adam?s The Block System (1901), which highlighted innovations 
on the technically progressive Pennsylvania Railroad, the ICC found situations in 
which the use of power interlocking plants would result in improving operational 
efficiency and lead to greater economies and savings on labor costs.
35
  In an effort to 
find technologies that could improve on the manual block system Congress passed the 
Block Signal System Act of 1906, which created in the ICC the Block Signal and 
Train Control Board (1907?1912).  Inundated with new inventions, board members 
complained that relentless inventors who knew nothing about railroad operations 
pestered them constantly.  By 1909, the ICC turned research over to the railroads and 
used the threat of regulations to spur carriers to improve the block system.
36
  The ICC 
was adamant that the railroads provide the best safety equipment or risk being 
regulated.  
Congress also enacted the Accident Reporting Act of 1910, which required 
carriers to report any accidents in which there were injuries, loss of life, or property 
damage exceeding $150. This law also gave the ICC the authority to investigate 
accidents.  These investigations became the basis for the promulgation of rules and 
                                                 
35
Interstate Commerce Commission, ?First Annual Report of the Block Signal and Train Control 
Board, p. 351; Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 317. Adams, The Block System of 
Signaling on American Railroads, pp. 163?165. 
36
Interstate Commerce Commission, ?First Annual Report of the Block Signal and Train Control 
Board, p. 351; Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 317. Adams, The Block System of 
Signaling on American Railroads, pp. 163?165; Patterson, Address to the Delegates, p. 5. 
 35 
 
 
standards that tried to take every possible scenario into account?a policy started by 
Charles Adams, after the fiery train disaster at Revere, MA, in 1871.
37
  
Usselman has argued that Adams?s policy shaped how the federal government 
dealt with problems of human error by encouraging it to spend more on research of 
technologies that would limit the possibility of human error.  ?Many people looked 
upon the block system not as a method but a set of novel devices, such as those at the 
Pennsylvania [Railroad], which appeared to provide absolute safety through 
technological means.?
 38
  Usselman wrote that this was how the federal government 
would approach safety issues in the twentieth century.  When Congress began 
funding the Block Signal and Train Control Board, established in the ICC in the early 
1900s, it marked the beginning of the end of the carriers? authority, which gave them 
autonomy over their lines in terms of safety issues.
39
  As a result, Congress enacted a 
number of safety acts lobbied for by railroad unions, and the Safety Committee of the 
ICC -- which replaced the Block Signal and Train Control Board in 1912 -- began its 
limited authority over railroad safety issues. 
Power Interlocking and Automatic Signal Control 
The safety concerns of the public, labor, and the government were 
instrumental in the development of automated systems, which, along with automatic 
signal systems, included automatic train control systems that would automatically 
apply the train?s brakes if the engineman ran a stop signal or was incapacitated.
40
  
The BRS and the other railroad brotherhoods in the AF of L initially supported the 
                                                 
37
 Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, pp. 120?121. 
38
 Ibid, pp. 312?313, 318?325. 
39
 Ibid, pp. 296?298, 312?313, 318?325. 
40
 Ibid, p. 315. 
 36 
 
 
use of Automatic Train Stop (ATS), and joined carriers and inventors in testing
equipment.  The results of the testing done in 1914 were found inconclusive, but the 
BRS and AF of L resolved to continue to push for viable ATS technology.
 new 
                                                
41
 
The Chicago & Northwestern Railroad officials touted Automatic Train 
Control (ATC) to the public, calling it ?a giant hand or invisible guardian.? They said 
it allowed trains to run at maximum speeds in all types of weather because the 
enginemen did not need to see signal indications.  If the train ran a stop signal or it 
was going too fast through a caution signal, the ATC device would apply the train?s 
brakes.  Running maximum speed meant trains could stick to their schedules 
regardless of most inclement weather conditions.  Historian Roger Grant wrote that 
shippers of perishable goods benefited greatly from the use of ATC bringing in trains 
on time.
42
 
In addition, carriers started to install automatic signal systems as early as the 
1890s as a way to circumvent the problems of discipline and inattentiveness to duty 
that they were having with the operators, signalmen, and enginemen.  Automatic 
signal control systems (ASC) were activated simply by having the train enter a block.  
The train?s wheels shorted the block?s track circuit, causing the signal to change to a 
stop, or stop and proceed with caution indication.  There were no operators or 
dispatchers to govern these signals, only the presence of a train in the block activated 
the signals.  Later, as ASC became more reliable, train movement could be controlled 
without train orders, and automatic signal systems could keep trains safely spaced 
 
41
 American Federation of Labor, Report of proceedings, 34
th
 American Federation of Labor Annual 
Convention, Philadelphia, PA, Nov. 9-21, 1914. (Washington D.C., The Law Reporting Printing Co., 
1914), pp, 83, 326. 
42
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, p. 100. 
 37 
 
 
while at the same time have them run closer together.  This system also reduced the 
number of towers and operators needed on the line.  In 1884, when automatic train 
controls began to prove more reliable, the PRR began a rapid push to install this 
system.  By 1901, the Pennsylvania Railroad had 500 miles of its railroads protected 
by the automatic system.  PRR?s success proved to engineer and safety advocate 
Brahman Adams that automatic systems were as good as the manual system. An 
added benefit was the elimination of many of the day and night shift workers, which 
resulted in a decrease in monthly expenses.
43
  The conversion to automated block 
systems took off at the turn of the century.  Carriers converted 1,000 miles to 
automated systems in 1901 alone, bringing the total number of miles converted to 
2,300.  An ICC survey of signaling practices showed 11,000 miles were converted by 
1907.
44
  However, at the time, automatic signals still could not do all that was 
expected of them and would not become reliable enough for the ICC to require them 
until well into the 1920s
45
.  
When automatic signal systems started to become reliable, the engineman 
could trust that when a signal indicated ?stop? that was what he was supposed to do.  
This new assurance was preferable to the engineman wondering if the tower operator 
had correctly set the signal indication or was even awake (hence the phase ?asleep at 
the switch?), and proceeded to make judgment calls that sometimes led to disaster.
46
 
Automatic semaphore signals became more reliable with the improvement in 
frost-proof batteries and more efficient and economical motors.  Automatic 
                                                 
43
 Adams, The Block System of Signaling on American Railroads, pp. 165?166. 
44
 Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 296. 
45
 Adams, The Block System of Signaling on American Railroads, p. 166. 
46
 Ibid. 
 38 
 
 
semaphores could be operated by a central dynamo for up to 35 miles connected to 
frost-proof storage batteries along the tracks at signals or where needed.
47
 
The railroads switched from semaphore blade signals to electric position 
signals, using light bulbs and parabolic lenses set in changeable patterns after a 
number of breakthroughs in the field of optics in 1910.  Electric position signals had 
few moving mechanical parts, and the light bulbs were easier to replace than repairing 
mechanically driven semaphore blades, making them a more cost-effective choice.  
These signals were also not prone to freezing up or having their movements blocked 
by snow and ice like the semaphore blade signals did.  In addition, over time, lenses 
were improved so that enginemen could see them farther off in the distance in both 
daylight and at night.
48
 
Carriers built three- and four-aspect automatic block systems, which 
coordinated track circuits and automatic signals three and four blocks ahead of the 
train, based on the braking distances trains required to stop in emergencies.  The 
enginemen would run their trains through these blocks by signal indication only 
because every block had its own track circuit, which was coordinated with the block 
circuits ahead.  This was called the absolute permissive block system.  
                                                 
47
 Ibid. 
48
 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails,  p. 252-253;  J. B. Calvert, ?Position Light Aspects (PRR),? 
Chart, Early Railway Signals, July 25, 2004, Revised  August 15,  2004, 
http://www.du.edu/~etuttle/rail/sigs.htm#Ligh.  
 39 
 
 
During its tenure, the Block Signal and Train Control Board began to push for 
automated train control and for some block signal operations.  This legislation 
signaled ?the end of an established paradigm of railroad operations and the loss of 
autonomy for railroad management.?
49
  Nevertheless, by 1910, only 26 percent of the 
roads had some form of block system in place.
 50
   In 1913, the Railway Gazette 
reported the mileage covered by block signal operations doubled with an increase of 
3,800 miles in one year, putting the total number of miles under either automatic or 
block signals around 9,000 miles.
51
  In 1915, the number of collisions and 
derailments fell to a low of 3,538. The New York Times reported in 1916 that the 
PRR?which  
                                                
Figure 10 With Three Aspect block Automatic Block System, trains can follow closer to each other 
thus increasing the carrying capacity of the line. Drawing by Diarmaid Collins, from Brian Solomon, 
Railroad Signaling, 2003, p. 104. 
 
 
 
49
 Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, pp. 296-98. 
50
 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, p. 4, p. 332, Appendix 2, Table A2.7; Mark Aldrich,. 
?Combating the Collision Horror, the ICC and Automatic Train Control,? Technology and Culture 34, 
(Jan. 1993): p. 51; Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 296; New York Times, ?Topic 
of the Times, Safety for Railway Passengers,? (July 24, 1916): p. 11. 
51
 The Railroad Gazette 56, ?Block Signaling Progress,? (Jan. 2, 1914): p. 1. 
 40 
 
 
 
had its entire system blocked?carried over 455,900,000 passengers in 3 million trips 
over 10 billion miles without a single fatality.  The collision and derailment nu
for the country in 1917 rose as high as 7,115; however, when the number was 
adjusted for increased miles of train travel, they actually dropped.  The ICC reported, 
Jan. 1, 1919, the total number of miles operated under block systems was 99,897.7
which 36,989.4 miles were equipped with automatic signals and 621,908.3 miles 
employed non-automatic systems.  This rapid conversion created an increase o
miles equipped with automatic signals and a decrease of 1,430.3 miles in non-
mbers 
, of 
f 1,796 
automa
at 
 
 
ol 
tion) 
tic block mileage over 1913, with a net increase of 366 blocked miles.
52
  
Meanwhile, the government continued to grow less tolerant of mistakes th
led to accidents.  By January 1920, 101,884 miles were under block systems, of 
which 37,968.8 miles were automatic signal systems, an increase of 979.4 miles for 
1919.
53
   The train control committee of the U.S. Railroad Administration submitted a
report in 1919 before federal control ended, indicating some progress had been made
in ATC devices but that little had changed since the Block Signal and Train Contr
Board adjourned in 1912.  After what representatives of the industry?s American 
Railroad Administration (ARA) (which replaced the U.S. Railroad Administra
                                                 
52
 Safety Division, Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 33, (Washington D.C., U.S. 
Report 
 351; Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, 317. 
Government Printing Office, Dec. 1919), p. 40. Interstate Commerce Commission, First Annual 
of the Block Signal and Train Control Board, p.
Adams, The Block System of Signaling on American Railroads, pp. 163?165. 
53
 Safety Division, Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission 34, (Washington D.C., U.S. 
Government Printing Office, Dec. 1920), p.65. 
 41 
 
 
said wa
 
event 
 concerted effort to create an 
?anti-collision device.?  Later that year, the ICC ordered forty-nine of the largest 
carriers to start installation of automatic train control.
55
 
.  
, 
All-
 switches with electric relays and motors, 
s an exhaustive search, it recommended seventeen devices for service 
development tests after federal control ended.
54
  
In 1920, after an investigation into a train collision, W. P. Borland, Chief of
Safety for the ICC, wrote that automatic block systems were the only way to pr
collisions.  Aldrich noted that by 1922, the ICC concluded that only some form of 
automatic train control would work to end the destruction from collisions and 
derailments.  ATC offered an attractive alternative by further eliminating ?human 
judgment? from the equation.  From then on, there was a
Operating Costs Drop with Electrically Operated Systems 
Improvements on the mechanical interlocking plant were also intended to 
reduce labor costs and increase railroad operation capacities at large physical plants
These improvements included the electro-mechanical interlocking system, the hydro-
pneumatic system, the electro-pneumatic system, and the all-electric system.  The 
electro-mechanical interlocking used the mechanical interlocking levers and frames
with the aid of electric motors and switches, to activate other parts of the system.  
electric interlocking changed signals and
                                                 
54
 Anon E. Lyon, The Signal Inspection Act: A Major Achievement of the BRS, (A Lyon Chronicle,) 
unpublished history/memoir of the BRS?s role in the enactment of the Legislation, 1972, Red loos
leaf binder,  Archives of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Front Royal, VA., p. 26. 
55
 Mark Aldrich, ?Combating the Collision Horror,? p. 51.  
e-
 42 
 
 
while the pneumatic and hydro-pneumatic systems used air or fluid, respectively, 
compressed by electric compressors.
56
  
After railroads began to trust these new systems, the costs of the new 
technology dropped, and they were cheaper to install than mechanical interlockings a
they had fewer moving parts.  In addition, these systems were quicker and require
less effor
s 
d 
t on the part of the operator.  With these systems, one operator could handle 
a larger bor 
 
ht 
talled inside the train cab, showed signal indications that would have been 
displayed trackside and in conjunction with how the ATC devices were controlling 
the stretch of track.  By 1950, ATC covered 10,000 miles of road and 3,500 miles of 
                                                
 frame of levers and a larger physical plant, or territory, further cutting la
costs.  In addition, not only were electric and electro-mechanical systems cheaper to
install than mechanical interlocking plants but also they took up less room in the 
tower.
57
 
In addition, cab signals were tested.  Developed and used extensively in 
Europe, cab signals provided signal indications inside the engine cab; this lessened 
the chances that the engineman would miss roadside signals because of weather 
conditions or inattentiveness. Cab signals became an adjunct technology to ATC in 
the 1920s and were used in conjunction with ATC on many railroads.  Small lig
signals, ins
 
 
Electro-Mechanical Interlocking System, Combining the Advantages of Electric and Mechanical 
Interlocking Plants,? The Signal Engineer 2, (April 1910): pp. 412-415; The General Railway Signal 
 pp. 412-415; The General Railway Signal Company,  Electrical 
56
 Hanson Boyden, ?The Block System, what it is and why it failed last Sunday, p. F1; E. K. Post, ?The
Company,  Electrical Interlocking Handbook, pp. 5-6;  Patterson,  Address to the Delegates , p 5. 
57
 Hanson Boyden, ?The Block System, what it is and why it failed, p. F1; E. K. Post, ?The Electro-
Mechanical Interlocking System,?
Interlocking Handbook, pp. 5?6. 
 43 
 
 
road was equipped for running cab signals without any other automatic control 
devices.
58
 
The Wasted Era of Automatic Train Control  
The BRS started its move into the arena of safety legislation when the ICC 
started requiring ATC.  By the 1920s, the BRS, the other railroad unions, and the 
railroad managers were not as enthusiastic over the technology as the commissioners 
of the ICC were.  The Train Control Committee, enacted with the Transportation Act 
of 1920, was created to continue to study and investigate ATC.  BRS President Anon 
E. Lyon wrote that the push to use ATC was probably at the urging of suppliers --
excluding the Union Switch and Signal Company (USS Co.) and the General Railway 
Signal Co. (GRS Co.) -- who saw tremendous profits if ATC could be required. If 
USS Co. and GRS Co. were involved, he said, there would have been a more serious 
look at other types of safety and signal appliances.
59
  
ATC in the 1920s came in both mechanical and electrical forms so that when 
a train passed a stop signal, it would pass over a raised ramp, connected to the track 
circuit, so it would make contact with the train.  The electrical contact on the train 
would be energized, and if the train were not equipped with a forestaller, or override 
device, the train?s brakes would apply.  One ATC was the Regan type, which was a 
metal ramp type, 200 feet in length and a foot high, mounted outside the cross ties 
and in advance of a automatic wayside signal.  The moving train made an electrical 
contact with the ramp, and if the signal was in the ?stop? position, the air brakes 
would be activated if the engineer had not already applied them.  Another type of 
                                                 
58
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, 100?101.  
59
 Lyon, Anon E. ?The Signal Inspection Act,? p. 27.  
 44 
 
 
ATC was four to five feet long, mounted outside the ties some distance before the 
signal.  The device was mounted on the locomotive a few inches over the inductor 
and could activate the brakes if the stop signal were activated.  A third system w
true train control device, as opposed to a train stop device, in that it was an
as a 
 
intermi
tive 
 
 
n 26 as a mandate to have ATC installed on railroads but did not 
require  the 
                                     
ttent inductive type mounted between the rails that not only could 
automatically stop the train but could measure the speed of the train using a sensi
timing device.  Using a special short track circuit, it could slow down a train by 
activating the brake slowly when the train exceeded the speed limit.
60
  Continuous 
train control devices were always activated, slowed the train down in an emergency, 
and acted as a monitoring device; however, continuous ATC devices were still
unproven, and the railroads did not invest heavily in them in the 1920s.
61
  
Under Section 26 of the Transportation Act of 1920, the ICC had the authority
to order any railroad to install ATC or other safety devices; however, the phrase 
?other safety devices? was too vague and subsequently had no regulatory meaning.  
The ICC took sectio
 automated signal systems, as Section 26 did clearly state that the ICC had
power to mandate the use of ATC.  On July 13, 1922, ICC ordered forty-nine 
railroads to install ATC, followed by, in January 1924, an order for an additional 
forty-seven installations on the forty-nine roads.
62
   Under the order, railroads could 
choose which ATC they wanted and where they would install it.  Lyon said most 
            
6-252. 
Signal Inspection Act?, p. 27. 
60
 Ibid. 
61
Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, pp. 24
62
 Lyon, ?The 
 45 
 
 
railroads installed the ATC on lightly traveled lines where ATC would not interfere
with busy traffic.
 
e 
rake, causing break-in-
twos or he 
n by 
s by working behind the scenes to 
discour
s 
 
poor weather conditions and would stop the train.  Economically, these systems were 
                                                
63
 
The problem both the carriers and the BRS found with ATC was that th
devices could not differentiate between a heavy freight train and a light passenger 
train.  Therefore, some ATC could not properly activate the b
 derailments.  Only an experienced engineman would know how to apply t
brakes effectively or safely. Understandably, enginemen were opposed to ATC for 
this and another reason.  The use of ATC downgraded the enginemen?s professio
saying the enginemen were inattentive.  ?They wanted to preserve and, if possible, 
enhance the public?s image of a locomotive engineer as a man of unrivaled 
competence and dependability?a sort of super aristocrat of American labor.? 
Enginemen pushed quietly for safety regulation
age the use of ATC until it was proven ineffective.
64
  
The ICC had a different perspective. It saw ATC as a technological fix to 
improve safety by eliminating human judgment from traffic management; wherea
the carriers saw ATC as not providing anything to make the railroads run more 
efficiently.  By contrast, other safety devices, such as air brakes, block signals, and
automatic couplings, were shown to increase productivity.  Because railroads saw that 
these devices increased efficiency, the safety devices became standard equipment, 
and the prices for these devices came down. 
65
 
However, mechanical and electrical ATC systems were subject to failure in 
 
63
 Ibid, p. 29. 
64
 Ibid, pp. 29?33. 
65
 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, pp. 246?250. 
 46 
 
 
bad for business because stopping a train not only set back its schedule, but als
having to get the train back up to speed again caused extra wear on the track, en
o 
gine, 
and car
trol 
of 
t of all 
 to 
 
aving a hand in preventing this research.
67
  However, in response to 
Section
 but Lyon said this did not deter the ICC from issuing its ATC order under 
s, and raised fuel costs.  The carriers saw no economic benefit to adopting 
ATC.  The Railroad Gazette reported that the Committee on Automatic Train Con
of the carriers? United States Railroad Association was against mandatory adoption 
ATC for economic reasons. They said that profits were already squeezed by rate 
regulation and that, by ICC calculations, it would only prevent about 6 percen
fatalities to non-trespassers. The United States Railroad Association, instead, 
advocated for further adoption of the block system as a first step, not ATC.
66
   
Members of the BRS did not like ATC for additional reasons. Lyon said he 
was frustrated that Congress gave money for research and testing on many safety 
appliances and signal systems intended to promote the safety of railroad operation, 
but instead, the ICC concentrated on train control devices. Little attention was paid
the effectiveness of the various types of automatic signals, different types of 
interlocking systems, and highway grade-crossing devices that the BRS officers 
thought added real safety benefits.  In addition, no consideration was given to setting 
recommended or mandatory safety standards.  The ICC?s work was limited to ATC
devices instead of all safety appliances or systems.  Lyon said the railroad supply 
industry was h
 26, the railroads claimed, in 1922, financial difficulties, and that the rates 
imposed by the ICC were too low.  The carriers demanded the Labor Board cut 
wages,
                                                 
66
 Ibid. 
67
 Lyon, ?The Signal Inspection Act?, p. 25. 
 47 
 
 
Section 26.  Wages were being cut while the government required railroads to s
money on ATC, which the railroads ironically found unreliable when used alone. 
Railroads were forced to upgrade to the ATC while jobs were
pend 
 being taken away from 
signalm
 
the 
o 
 
nergy and willingness to lead allowed, according to 
historia e 
e an 
 
en.
68
  
Yet another reason for the BRS to discourage the use of ATC was that union 
strength and political power was affected by the size of the union?s membership. 
Membership was affected by the fact that some railroads removed other signal 
systems when using ATC.
69
  The fewer devices and signals that needed servicing, the
fewer signalmen were needed for those stretches of track.     
The unions as well as the railroads were frustrated with the way the ICC had 
failed to live up to its new congressional mandate that came with the enactment of 
Transportation Act of 1920.  Congress had endowed the ICC with greater authority t
plan and implement a national transportation system.  To handle the increase in 
workload, the number of commissioners was increased from nine to eleven and new 
departments were added, such as a Statistical Bureau and a bureau for valuating 
railroad properties.  The problem was that the Commission was only as effective as
much as the commissioners? e
n Ari Hoogenboom.  Without strong leadership, the middle managers of th
bureaucracy tended to do what was best for their departments, and the ICC becam
agency narrowly focused on collecting mountains of data and prosecuting individual
                                                 
68
 Lyon, ?The Signal Inspection Act,? p. 29; Frank H. Dixon, ?The Railroad Situation, An Appraisal,? 
The American Economic Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual
Meeting of the American Economic Associatio
 
n, (March 1921): pp. 5?18. 
. 10?15, 1928, p. 841-846. 
69
 Daniel Helt, BRSA President, and Delegates M.C. Merritts, I.M. Fisher. Discussions on a motion to 
have the Interstate Commerce Commission define the maintainer?s responsibilities in regards to ATC. 
The Fourth Biennial and Nineteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript 
volume dated Sept
 48 
 
 
disputes and cases rather than looking at the larger picture.  It failed to create a viable 
transportation plan and failed to provide standards or criteria for improving traffic
management technologies.
 
 
as 
 
ether the block was clear or not, and what speeds he 
should chnical 
l 
70
  
From the beginning, the BRS was adamant that ATC should be used as a 
supplement to signal systems, and not the sole technology preventing collisions.  
Enginemen still needed home and distant signals to have some idea about what was
ahead on the tracks.  Despite the intent of the ICC ruling to improve safety by adding 
ATC to block systems, railroads were scrapping signal systems in favor of ATC 
without inference from the ICC.
71
   Delegate  I. M. Fisher pointed out at the 1928 
BSA Convention that the ATC was supposed to be used in conjunction with signal 
systems; however, the ICC ?did not contemplate the removal of signals; yet on some 
roads signals have been removed.?  Some railroads were removing signal systems 
where ATC was installed.  Another reason why the BRS was adamant that ATC w
not adequate as a standalone safety device was that it did not allow for the differences 
in train weights and speeds.  The BRS also said that the engineman had to know what
was happening ahead of him, wh
be running.  Some railroads and regulators relied too heavily on the te
fix that ATC offered.
72
  In addition, the BRS generally lobbied for automated signa
systems and more complicated systems because the more miles of track under the 
                                                 
 Ari Hoogenboom and Olive Hoogenboom, A History of the ICC: From Panacea to Palliative
York, Norton & Co. Inc, 1976), pp. 111-112; Richard D. Stone, The Interstate Commerce Comm
70
, (New 
ission 
and the Railroad Industry, A History of Regulatory Policy, (New York, Greenwood Publishing Co., 
1991), pp. 35-36. 
71
 Daniel Helt, BRSA President, and Delegates M.C. Merritts, I.M. Fisher. Discussions on a motion to 
have the Interstate Commerce Commission define the maintainer?s responsibilities in regards to ATC, 
p. 841-846. 
72
 Helt, BRS President, and Delegates Merritt, Fisher discussing a motion to have the ICC define the 
maintainer?s responsibilities in regards to ATC, pp. 841?846. 
 49 
 
 
block system and under the protection of some form of signal systems, the greater the 
need for more skilled maintainers and signalmen.  The more signalmen meant larger 
membership roles for the BRS. 
 
e 
d 
 from the ICC?s Bureau of 
Safety.
 
tem, several other classes of employees worked on the 
same ap  
The ICC looked to technology to fix problems that should have been 
addressed through better governmental oversight. Such oversight would not come
about until the BRS successfully lobbied for the passage of the Signal Inspection Act 
of 1937.  This law provided the rules, procedures, and performance standards for th
installation, repair, and maintenance of all signal systems.  In addition, the law 
extended the authority granted under the Transportation Act to the ICC and prevente
railroads from removing signal systems without approval
73
  
In addition to safety concerns, liability questions arose concerning who was 
responsible for problems with ATC systems, as well as cab signals as they were 
installed on the engine, the tracks, and the track circuits.  Because ATC was installed
on so many parts of the sys
paratus.  The BRS wanted the ICC to place the liability on management as
                                                 
73
 A.E. Lyon, Efforts to Secure Passage of the Signal Inspection Bill, Report of the Acting Grand 
President, the Eighth Biennial and Twenty-third Regular Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound 
typescript volume dated Aug. 16,-19, 1936, pp. 24-29; Interstate Commerce Commission, ?ICC 
Circular on Signal Inspection Law, Railway Age, 103, (October 2, 1937): p. 469; American Federatio
of Labor, ?Senate Bill S. 29,? To promote safety of employees and travelers by requiring railroa
engaged with the ICC to install, inspect, test, repair and maintain block signal systems, interlocking, 
n 
ds 
tems 
ceedings of the Fifty-seventh Annual 
tion of the AF of L, Denver, Colorado, bound typescript volumes dated Oct. 4-15, 1937, p. 171.  
automatic, train stop, train control, cab signal devices, and other appliances, methods and sys
intended to promote safety of railroad operation, passed both houses, Administration of law is under 
the ICC, American Federation of Labor, Report of the Pro
Conven
 50 
 
 
they oversaw the work.  The BRS also feared that replacing signaling systems w
ATC would decrease their employment opportunities.
ith 
rotect the lives of the people, this convention would be two or three 
times th on 
 
t 
ore 
 ten 
 on their lines.  Few, if any, 
er 1928, the ICC announced it would not require further 
installations but said ?expenditures [by the railroads] for the preservation of human 
life should be generous and should be so distributed that the greatest possible measure 
                                                
74
  
?[Y]ou and I and the balance of us realize that if railroads of the country 
would properly p
e size it is,? Delegate Merritts, Lodge No. 1, said before the 1928 Conventi
in Chicago.  ?We have thousands and thousands of miles of unprotected railroads in
this country right now.?
75
 
This discussion became the impetus for going to Congress to find ways to 
give the ICC more regulatory power over signal systems.  BRS wanted an amendmen
to Section 26 to give the ICC the power to prevent removal or modifications to 
existing signal systems.
76
   This resolution would lead the BRS to write the Signal 
Inspection Bill, for which the BRS lobbied from 1930 to 1937, when it was finally 
signed into law. 
If it were not for the concerted efforts of the BRS, other unions, and safety 
advocates pressuring the ICC, railroads would have been even slower to add m
block signal systems.  By the end of the 1920s, ATC devices proved unreliable as 
standalone safety equipment.  In addition, ATC was costly to maintain.  After
years, the carriers petitioned the ICC to remove the ATC
were denied.   In Novemb
 
74
 M.C. Merritts, discussing the need to regulate signal system maintenance and installation, 
ings of the Fourth Biennial and Nineteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, bound typescript Proceed
volume dated Chicago, Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 841?844. 
75
 Ibid 
76
 Ibid. 
 51 
 
 
of protection should be afforded.?  According to Usselman, railroads never initiated 
these ch
77
  
930, 
CTC is the marriage of automated block signals with interlocking systems.  
Highly versatile, CTC was installed on both single and double tracks, at complicated 
junctions, and in huge train yards.  Companies also used CTC for routes that ran 
trains in both directions on either track.  Using CTC, a dispatcher -- while watching a 
lighted track diagram that showed the signal indications, turnout positions, and train 
positions on the blocks -- could control meeting points, run following trains around 
slower proceeding trains, and, in general, speed up traffic.  He controlled the 
interlocking signals and switches that moved trains to sidings, while automatic block 
signals govern said carriers 
first installed C ispatcher the 
ability to run th
80
  The 
dispatcher initi  rights to one 
                       
anges; changes were brought on by public pressure and federal intervention.
Nevertheless, this ?wasted ATC era,? as Lyon called it, ?did allow for worthy 
developments in signal technology, such as Centralized Train Control.?  Before 1
he said, the ICC was ?hung up? on ATC as they were under the influence of 
companies hoping to make profits on the technology.
78
 
   
The Added Benefits of Centralized Train Control 
ed the main line permissively.
79
  Historian Roger Grant 
TC on their busiest sections because it gave a regional d
e section as if he was running ?a model-railroad layout.?
ates and directs all train movements and grants superior
                          
n, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 318; Patterson, Address
77
 Steven Usselma  to the Delegates,  
pp. 5?7. 
78
 Lyon, ?The Signal Inspection Act,? pp. 28?33. 
79
 Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, pp. 292 
80
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp. 99?100. 
 52 
 
 
train over anot ugh the agency 
of the roadside signals,? said Sedgwick N. Wright, Engineer for General Railway 
Signal 
rights by direction. One train knows nothing about the 
are for the benefit of the passenger and other schedules 
system only allows the dispatcher to move trains in safe 
from making mistakes. A record by the system is kept 
Selector that allows hand operation of the switches, but 
unsafe manner, i.e., once the car has entered the track 
 
Using CTC, the dispatcher?s office replaced the need for numerous towers and 
tower operators stationed in every block of track.  Dispatchers controlled train 
movements using a switchboard at a central office.  By pulling the appropriate 
lever(s) for a predetermined route, the correct switches opened and closed to direct 
the train onto a siding or through a junction, using small electric motors.  The motors 
were also used to set the signals to inform the train crews of what speeds they should 
run the train and to show where they are heading.  Above every lever on the 
switchboard was a light telling whether the turnout is in its normal position or its 
reverse position.  Above the switchboard was a track diagram on a light board where 
each light indicates the setting of every turnout, either open or closed, the indications 
of the every signal on the block of track, and most importantly, whether a train is 
occupying that block.  The indication of whether a train is occupying the block on the 
her as the situation arises; ?his orders are delivered thro
Company:  
There are no longer train orders, rights by class, and 
presence of any other train on the road. Train schedules 
are merely for the guidance of the dispatcher. The 
manner; otherwise, the locking devices prevent him 
of each operation. There is a GRS Dual Control 
the system does not allow switching to occur in an 
circuit in which the switch is located.
81
 
                                                 
81
Wright, Centralized Traffic Control, pp. 47?48. 
 53 
 
 
track diagram is the result of innovations upon Robinson?s electric track circuit 
system.  While the train wheels shunt the track circuit that shorts out the relay, kills 
the pow
rs 
tion, 
s 
the 
 
 and pole, 
and som ach 
e.  
nstallation 
                                                
er to the signal, and drops the signal to its default stop position, the shorted 
circuit notifies the dispatcher whether the train is occupying that particular block.  
Most CTC machines had a paper-recording device underneath the levers that noted 
each time a lever was thrown and what train movements had occurred.
82
  Dispatche
still had to keep detailed written records of every train movement and CTC ac
but with CTC, one man in a central office could do the work of many tower operator
stationed every two or three miles along the line. 
Before CTC, dispatchers had to relay train orders either by telephone or by 
telegraph to tower operators who would set the signals and switches.  ?The man at 
[telegraph] key was the heart of the system; however, this company found the system
deficient as it did not afford direct and complete control of traffic and did not give 
complete information to the central dispatcher as to what is occurring on the 
roadway,? noted Wright.  Having operators stationed along the line in block towers 
initially reduced traffic delay??they served as an intermediary between the 
dispatcher and the train, and they operated the switches and signals.?  The operators 
would have to relay the train orders by handing them up to the engineman, which 
required the train to slow down so the order could be handed up on a hoop
etimes the train had to stop so the engineman could sign for the order.  E
train on the line had to go through the same process of getting train orders, often 
times at most of the stations, which was very time consuming and labor intensiv
However, this was ?indirect control over the line and very expensive for i
 
ailroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp.  99?100. 
82
 Grant, The R
 54 
 
 
and then in daily operations.?
83
  In addition, the cost of fuel and of the degradation of 
the equipment and track from having to stop and then start up again many times
a busy stretch of track made the train order system even more expensive. 
CTC eliminated all of this work by having the trains run only on sig
indication, wh
 along 
nal 
ich told train crews when to pull over into a siding to let another train 
pass, w
ing 
r 
ICC 
 expenses and increased traffic flow.
85
   
                                                
hen to stop and when to start up again.  In addition, all the signals were 
coordinated with the switches, so when the switches changed, so did the 
corresponding signals.  A failsafe mechanism prevented the dispatcher from chang
the signal to a different indication other than that was appropriate for what was 
occurring with the switch as the train passed over it.  The railroads added phone 
boxes every few miles so that in an emergency, the crew could contact the 
dispatcher.
84
  
The use of colored signal lights and position light signals paved the way fo
the use of Automatic Signal Control (ASC) and Centralized Train Control (CTC).  
The General Railway Signal Company and the Union Switch & Signal Company 
developed CTC and ASC by the late 1920s, carriers and the federal government saw 
CTC and ASC were marked improvements over ATC.  After World War I, the 
?vigorously endorsed? the use of these systems to improve safety while carriers saw 
reduced operating
W. J. Patterson, Director of the ICC?s Bureau of Safety, said in 1946 that, 
since 1924, new improvements in color-light signals increased the distance where 
signal indications can be seen (and have fewer moving parts to fail). Power operated 
 
he Life Story of a Technology, pp.  99?100. 
83
 Ibid, p. 11. 
84
 Aldrich, Death rode the rails, p. 292. 
85
 Grant, The Railroad: T
 55 
 
 
switches have eliminated delays caused by trains leaving and entering sidings.  ?The
development of CTC increased signal track capacity and resulted in increased 
efficiency and reduction in delays resulting from the meeting and passing of trains,?
Patterson said.
 
 
 train 
 also increased since 1924.  
Also th
ns are 
 safety 
ed 
have 
 
t in CTC, ATC, automatic block signals, cab signals, or in 
combin
f double tracks 
and where 137 locomotives were employed, cost just under $20,000 for a savings of 
Railway Age reported that CTC was effective for 
86
 
He went on to say that improved signaling systems were needed because
traffic increased enormously and the weight of trains had
e heavier and faster streamlined trains required signaling rules and standards 
because of their higher authorized speeds and faster schedules.  New collisio
more devastating, he said, which raised questions about how to better promote
and increase means of safety in line with modern railroad operations and increas
hazards.  There is a problem of inadequate block signals on these lines that 
trains authorized to run 40 to 70 mph.  Most of the collisions happen on tracks 
authorized for speeds of 60 to 70 mph, he concluded.
87
  
The Signal Section of the ARA reported frequently from the late 1920s through
the 1930s more about the reduction in operating costs using the new signal 
technologies; the safety aspect was an added bonus.  The promise of reduced 
operating costs and increased production from increased track capacity spurred 
carriers to inves
ations of the four technological systems. An example of cost reductions for 
the Union Pacific, where cab signal systems were used on 225 miles o
$50,201,000.  In another article, 
                                                 
86
 Patterson, pp. 9?11.  
87
 
 
Ibid. 
 56 
 
 
terminal railroa nts and the 
train yard is sh did not need 
train orders.
88
  
The fir hio, which was 
followed by th  
The GRS Co developed the G-R-S Dispatching System 
to give direct and complete centralized traffic control 
It employed automatic block signals for spacing and 
machines for the operation of switches, and a control 
control machine also gives the dispatcher information 
s along the 
line called ?OS Points.?  
nd 
ffic 
d operation, in which there are a number of junction poi
ort.  Routes were constructed solely by the operator and 
st major CTC system was installed in 1927 in Toledo, O
e New York Central (NYC). Wright reported in 1927:
and was first used on tracks of about 40 miles in Ohio.  
protection of train movements, power switching 
machine for controlling the switches and signals. The 
when each train passes over certain point
89
 
The NYC realized that CTC was the answer to the growing problem of 
congestion on about forty miles of track.  Managers there soon realized that they 
could run the same number of trains faster over a single track, using CTC, than they 
could on a double track for the same stretch of road.
90
  
Carriers started to realize the benefits of electronic central train control and 
automatic signaling technology.  In the discussions among signal engineers of the 
Signal Section of American Railway Association, in 1930, about the cost savings a
improved efficiency in handling more traffic per railroad, engineers were reporting 
cost reductions from eliminating tower and telegraph operators, and improving tra
                                                 
Signaling, Proceedings of the Signal Section of the American Railway Association, Sept. 1930,
(Bethlehem, PA, Times Publishing Co., 1931), pp. 362?396; Railway Age 104, ?CTC increases t
88
 The Signal Section of the American Railway Association, Committee I. Economics of Railway 
 
he 
capacity of single track on the PRR,? (Jan. 8, 1938): p. 122; Railway Age 10, ?More Signaling ? 
Greater Economy,? (Jan. 8, 1938): p. 26. 
89
 Wright, Centralized Traffic Control, pp. 47?48. 
90
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp.  99?100. 
 57 
 
 
flow with the use of several variations of centralized train control.  On a CTC system 
installed on signal track between Mt. Morris and Bridgeport in Michigan, their test
showed a $19,035 annual profit.  Another study showed that using the train order 
system on a double track alone led to a $41,750 deficit, with much of the cost due 
operating the second track.  By using CTC on a single track and by adding more
passing sidings, they reported a marked increase in the number of trains that could b
handled daily, a reduction in labor costs from eliminating tower operators and 
telegraphers, and a reduction of overtime hours of freight crews.  Increased traffic on 
a 42-mile stretch of single track on the Missouri Pacific Railroad made the use of 
train orders and manual blocking impractical.  Expanding the plant to double track 
was cost-prohibitive, so they installed CTC, automatic signals, more sidings with 
extended lengths, wider turns, longer turnouts, and remote controlled switches 
connected to the CTC signal system and telephone communications.  This allowed 
freight trains to pull thirty-five instead of thirty cars and increase the speeds of trains 
entering the sidings to 30 mph.  They eliminated five tower and telegraph installations 
on this stretch of tracks that ran from Edgewater Junction to Atchison, Kansas, wit
one dispatcher stationed in Leavenworth, Kansas.  Despite a record cold spell and 
having to acclimate employees to the new system, they eliminated from 130 to 150
train order transactions and 35 restrictive speed cautions during peak operation,
which before would have had to been done manually.  Despite heavy snows, train 
speeds increased on average by 4 miles per hour and three dispatchers in three sh
handled forty-eight trains in a 24-hour period.  The engineer observed that 50 percent 
of the meeting points that resulted in delays were now made without stopping the 
s 
to 
 
e 
h 
 
 all of 
ifts 
 58 
 
 
train, which during winter months reduced the possibility of trains breaking in two, or 
freezing up and creating dangerous flat spots on wheels caused by braking.  Tests
taken in fifteen-day intervals also showed there was an increase in the average 
tonnage handled by a train of 217 tons with an average increase in speeds of 6.5 m
 
iles 
per trai
tment 
e 
nd an 
.
91
  
that there were 151 CTC 
installa ee in 
here 
 
he B & O Railroad, which had 55 miles 
control
n hour, or a reduction of 59 minutes in running time through the 42-mile 
territory.  These results have netted a 22.8 percent return on their original inves
of $430,000 and increased protection and safety in operating this territory.  While th
ARA said their reports were inconclusive, the signal section engineers acknowledged 
anecdotal evidence of real economies from CTC and automating signal systems, 
through a reduction of the number of interlockings and manual block towers a
increase in the number of longer trains running through the railroad networks
In only four years, according to The Signalmen?s Journal, CTC had shown 
real production benefits.  By 1935, the ICC reported 
tions in service on 38 railroads in the United States and Canada had thr
service.  The total road mileage under CTC was 1,261, with 1,706 track miles, w
CTC systems controlled 956 switches and 2,585 signals.  The longest stretch of road
covered by CTC operations was on t
led by one machine.  That stretch of railroad ran from North Lima to 
Roachton, Ohio.
92
  Judging by the miles of railroad compared to the miles of track, 
most of the installations were on single track lines.  
                                                 
91
 The Signal Section of the American Railway Association, Economics of Railway Signaling, pp. 362?
urnal 16, ?Centralized Train Control, 151 installations in service on 38 roads,? 
396. 
92
 The Signalmen?s Jo
(July 1935): p. 173. 
 59 
 
 
However, the spread of CTC technology was limited during the Great 
Depression, as the system cost $10,000 per mile in 1930.  When the volume of 
passeng s 
capacit
nd 
ht 
 
he wealthier 
ostly 
after the 1920s, when Caterpillar Tractor Company revolutionized railroad and 
highway construction with its mechanized earth moving and track-laying machines, 
                                                
er and freight traffic soared during World War II, more and more railroad
went to using CTC in operations.
93
 
During World War II, carriers, flush with revenues from wartime production 
and in need of better ways to control the enormous growth in traffic, began to invest 
in CTC.  The number of CTC installations, from 1941 to 1946, jumped from 212 to 
328, and the miles of track under CTC increased from just over 2,400 to over 7,380 
for the same period.
94
    
CTC was applied to high-density traffic on single-track lines to increase 
y without the need for double tracking.  It allowed the removal of many 
sidings and signals, so it saved both capital and labor, and in the bargain, it improved 
safety.  At the same time, carriers replaced semaphore signals with position lights a
introduced three and four aspect signals for high-speed trains.  These position lig
signals could show track conditions several blocks ahead.  The overall effects of CTC
and improved signaling systems after 1930 gave positive economic reinforcement 
with an added benefit of increased safety.
95
 
From the 1920s through 1940, old railroad lines were replaced and upgraded, 
and even the poorest railroads installed either ATC or cab signals while t
companies installed CTC on their busiest roads.  Upgrading roads was less c
 
93
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp.  99?100. 
94
 W. J. Patterson, ICC Commissioner, Address to the Delegates, p. 10,    
95
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp.  99?100. 
 60 
 
 
and the White Motor Company in Cleveland provided contractors and carriers
more powerful
 with 
 diesel trucks. However, the cost of labor under the Adamson Act, 
which granted eight-hour workdays, coupled with the carriers? inability to set freight 
and passenger rates, and the increased competition from other modes of 
transportation, limited new construction. In addition, many managers were 
conservative in using new technologies unless the status quo could be proven 
inadequate.
 96
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
96
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp.  99?100. 
 61 
 
 
Reports in Railway Age show a reluctant acceptance of the benefits of CTC 
and of the regulations for standardized maintenance and inspection performance as 
requ
under 
ire
ect
t 
Sign
al 
Inspe
ction Act was written and lobbied for by the BRS and would be an impetus for 
improving railway traffic safety through the law?s requirements for publishing of 
rules, standards, and procedures in the maintenance, repair, and installation of all 
signal systems with oversight by the ICC Bureau of Safety.  Recorded changes in 
railroad signal systems across the country in anticipation of the Inspection Act--or as 
Railway Age called it, labor?s ?make work? legislation--show that on Jan. 1, 1937, 
108,749.7 miles of road operated under block signal systems, of which 63,117.6 miles 
d 
the 
The 
Signal 
Insp
ion Ac
of 
1937.  
Figure 11 A Centralized Train Control office of th
Operators could handle more traffic and lar
e Paducah and Louisville Railroad, 
ger plants with improved safety.  Photo by 
Woo
Bro
druff Towle, Paducan, KY, no date available. File photo from the Archives of the 
therhood of Railroad Signalmen, Front Royal, VA. 
were equipped with automatic block signals.  In addition, there were 181 installations 
 62 
 
 
of CTC nd 
 
g off 
TC 
The Fallacy of Failsafe Signal Systems 
The number of collisions and the fiery nature of the wrecks were leading 
people to back away from train travel in 1870s; technology was seen as the way to 
help regain the public?s trust in the railroads.  Railroads tried to soothe public 
concerns by touting the interlocking block systems.  In the 1920s, the ATC and the 
automatic signal systems were proclaimed effective in removing human judgment 
from the traffic management equation; the machines would do the work and protect 
the trains using failsafe technology.  
Charles Adams, the Massachusetts State Commissioner and grandson of 
President John Quincy Adams, placated the fears of the public by showing how 
technology could stem the rising number of collisions and derailments.  In his report 
on a terrible crash at Revere, MA, August 1871, which killed twenty-nine people and 
                                                
 and 599 control points for remotely controlled power-operated switches a
signals.
97
  Carriers also tried to circumvent the law by reducing train speeds so 
automated signal systems would not be required. 
Rising labor costs spurred carriers to install it on 26,000 additional miles from 
1945 to 1965, bringing the total of miles under CTC to one-third of all railroads. 
Carriers were able to lower the most expansive part of train operations by layin
tower operators, crossing guards, and other support staff, including signalmen.  C
revolutionized train dispatching and was used until high-speed computers and special 
software began to supplement or replace it in the 1980s and 1990s.
98
  
 
97
 ?Train Control and Signal Statistics,? and ?Accident Trend Upward,? Railway Age 104, (Jan. 8, 
1938): p. 237. 
9?100.; Aldrich, Death rode the Rails, 
98
 Grant, The Railroad: The Life Story of a Technology, pp.  9
p.292. 
 63 
 
 
injured fifty-seven, he said that the testing of new technologies (air brakes, tight-
fitting c
of the 
ned properly or 
was no
While the technology employed in mechanical interlocking machines and its 
later innovations did provide a layer of failsafe protection, humans still had to make 
decisions, be attentive, and follow rules in order for the technology to be truly 
failsafe.  Signalmen and managers knew that this technology was only as effective as 
the men who maintained and operated it.  Judged by the fact that humans were not 
ouplers, and automatic electric signals) could potentially provide safer 
operations on the railroads.  Technology and order would be the antidotes to the 
problems of safety on the roads.  With this report, Adams defined the direction 
safety issue throughout the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era with subsequent 
reports demanding routine order and the development of new technology. 
99
  
According to Usselman, Adams?s policy shaped how the federal government dealt 
with problems of human error by spending more energy on the research of 
technologies that would limit the possibility of human error.  ?Many people looked 
upon the block system not as a method but a set of novel devices, such as those at the 
Pennsylvania [Railroad], which appeared to provide absolute safety through 
technological means.?
100  
  
The key phrase here is ?absolute safety through technological means;? 
however, the BRS knew differently.  They knew no technology could guarantee 
absolute safety, and any new device was useless if it was not maintai
t used correctly.  
To Keep Systems Failsafe, Devices Required Skilled Mechanics 
                                                 
99
 Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, pp. 120?121. 
100
 Ibid, pp. 312?313, 318?325. 
 64 
 
 
always attentiv  failsafe, the 
manual, permi  ultimately seen in the 
early 1900s as t the panacea 
it?s made out to ns of employees, on 
the fallible hum n railway accidents 
today,? accord Human 
judgment, the i  confidence of the 
carriers in the ensive to maintain 
and required sk
With sk bile service 
industry or as e en willing to take 
on the respons his was true, especially 
when other ind  higher than what 
the railroads wanted to pay.  The enormity of a signalman?s responsibilities was 
describ any 
a railroad in a signal department or signal works in 
pneumatic, electro-mechanical, or mechanical 
automatic train controlling or stopping device, highway 
overhead or underground, poles and distributing blocks, 
interlocking systems, or signal poles, and other lighting, 
                                                
e and did not follow rules that made the technology truly
ssive, and controlled manual block systems were
having failed at being failsafe.  ?The block system is no
 be.  Its utility depends entirely on the observatio
an factor which lies at the bottom of nine out of te
ing to one writer in The Washington Post in 1904.?
101
  
nherent flaw in the block system greatly affected the
manual block system. These systems were also exp
illed responsible men to inspect and maintain them.  
illed mechanics able to find jobs in the growing automo
lectricians, railroads experienced difficulty finding m
ibilities in terms of public safety and liability.  T
ustries and service companies paid salaries that were
ed in a resolution to be presented at before a federal labor commission, as 
person ? 
who is 18 years of age or older, is actually working for 
operation, or maintaining of an electric, electro-
interlocking systems, color or position light signals or 
crossing protection, high tension and other lines 
wires or cable pertaining to railroad signaling and 
as required for the operation of railroad signaling and 
 
101
 Anonymous, ?Observations by a Railroad Man, Railroad Accidents and Their Causes,? The 
Washington Post, (Dec, 25, 1904): p. A12; The Washington Post, ?The Cheapness of Life,? (Dec. 28, 
1908): p. 6. 
 65 
 
 
interlocking systems or storage battery plants with 
stations, and current generating plants, compressed air 
interlocking systems, or compressed air pipe 
signal apparatus, with cranks, compensators, 
form work of all classes in connection with installing 
charging outfits, with switch board equipment, sub-
plants, as used for the operating of signaling and 
connections for mechanically operated switches and 
foundations and supporters, or carpenter, concrete and 
any signaling or interlocking systems, is eligible to 
following employees who are engaged in train 
not eligible: Telegraph operators, train dispatchers, 
 
Maintainers and signal engineers knew many things could go wrong that 
would show a false clear indication.  The signalmen used this information to further 
their propaganda campaigns, saying no system was perfectly safe and was only as 
failsafe as the men who maintained it.  Arguments given before the AF of L?s 
Railway Employees Division (RED) hearings over jurisdiction disputes with the 
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) by Helt and Cone, which 
will follow later, will shed light on the extent of skills signalmen had to master in 
order to maintain and repair signal systems.  It must be said, however, that a small 
gang of as few as two signalmen would have to cover territories as far as forty miles 
with multiple tracks.  Among the safety appliances that they would be expected to 
diagnose and service could be several types of mechanical, pneumatic, or electrical 
interlockings, semaphore or electric position light signals; highway grade crossing 
gates with mechanical, automatic signal and/or automatic train control systems.  
membership in the brotherhood, provided that the 
operation or manipulation of signals and switches are 
telegraph linemen, train directors, or station agents.
102
 
                                                 
102
 Officers Reports, ?Resolution No. 10, Job Description,? the Twelfth Annual and Fourteenth Re
Convention of the 
gular 
BRS, Kansas City, bound typescript volume dated July 14?19, 1919, p. 146. 
 66 
 
 
Railroads would not spend the money or take the time to send out, for 
example, a blacksmith to handle a job that would only take a few hours to complete 
when they had signal maintainers already stationed there to do the work.  Railro
needed skilled signalmen on site, especially in case in of emergencies.  Routinely, 
ads 
signalmen and maintainers worked under emergency conditions, as the tight train 
schedules had to be met.  The failure of a signal to indicate whether the track ahead 
was clear was an obvious emergency/safety issue.  Fixing a false clear signal 
indication was a priority, making routine repair work in many cases a public safety 
situation.  During hard economic times and during World War I, when traffic 
increased and maintenance was deferred, the maintainer?s job was not only one of 
maintaining signal systems.  Under these conditions of deferred maintenance, they 
would have to spend their hours ?putting out fires,? correcting and repairing problems 
that would normally be caught during routine inspections and routine maintenance, 
which was ignored by economically strapped or over pressured railroads.
103
  
In addition, signalmen and maintainers worked in all kinds of weather, as the 
train
year eers devised innovative 
ethods for improving the systems? reliability in handling changing weather 
 
s rarely stopped, except in the most extreme conditions.  Over the first thirty 
s of the twentieth century, both signalmen and engin
m
conditions.  The one-inch-diameter steel pipes that extended as much as 800 feet from
the mechanical interlockings to the turnouts and signals could shrink or stretch 
several inches depending on the ambient temperature.  Mechanical compensators  
 
                                                 
103
reprinted in the Signalmen?s Journal (Jan. 1928): pp. 29?35; Dixon, ?The Railroad Situation, An 
Appraisal p. 14. 
 Daniel Helt, BRS President, letter to William Green, President of the AF of L, Dec. 23, 1927, 
 67 
 
 
Figure 12 A mechanical compensator is used to take up slack in the lead out pipes when they 
in the temperature. Photo by Robert Williams, Sept. 9, 2006. 
expand in hot weather and let out pipe when it shrinks in cold weather to compensate for changes 
 
were installed between pipe sections that both took up slack or expanded just enough 
to keep turnouts shifting all of the way to their established limits. Mechanical systems 
 detector 
signal systems and the introduction of new types of systems from the 1870s through 
the 1930s was in response to the many different geographic and environmental 
affic 
had to be well greased and thoroughly inspected because a stone lodged in a
bar or a switch could bend the pipe or block the interlocking from fully locking in a 
train route to a safe position.  Electric interlockings had similar problems plus new 
ones, such as the older style batteries freezing if they were not buried far enough 
below the frost line in the northern climes.  The impetus for the rapid improvement of 
conditions railroads operated in coupled with the necessity of public safety and tr
flow efficiency.  
 68 
 
 
The few managers who understood the nature of signal work understood i
complexity. As J. W. Stelik
ts 
er, General Signal Supervisor on the Santa Fe and 
Southe
job of a pipe fitter or spot a rough piece of track and if a 
when it comes to signal work, most of our officials 
that it is left largely to the Signal Organization. It being 
shoulders. There is no chance to pass the buck were we 
 
Maintainers, signal department managers like Steliker, and a growing number 
of engineers with the Signal Section of the American Railroad Association 
understood all too well the need for responsible meticulous workmanship.  Problems, 
such as a misplaced wire (wires were not color coded as they are today), a ?jumper? 
wire that accidentally bridged two contacts, or an electrical short from a frayed wire 
casing, (braided cotton cloth painted with shellac), could cause a false clear signal.  A 
false clear indication could send a train onto an occupied block of track with the 
potential for a collision.  
In his testimony before a Senate Subcommittee in 1935, debating the need for 
regulation of the maintenance of signal systems, BRS President Anon Lyon cited the 
many ways mentioned in the company rule books that a false clear or false danger 
rn Pacific Railroad, observed in 1926: 
Signal work is particular work. Anyone can spot a poor 
roof leaks, anyone can check it?.On the other hand, 
think it is too deep for them and pass it up. The result is 
left to us alone puts a heavy responsibility on our 
so inclined
104
  
105
signal could occur and had to be addressed before traffic could enter the affected 
                                                 
104
 J. W. Steliker, General Signal Supervisor, lecture and paper given at an education meeting in 
Stockton, California, to signal employees of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad, Oct. 3, 192
Lyon, A.E., Note about problems that cause false clear signals to Grand Lodge Officer L. R. Smith, 
March 26, 1926, BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.   
105
 Tony Maniscalio, retired maintainer for the Long Island Railroad, interview with author, Feb. 2, 
2008, Luray, VA. 
6; 
 69 
 
 
blocks of track.
106
  Lyon continued that, ?the failure of a relay to release causes 
signals to indicate ?clear? when they should show ?danger.?  The four primary way
signal could display a false clear indication on a direct-current relay, which would 
cause it to fail to release and show a danger indication, included: (1) residual 
magnetism in the core of the armature; (2) armature stop pin
s a 
s too short; (3) other 
mechan
ctive 
de, or 
ys 
 cause a false clear, which stem from damage to the vane, so it cannot clear 
the pol
ical defects; and  (4) damage due to lighting.  Other causes of the false clear 
signal failures include: sticky armature or pole faces, excessive friction in moving 
parts, cotter pins and bolts getting out of place and fouling the mechanism, foreign 
substances in the head gears or stripped head gears, a wedged up and down rod, lack 
of lubrication of spectacle shaft bearings or slot armature hanger pin, long trunion 
screws binding the slot armature, relays damaged by lightning or otherwise defe
parts, improper semaphore equipment, such as the wrong spectacle casting, bla
having the blade plate too tight. Lightning can also damage alternating current rela
that would
e face, by welding the vane to its stop spring, by swelling the galvanometer 
rotor so as to cause it to bind, by welding the contact bar point to the iron top of the 
relay, by welding the counterweight arm to the contact support bar. Rusty fan blades 
or rollers in slots also can cause a false clear indication.
107
   
In Lyon?s history of the BRS, he disputes the fallacy held by the public and 
even employees that the automatic signal and train control systems are infallible and 
                                                 
106
 U.S. Congress, Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, Railroad Block 
carriers engaged in interstate commerce to install, inspect, test, repair, and  maintain block-signal 
systems, interlocking, highway grade-crossing protective devices, automatic train stop, train control, 
Systems: A bill to promote the safety of employees and travelers on railroads by requiring common 
cab signal devices and other appliances, methods, and systems intended to promote the safety of 
n, (the Signal Inspection Act), S.1288, 74th Cong., 1
st
 sess., July 9 and 10, 1935, Railroad Operatio
(Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing Office, 1935), pp.14?15. 
107
 Ibid, p. 14-16. 
 70 
 
 
that when these systems fail they fall back to a restrictive failsafe position.  There 
many incidences when things can go wrong that would result in a false clear signal.   
?No machine or mechanism has ever been created that is any more dependable than 
the machinist or mechanic who keeps it in order.?  If the railroads think [those] 
maintainers can give one-third or one half of their attention these systems are 
designed to need, then unsafe working conditions, ?causing death or injury,? will 
result.
are 
, Chart A. Failures 
of Auto ds to 
12 
ns 
rcent 
nt railroads, some railroads underreported failures, and others based 
their re
ot 
108
  
To prove false clear indications are more frequent than the railroads would 
admit publicly, Lyon presented to a Senate subcommittee, in 1935
matic Block Signals.  The chart showed that the ICC required 168 railroa
fill out questionnaires regarding failures in train control and signal systems.  All but 
four railroads of the forty-four railroads that responded gave statistics within a five-
year period.  According to the chart, there were 2,190 false clear failures and 195,1
other types of signal failures.  Lyon said the chart shows that ?false clear indicatio
are a common occurrence.?   False clear indications on average occurred in 1 pe
of the total number of failures but on some railroads the occurrence of false clear 
failures on automatic signal systems was between 4 and 5 percent.  The problem with 
these figures, he said, was the wide variance in the types of automatic signal systems 
used by differe
ports on differing criteria.  The chart also fails to show the incidences of 
failures at highway grade crossings, interlockings, or other signaling apparatuses n
                                                 
108
 Lyon, Anon E., The First 75: History of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen 1901?1976
(Mount Prospect, Illinois: Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, 1976
, 
), p. 71.   
 71 
 
 
included under the term of automatic signal system.
109
  Consequently, the probabilit
of an accident was increased as the number faulty signal devices were multiplied by 
the number of trains that pass through these faulty signal blocks. 
Not only did the job of signalman carry enormous responsibility, it was 
dangerous.  There was the constant hazard of electrical shock from both direct curre
and alternating current systems.  Added to the dangers of working with high-v
systems, there was the real possibility of being struck by a train.  Signalmen were 
under increased pressure when the bosses extended territories, which they called 
?stretch outs? and ?speed ups.?  The signalmen said speed ups and stretch outs 
compromised their ability to perform their work correctly.  Signalmen fought for 
years with management, trying to set standards that required signalmen working on a 
line to receive train schedules and not have to rely on spotting engine smoke off in the
distance.
y 
nt 
oltage 
 
e of motorized track cars.  The cars carried two to 
six men and their tools, but the wheels were insulated and did not shunt the track 
ircuit. In addition, the cars were not heavy enough to shunt the electric circuit that 
ould send a stop indication to any approaching train.  The BRS tried for years after 
orld War I to get some standard regulations concerning the use of motorized track 
ars.  Efforts included the provision that two men operate every track car because 
hen they saw a train approaching them, they could more easily lift the car off the 
acks to avoid being struck.  Noise levels of the new mechanized equipment 
110
    
Another problem was the us
c
w
W
c
w
tr
                                                 
109
 Senate Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, ?S.1288,? (the Signal Inspection Act), p. 19-20. 
110
Lyon, ?The Signal Inspection Act,? p. 1?2; Gustave C. Malmsjo, ?Limitations of Maintainers? 
Territories,? Proceedings of the Fifth Biennial and Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, 
Denver, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 18?23, 1930, p. 897. 
 72 
 
 
compounded the danger.  The noise from the trench diggers and pneumatic hammers 
was sufficient to prevent maintainers from hearing approaching trains.  They were 
eventually successful in getting carriers to build level set-off landings, whereas before 
signalmen had to lift the train off the rails on to the sloping ballast, which made it 
hard to get the car back on the track.  Another problem with having only one man on 
a track car was that he could be knocked off the tracks by a passing train and left for 
hours, most likely injured, in extreme weather conditions if the train crew failed to 
notice they had hit the track car.
111
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                
 
 
 
 
the 
, 
od 
ee 
Report on Motor Car Accidents, the Fifth Biennial and Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, 
Denver, Colorado, Aug. 18, 1930, p. 19?20. 
111
  Patterson, Address to the Delegates, p. 14; Grand Executive Council, Docket No.96, Docket 14, 
1936 Convention, Officers Reports, the Ninth Biennial and  the Twenty-Fourth Regular Convention
Toronto, Canada, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 17?20, 1938, the Archives of the Brotherho
of Railroad Signalmen of America, Front Royal, VA, p. 205; Motor Track Car Committee, Committ
 73 
 
 
Figure 13 A motorized track car that carried signalmen to work sites along the lines. Many 
maintainers had territories hat extended more than forty miles. File photo, no date, the Archives of 
the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. Front Royal, VA. 
 
Because the block system failed to live up to the promises made by the 
railroads, safety advocates and railroad managers tried to f
 t
The Call to Professionalize the Signal Department Employees 
ind ways to instill a sense 
of duty and discipline among the employees th
(1907, it should be remembered, was one of the worst years in railroad history 
se of train collisions.  In this 
9, the ICC investigations 
at their English counterparts exhibited.  
The ICC reported that for the study period between 1905 and 1907, it found 
American signalmen were by and large young, inexperienced, and poorly trained 
because of the likelihood of  being in a train collision or derailment).  This profile 
gleaned from company records was seen to be the cau
report, reprinted by The Signal Engineer in February 190
 74 
 
 
also revealed that many railroads had started to discipline operators and signalmen, 
which led to weeding out those who drank on the job or whose performance was 
lacking.
112
  The block system should be just one of a number of safety measures that
was necessary, the editor of The Signal Engineer wrote.  He went on to state: ?But 
safety appliances and block systems are not worth anything without disciplined and 
skilled operators and signalmen to man them.?  A sense of duty and personal
responsibility is imperative; only the operators and signalmen ?can supply th
elements of personal efficiency, loyalty, and personal responsibility, and even the
most drastic of laws can furnish no substitutes for these essential components of saf
operation.  Block signals will supplement them, but even block signals are of
against disobedience.?
 
 
e needed 
 
e 
 no avail 
 
we spend millions in an endeavor to make our apparatus fool-proof, 
while in
 paid 
ent 
 
discipli ties of 
                                                
113
  Usselman quotes signal engineer James Latimer as saying:
?In this country 
 England they spend hundreds to eliminate the fool, and appear to get better 
results.?
114
  Usselman wondered if Americans trained their signalmen better and
them more, they ?would have handled the job of operating home and distant signals 
simultaneously on the busy Pennsylvania tracks.?
115
  
 James O. Fagan, a signalman of more than 20 years, a signal departm
supervisor, and a safety advocate, advocated that the job of signalman and tower
operator should become professionalized as one of the ways to achieve much needed 
ne on the job.  He called for ethical responsibilities pertaining to the du
 
Signal Engineer 1, ?First Annual Report of the Block Signal and Train Control Board to the Interstate 
Commerce Commission,? (Feb. 1909): p. 353.   
8. 
mes O. Fagan, Confessions of a 
113
 The Signal Engineer 2, Editorial, (Jan. 1910): pp. 257?25
114
 Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 313; Ja
Railroad Signalman, (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1908), p.173. 
115
 Steven Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation, p. 31. 
 75 
 
 
a signalman, on par with those of a doctor or other professional.
116
  Fagan proposed 
starting a ?Safety League? in 1909 to create a dialog between signalmen, as well as 
between signalmen and management.  Management blocked the proposal, he said, 
because they did not want employees to form ?democratic? organizations that might
threaten the authority of management, (this was during the same period that 
signalmen were trying to launch the BRS).  In his conclus
 
ion, he called for 
govern
 
 
commit y, 
The BRS, from its inception in 1901, demanded training on the latest 
equipment.  A few companies, like the Reading Railroad, provided signal schools, 
 
ment action to discipline the railroad business.  Railroads spent capital on 
signals and devices, but neglected the human element: ?pride in one?s work and 
professionalism.?  As a result, he said, ?there was no critical examination or 
discussion among employees or in their magazines over the cause and prevention of
accidents.?
117
   
At the same time, the BRS was struggling to establish locals on many eastern
railroads. Members of the BRS prided themselves as a responsible, disciplined 
workforce and touted this in their literature, probably as a way to bolster members? 
ment to their work.  While they fought for protection from accident liabilit
they saw that positioning themselves as responsible for public safety and for 
efficiency were the only way to gain recognition, the first step in gaining better 
working conditions, wages, and training.
118
  
and several technical schools offered training.  However, the opportunity for training
                                                 
116
 Fagan, Confessions of a Railroad Signalman, pp. 1?24. 
117
 James Fagan, Confessions of a Railroad Signalman, p. 173. 
118
 Helt, Daniel, BRS President, Officer?s Reports, the Third Biennial and Eighteenth Regular 
Convention of the BRSA, New York City, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 13?18, 1926, pp. 1?5. 
 76 
 
 
before 
t out 
gy was 
iner 
lso 
The 
ducational 
ecessary.  
They al
 
al 
nd 
                                                
the 1920s was inconsistent throughout the industry.  What training manuals 
signalmen could get from signal engineer associations and private publishers wen
of date quickly within a couple of years of publication because the technolo
changing so rapidly.  Failure to comprehend the latest technology left the mainta
open for liability in cases of collisions and derailments.  
The BRS began in early 1919 to develop ties with manufacturers, signal 
engineers, and other signaling departments in an effort to coordinate training.  It a
started The Signalmen?s Journal in 1920, which Lyon founded and later edited.  
BRS went on to publish before 1926, The Signalman and his Work, an e
manual. But at the 1928 BRS Convention in Chicago, delegates said that new 
innovations quickly dated this book, and many more volumes would be n
so used another book, Railroad Signaling, by Everett Edgar King, published 
by McGraw Hill Book Company in 1921, but again, by 1926, it was out of date.
119
At the BRS 1926 Convention, the union authorized members to approach 
many of the major manufacturing firms to enlist their help by providing literature on 
their equipment for publication in the Journal.  As a result, the Journal received 
many blueprints, prepared speeches, instructional pamphlets, and manuals.
120
  
In addition, The Railway Educational Bureau of Omaha submitted a propos
for a correspondence program on railway signaling, which they would print a
 
119
 Officers Reports, ?Letters presented in the Officer?s Reports? the Third Annual Biennial and 
Eighteenth Regular Convention of the BRS, New York City, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 13-
18, 1926, p. 129. 
120
Officers Reports, ?Education, reports and correspondence between the BRS and the ARA and 
Manufacturers,? Report of the Grand Lodge Officers, the Fourth Annual and Nineteenth Regular 
Convention of the BRS, Chicago, bound typescript volumes dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 5?15; Grand 
e Council, ?Docket No. 22, Education,? Report of the Grand Executive Council the 5th Executiv
Annual and 12th Regular Convention of the BRSA, bound typescript volume dated Denver, Aug. 18?
23, 1930, p. 130. 
 77 
 
 
distribute. The BRS considered this offer but did not endorse it.  The BRS 
membership said that opening a signal school to the public would be a training 
ground
g 
 
cal and electrical skills needed by the shop and 
skilled 
ble for 
 for scabs and union busters in times of strikes.
 121 
 
Instead, they established an Educational Bureau within The Signalmen?s 
Journal.  The editors allotted space in the publication for questions and answers, 
educational materials and instruction, technology updates, lectures in electronic 
theory and application, as well as other associated signal technologies.  
Manufacturers and the ARA provided much of the information. In addition, the 
Journal contracted engineers and signal maintainers to write articles.
122
 
In 1936, the ARA said the key to further progress lay in standardized trainin
programs and advocated apprenticeship and training programs for all employees.  
Before World War I, workers frequently changed jobs so they developed experience 
on a wide range of equipment. During the post-depression period, workers were not 
moving from job to job, and the ARA said it is imperative that the carriers provide 
training in a wide variety of skills, including safety and customer courtesy, public
speaking, accounting, and mechani
operational departments.  Railway Age reported, ??as of 1936, most 
employees set about learning their trades through educational programs and courses 
they find on their own. This is haphazard at best.?
123
  
Nevertheless, because signalmen and maintainers were spread thinly 
throughout the railroad networks?one man or a small crew could be responsi
                                                 
121
 Ibid. 
122
 Grand Executive Council, ?Docket No. 22, Education,? p. 130; Grand Lodge Officers, ?Education, 
 Age 101, ?The Key to Further Progress lies in Personnel Policies,? (Dec. 19, 1936): pp. 
reports and correspondence,? pp 5?15. 
123
Railway
879?880. 
 78 
 
 
as much as forty miles of railroad?many learned electrical theory and other asp
of their craft through correspondence schools, which were prevalent during the 
twentieth century.  Many lodges had started evening training sessions of their own 
and had won the support of the signal engineers who appreciated their underst
of the latest developments in signaling technology and who participated in giving
lectures.  In additio
ects 
anding 
 
n, engineers from signal manufacturers began sending speakers 
out. Th
 
journal, though some 
did it to
 
nd science to improve their working environments by 
gatheri  
s.  
                                                
e Journal acted as a broadcaster of these training sessions and offered to help 
find speakers for the lodges.  The signal engineers read the Journal articles and sent
in their comments to make sure the information was correct.  Lyon said he welcomed 
their input.  Lyon reported that many signal engineers read the 
 catch mistakes, but Lyon heard from the engineers who appreciated the 
training aspects of the journal.
124
  
However, through their publication The Signalmen?s Journal and the 
Education Bureau, the union?s members gained technical backgrounds in mechanical 
engineering and electronic theory and application.  Signalmen and maintainers could
no longer be classified as semi-skilled laborers.  At the same time, they would use 
their training in math a
ng evidence of their skills and of the dangerous working conditions they faced
daily.  Editor Anon Lyon created a Statistics Bureau, which was attached to the 
Journal and the Education Bureau, which recorded not only membership data but 
work assessments they would use to go before labor and wage adjustment board
The evidence compiled by the BRS Statistical Bureau would later be used in 
 
gnalmen?s Journal 16, ?Signal Schools,? (May 1935): p. 115. 
124
 The Si
 79 
 
 
Congressional hearings to lobby for the Signal Inspection Act and other railroad 
safety legislation.  
Therefore, rising skill levels of the signalmen inadvertently afforded t
skills necessary to better negotiate with their employers and pursue legislation th
would improve their status with the railroads, cement their role in railroad 
and solidify their union?s relationships with the other unions.  
The Signalmen?s Journal, which is still the main communication tool of 
BRS, joined together the local lodges that
hem the 
at 
operations, 
the 
 were spread out across the country, 
bringin
al 
raphs 
n 
d 
                                              
g news vital to keep the organization informed and unified.  The Journal also 
provided histories of the railroads, of their members, and of the many types of sign
systems.  It provided a sense of historical continuity and self-worth, which the men 
could embrace as their history and incorporate it into their arguments for recognition 
as skilled workers.
125
 
The testimony by W.M. Vandersluis, General Superintendent of Teleg
and Signals for the Illinois Central Railroad before the same Senate Subcommittee o
Commerce shows that by 1935, some carriers were taking steps to better train their 
signal department employees.  He testified that American railroads had greatly 
improved the training of men in the art of signaling.  Methods used to train signal 
department employees include printed rules and regulations, standardized plans an
specifications, circulars and bulletins, personal contact with supervisors, classes in 
which men take instruction and have discussions about the systems employed. They 
were required to read nineteen chapters of the American Railway Signaling: 
Principles and Practices Issued by the Signal Section, Association of American 
   
5
 Ibid. 
12
 80 
 
 
Railroads. Over 150,000 copies of the chapters were distributed to signal 
departments.  ?Advancement in job classification is achieved by studying thes
materials and taking both oral and written examinations. Apprentice
e 
ships last a 
minimum of fo
Today, e able to work on 
a wide range o section or 
block of track riety of trains 
and conditions to the plants over 
the last eighty se 
mechanical and nge the signal 
indications and rarely spend 
revenues to im  particular location, 
although they a ith new types of 
omputer-driven systems and CTC.  Using CTC a dispatcher, working for CSX in 
Jacksonville, Florida, has the ability to change signals and turnouts to direct train 
movements all over the eastern seaboard and as far west as Illinois. Tony ?Signals? 
Maniscalio, a maintainer who retired from the Long Island Railroad in 1999, 
described what it was like when something broke during his shift.  
ur years,? he testified.
126
  
 as in times past, signalmen and maintainers have to b
f signaling and communication apparatus because every 
is different and is designed and built to handle a wide va
.  However, despite the upgrades and improvements 
years, some signalmen work on blocks of track that still u
 electro-mechanical interlocking systems to cha
 track turnouts that were around in the 1920s.  Carriers 
prove equipment that is working adequately for a
re slowly retiring those systems and replacing them w
c
                                                 
126
 U.S. Congress, Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, S.1288, Railr
Block Systems: A bill to promote the safety of employees and travelers on railroads by requiring 
signal  systems, interlocking, highway grade-crossing protective devices, automatic train stop, trai
oad 
common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to install, inspect, test, repair, and  maintain block-
n  
control, cab signal devices and other appliances, methods, and systems intended to promote the safety 
of Railroad Operation, (The Signal Inspection bill):Hearings before the Subcommittee on Interstate 
Commerce, 74th Cong., 1st sess., July 9 and 10, 1935. Washington, D.C., United States Gov. Printing 
Office, 1935, pp. 41?42. 
 
 
 81 
 
 
As a signalman working second or third shift?alone?
been; to fix appliances you have never seen before. 
into a safe condition?but how? Thankfully, there was 
many 'first times' you were expected to fix whatever it 
tools, listening intently, [and] looking over another 
very same type of failure; I was to tell him how to fix it. 
mechanics around the railroad. Once you were 
draw bridge?never saw one before?[But I] got a set 
day was a learning experience. Every day was a 
you were sent on trouble calls to places you've never 
Kinda learn as you go! You knew you had to restore it 
always a set of plans around to guide you. There were 
was. My schooling consisted of carrying my mechanics 
mechanic?s shoulder. The next time we came across the 
Every three months they would rotate us to different 
qualified, you were sent where the trouble is. Fix a 
of plans in my hand and a meter in the other ... Every 
challenge! It was 'broke' and you had to be a fast 
learner, understand it, fix it , [and] test it before you 
gave the OK to move a train over it.
127
 
 
Each block had its own requirements for safety and efficiency, which required 
gnalmen and maintainers to be able to work on a wide range of signal systems, 
terlockings, CTC, ATC, and safety appliances.  The skill levels of the more 
xperienced signalmen and maintainers, as well as the fact that signal work that was 
articular to the signal departments, separated these employees from the other 
employee classes.  As their work became more specialized, their work responsibilities 
and duties overlapped and partially encroached on the jurisdictions of five other 
unions.  In other words, electricians worked on electrical equipment, machinists 
worked shaping and welding metal pieces, carpenters worked with wood, and so 
forth.  The signalmen trade was radically different.  It was organized along industrial 
job descriptions, which was new to trade unionism.  Some trade unions saw this as a 
                                                
si
in
e
p
 
127
 Tony ?Signals? Maniscalco, Email from retired Long Island Railroad Maintainer to author, Jan. 23, 
2008. 
  
 82 
 
 
threat to their power, which was based on the size of their memberships and their 
importance to industry.  Fearing that their workers would be divided up, these other 
trade unions felt they would not have the numbers to stand together against industry.  
The jurisdictional battles over signal department jobs would tax the leadership of the 
BRS, y e 
 
 
 
 
et these battles would define what roles signalmen and maintainers would tak
in the railroads and what role their union would take among the other railroad 
brotherhoods. 
 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 
Chapter 4:  Signal Work Is Particular Work?Fighting for Recognition within 
Railroad Institutions  
128
From the first clandestine meetings in 1901, the founders of the BRS sou
standardization of their work situations and classification of their positions in a 
hierarchy of workers based on skill and seniority.  They also sought a distincti
their work separate from other nonoperational employees, such as the maintenanc
of-way workers.  Operational workers included the enginemen, conductors, train
crews, and the dispatchers.  ?Non-ops? did everything else from replacing track to 
filling out shipping manifests and made up the ranks of the supporting departm
In the process of distinguishing itself as a skilled craft union, other railroad and trade
unions saw the job classifications within the signal departments being taken over by 
the BRS.  Protracted battles ensued over job classifications, which unions needed to 
grow membership in their organizations.  While the federal government finally 
   
Damn anyone that will force us to lose our identity??  
   
ght 
on of 
e-
 
ents.  
 
recogni
s 
s 
 
zed the BRS as the representing union for all signal department employees in 
the 1920s, it would take another twenty-six years to quell the fights over signal 
department jobs. 
While the BRS began to organize in 1901, the railroads underwent what ha
been called the ?golden era,? when the railroad mileage expanded from 193,000 mile
in 1900 to 240,000 miles by 1910.  Between 1900 and 1910, passenger miles doubled
                                                 
128
 Grand President Daniel Helt, BRS, speaking in negotiations with the Railroad Employees 
Department of the American Federation of Labor, 1919, Minutes of the meeting held with the shop 
crafts, Of the Railway Employment Department and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Kansas 
City, July 17, 1919, pp. 169?183. 
 
 84 
 
 
and freight ton-miles increased by 80 percent.  The value-for-services-rate system 
used by the ICC benefited large commodity shippers and hurt manufacturers of 
consumer goods.   From 1887 to 1907, the railroads reaped enormous profits and 
were America?s largest growth industry.  Despite 1907 being the year for the most 
fatalities and accidents to date, the carriers? net investments for 1907 were $
billion compared to $589 million the year before.  However, after 1907, an econom
panic ensued, catalyzing the long financial fall of the railroad industry.  New 
investments dropped to $750 million annually between 1908 and 1911, but aft
1912, new investments dropped to $100 million.  Fewer investments meant the 
operating costs to operating revenues increased from their standard 66 percent to a 
high of 72.2 percent by 1914.  Operating expenses and taxes grew faster than 
revenues so the operating ratio in 1908 increased to 70 percent and stayed that way 
every year fr
1.5 
ic 
er 
om 1912 to 1915.  In 1916, railroads sought general rate increases, which 
were on  
 its 
d 
been appointed in April 1896, and by 1901, there were six inspectors.  By 1908, the 
n 
ly partially successful.
129
 The economic stability of the carriers would always
play a part in how much authority and political power railroad labor could muster. 
At the same time, the BRS saw that they would not get help from the federal 
government in the way of job protection, safety issues, or needed oversight in the 
maintenance of signal systems.  The union leaders saw the ICC as having failed in
duties to push for needed safety measures and lacked the ability to do much more 
than recommend needed changes.  The first employee dedicated to safety issues ha
staff grew to twenty-five inspectors to handle the nation?s entire railroad system.  O
July 1, 1911 the ICC organized a safety appliances division, which in 1917, became 
                                                 
129
 Hoogenboom, A History of the ICC: From Panacea to Palliative, p. 58. 
 85 
 
 
the Bureau of Safety, when the term "bureau" was adopted for all major operating 
units of the ICC.  In 1917, there were twenty-seven safety appliance inspectors and 
three hours of service inspectors (who supervised employee workloads and hours they 
worked  
om 
s the 
ccidents to the 
federal
ury, 
e.  The 
en and 
 in a given time period).
130
  Even by 1934, the Bureau of Safety was only able
to investigate 77 of the most serious accidents that occurred in block signal 
territory.
131
  From a table of collisions, derailments and other train accidents fr
1902 to 1965, compiled by Aldrich from the ICC Accident Bulletin, there were 6,023 
total accidents that year, of which there were 1,317 train collisions and 3,489 
derailments reported.  It is very likely there were more accidents not recorded a
reporting criteria were conditional on whether there were any fatalities, injuries, or 
loss of property over $150.  In addition, railroads underreported a
 government, and kept injured employees on payrolls to disguise poor safety 
records.
132
  
 As the railroads fought attempts by labor-friendly Democrats in Congress to 
promulgate safety regulations during the first two decades of the twentieth cent
the role of the signalman in traffic safety and management began to crystalliz
primary objectives of signalmen and signal maintainers were to keep trains moving 
quickly, efficiently and safely through the railroad networks.  They often worked 
independently in locations far removed from managerial authority. Signalm
maintainers had to be independent thinkers and responsible employees, willing to 
                                                 
130
 The Interstate Commerce Commission, The Bureau of Statistics, The Interstate Commission 
Activities 1887?193, (Washington D.C.: Superintendent of Documents, March 1937), pp. 117?129; 
Walter M. W. Splawn, ?Railroad Regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, Ownership and 
Regulation of Public Utilities,? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 201, 
(Jan. 1939): p. 158.  
131
 Senate Subcommittee on the Interstate Commerce, S. 1288, The Signal Inspection Act, p. 39. 
132
 Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, Appendix 2, Table A2.6, 332. 
 86 
 
 
make hard decisions.  Often, they made such decisions in emergency situations with 
little supervisory support. Many times signalmen sweated their decisions, as trains 
entered
 
y 
ar 
 
aid BRS President Daniel Helt in 1919, 
during 
 
 
he 
s 
 
d track 
                                                
 their newly repaired territory.
133
  
The signal departments required their men to be a multi-skilled and versatile
workforce. They were literate and developed on-the-job knowledge of not onl
electrical theory and application, but of carpentry, machining, blacksmithing, 
welding, sheet metal working, and pipe fitting.  They gained mechanical skills on p
with other mechanical trades outside the railroads. ?If a maintainer above the grade of
helper couldn?t perform all five classes of work, he would be little value to the 
railroads and they would get rid of him.? s
a jurisdictional battle with other unions in the AF of L.
134
 
At the same time, the signal maintainers, working individually or in gangs,
performed manual labor digging trenches to bury cables, electric lines, and batteries,
as well as climbing poles to repair both low- and high-voltage lines.  Because of t
wide variety of skills that they used to work on signal systems, signalmen and 
maintainers were referred to as composite mechanics by American Railroad 
Association (ARA).  Nevertheless, because of the manual labor aspects of their job
and management?s desire to hold down wages, most carriers preferred to classify the
maintainers and signalmen as part of the maintenance of way department. 
Nonetheless, their skill levels were above those of the manual laborers who lai
and groomed track beds.  The brotherhood?s officers repeatedly had to explain to new 
 
133
 Tim DePaepe, BRS Researcher, phone interview with author, Oct. 27, 2007. 
es of the meeting held with the shop crafts, of the Railway Employment Department of the 
nd the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Kansas City, July 17, 1919, pp. 169?183. 
134
 Minut
AF of L a
 87 
 
 
managers and members of the many federal labor commissions the roles of signa
in traffic s
lmen 
afety and efficiency and the variety of jobs signalmen performed.
135
 
What signalmen actually did and their importance to the safety and efficiency 
of the r f 
AF of 
 
on our 
ot 
 
 
e 
the BRS said a maintainer could handle safely.  The range of their experience 
al 
matic signal 
ailroads was rarely understood outside the signal departments.  Members o
the federal labor boards had little knowledge about what signal work is as do 
representatives of Railways Employees Department (or RED, a branch of the 
L), said BRS President Daniel Helt, in 1919, before a meeting of labor leaders.  ?I
question whether there is a man here without signal experience that can speak 
position five minutes under questioning ... the greatest trouble we have, [is] men n
familiar with the duties we perform.?
 136
  
Mechanics in the other craft unions were highly skilled, but while they 
performed tasks such as rebuilding and maintaining train engines in the company 
shops, signalmen and maintainers worked on extensive traffic systems that covered
entire regions of the country.  Their territories included complex terminals, busy 
junctions, and sprawling train yards.  The isolated nature of the signalmen?s work 
demanded that they be able to work on many different types of signal apparatus on 
territories that could extend more than forty miles.  During economic downturns,
signalmen and maintainers were subject to ?stretch outs? or ?speed ups.?  When th
bosses call for a stretch out, signalmen?s territories were extended farther than what 
included building, repairing, and maintaining the older mechanical interlocking sign
and switch systems of the late 1800s to the complex electronic auto
                                                 
135
 Ibid. 
613
 Ibid. 
 88 
 
 
systems, which became prevalent in the late 1920s, and CTC, introduced in the 
1930s.
137
 
 
While the complexity of the systems and the rapid changes in train traffic 
management raised their members? skill levels, working on these innovative systems 
put the BRS into direct conflict of signal department jobs with other unions.  
Jurisdiction over its work was, at times claimed by as many as five other railroad 
unions up until 1946.  This conflict resulted in recruitment battles over signal 
department employees and created problems for the BRS in gaining skilled craft 
status from carriers, state and federal governments, and other unions and labor 
organizations, including the AF of L.   Moreover, the number of signal department 
employees comprised only a small part of the total number of employees, and the 
signalmen were spread thinly throughout the rail networks.  For this reason, other 
unions said the BRS would be too weak and too spread out to represent these workers 
effectively.  They also said that having too many unions among railroad employees 
would fractionalize the workers? power in negotiations with management.  The BRS 
countered that they would be lost within other unions and treated as second-tier 
workers.  Members of the BRS said that signal department employees because of 
their unique, ?particular? work demanded their own representation.   The next two 
138
                                                 
137
 Using automatic signals and central control systems, an operator or dispatcher could direct train 
traffic many miles from a central tower. The problem of ?speed-ups,? A. E. Lyon, Report of the Acting 
Grand President, Efforts to Secure Passage of the Signal Inspection Bill, p. 24. 
138
 J.W. Steliker, General Signal Supervisor, used the word ?particular? to describe signal work in a 
lecture on the importance of the signal department given at an education meeting in Stockton, Calif. to 
signal employees of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad, Oct. 3, 1926, BRSA History, 1901-
1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.  
 
 89 
 
 
sections explore the founding of the BRS and the union?s ascent to greater political 
authority within the railroad institutions during the first half of the twentieth century. 
Approaching Management: Come Let Us Reason Together 
Signalmen followed the path of the operating unions in building their union 
and contributed to the development of the industry?s bureaucracies, which helped 
stabilize their very dangerous work environment.  Historian Walter Licht argued that 
railroad employees entered new work situations created by innovative businessmen in 
the mid-to-late 1800s.  Yet according to Licht, the employees, who previously 
worked on farms or in factories, were connected to the carriers only through local 
foremen and supervisors, ?who ruled arbitrarily, granting favoritism to some and 
discrimination against others.?
139
   In 1877, workers were able to secure employment 
contracts with the carriers that he said, ?provided fairness, justice, and security.? 
Workers banded together to demand further and stricter ?bureaucratization? of 
company standards and procedures to gain as much control of their work experience 
as possible.  Standardized procedures thwarted the problem of too powerful foremen, 
which further stabilized the work situations and lessened tensions between 
management and labor.  ?[Workers] both lost and gained in the process,? Licht 
suggests. Some workers lost benefits they had under old system, and they traded ?the 
adventure and romance of railroading? for increased control over their work through 
standardization and routinization of their work.  ?Pioneer railway executives imposed 
                                                 
r the Railroad, The Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century, (New 
, 1983), pp. xviii, 269-171. 
139
 Walter Licht, Working fo
Jersey, Princeton University Press
 90 
 
 
bureaucratic structures from on high, but bureaucratization was a process resulting in 
large m asure from pressure from below.?
140
  
issatisfied with their wages and working conditions, a group of signalmen 
formed a fraternal organization in 1901 to circumvent management?s anti-labor 
policies.  They worked on the Pennsylvania Railroad?s 132-mile main line from 
Altoona to Harrisburg and met secretly to find ways to improve their wages, change 
their status as part of the maintenance of way department, and find ways to protect 
themselves from the liability connected with maintaining signaling systems that 
protected the public.  Union activities on the Altoona section were discouraged by 
either penalizing employees or dismissing them during the ?yellow dog era,? when 
industries preferred individual contracts as opposed to collective bargaining.  
Organi ented 
membe
eled, 
istant.
141
  
                                                
e
D
zing as a fraternal organization skirted that rule and in the process cem
rs? loyalty to the group and helped establish the union in the broader 
community.  Early meetings were held at the B O Tower near Altoona during the 
winter of 1901 and 1902.  At that time, the territory held twelve of the fourteen 
interlockings that mechanically operated signals, switches, and derails through a 
system of pipes attached to the interlocking machine levers.  The other two 
interlockings were of the newer electro-pneumatic type that used electricity to 
compress air to operate the signals and switches.  Governing a heavily trav
multiple track line, the B O Tower required two-man maintenance crews, working 
day and night shifts that consisted of a maintainer and an ass
 
140
 Ibid. pp. 269-171, xviii. 
141
 Lyon, The First 75, pp. 3?8. 
 91 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
During the winter of 1901, the members selected five signalmen to act as a 
committee to approach management about their desire to organize.  The original 
committee was J. V. Judge, H. G. Detwiler, Philip Weller, W. N. Spangles and
Hanley.  J. V. Judge, who after asking permission of several supervisors, met with 
General Superintendent J. M. Wallis and made three requests.  The committee 
wanted: their wages increased from 14 cents an hour to 25 cents an hour for a ten-
hour day; the formation of a separate signal department; and they wanted 
opportunities for the signalmen to learn about the new electro-pneumatic interlocking 
equipment that was starting to be installed on the lines.
Figure 14 The ?B O? Tower, Altoona, PA, Site of the first clandestine meetings of 
the BRS as a fraternal organization in 1901. File photo, the Archives of the BRS, 
Front Royal, VA. 
 R. S. 
                                                
142
   
 
 the BRS of America, (Ontario, Canada, The Brotherhood of Railroad 
; Lyon, The First 75, p. 1?5. 
142
 Wilmot J. Pettit,  History of
Signalmen, Feb. 1916),  pp. 1?11
 92 
 
 
Wallis, like the other general superintendents on the PRR, had author
make independent decisions concerning personnel and the operation of their lines but
was unique in that he listened to the needs of hi
organized and if they had the authority to represe
on the Middle Division.  He went on to urge 
want other personnel groups to approach him wi
signalmen were overjoyed. For the first time, the
management on the division and had been urge
 The signalmen went forward in forming
Judge met with the three other unions on the li
join their unions.  The Brotherhood of Tra
and the Car Builders Union each rejected the sign
each organization?s constitutions and because signal work was a different class of 
work.  In the meetings held at the Behm Hotel in Altoona and at the B O Tow
signalmen hammered out the
ity to 
 
s workers.  He asked if they were 
nt all or a majority of the signalmen 
them to organize because he did not 
th conflicting demands.  The 
y had access to the highest level of 
d to organize.
143
  
 a separate union but not until after 
ne,  
inmen, t hers, 
a of 
er, the 
 details of their new union.  Detwiler was named 
secreta , 
 had been employed by the PRR since 1898, became the first 
Chief Signalman or presiding Chairman of Lodge No. 1, after Judge held the post for 
ree months and then stepped aside.
144
  
asking them if the signalmen could
he Order of Railroad Telegrap
lmen?s request under the terms 
ry and wrote the constitution and bylaws, which were approved on March 7
1902. He went on to create a ritual, an official seal, and the Mutual Agreement 
Charter, which held the names of the original group of seventy-eight members of the 
first lodge, the Mountain Lodge No. 1 of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of 
America.  Detwiler, who
th
                                                 
143
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 8. 
144
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 9?10.  
 93 
 
 
One of the committee members, presumed to be Detwiler, who now 
represented the majority of signalmen on the Middle Division, described his second 
meeting with Wallis.  The committee member 
wrote in 1902 that they got together with Wallis 
for three hours on March 7, 1902, under the 
Charter of Mountain Lodge No. 1 of the BRS.  
?We were not misled by the idea that we could 
achieve our purpose by demand.  But we used 
correct
electro-
 
nts 
                                                                                                                                          
 application and strict observance of the 
fundamental rules (of railroad procedure) and 
that we governed the maintenance of two 
pneumatic plants and twelve mechanical 
plants.?  He said the committee made it clear saying, ?if the job don?t suit us we will 
quit.  There is a demand for mechanics ?all can get work immediately from 
contractors in the city.?
 145
   
Wallis said he had discovered that their wage of 14 cents an hour was far
below others in other divisions and matched the New York division rate of 24.6 ce
an hour.  He also arranged for the development of a division signal department with a 
signal supervisor in charge.  No record exists of what happened concerning the third 
request for training.
146
  
Figure 15 H.G. Detwiler, First Grand 
Chief Signalman, considered the father 
of the BRSA.  He wrote the charters, 
rituals, and its motto: "Labor 
Vincit," Work Conquers All.  
Omina 
File 
photo from the Archives of the 
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, 
Front Royal, VA. 
 
men of 
America ? in Altoona, Pa. Handwritten note believed to be written by Detwiler (or possibly another 
member of the committee) who attended the second meeting with Wallis in 1902, BRSA History, 1901-
l. 1, BRSA Archive file box; Lyon, The First 75, p. 12. 
6
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 12. 
 
145
 H. G. Detwiler, To begin the begin, The beginning of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signal
1950, Vo
14
 94 
 
 
These workers, considered to be semi-skilled and low on the social scale of 
railroad employees, approached management with professionalism, tact, and clarity.  
The committee member wrote, ?We did not argue ? there were no hot heads am
us, but we used the advice given in scripture (come let us reason together).  We 
reasoned our grievance together with General Superintendent J. M. Wallis,
ong 
 who 
proved to be a ers of the BRS 
had great respe her managers like 
him on the PRR
This pr ld negotiate 
throughout the   Knowing they could not negotiate from a position of 
strength
n 1908 
r 
ettit, 
 
, 
1908, with the help of a local lawyer, the BRS petitioned and received a state charter, 
man among men ? He granted our request.?  The memb
ct for Wallis, and Lyon said that there were few ot
.
147
  
ofessional approach would set the tone of how they wou
 20th century.
 in numbers, they had to find other ways to get their demands met. 
From 1901 to 1908, other lodges were established on other lines, and i
they came together and established the Local No. 1 as the Grand Lodge.  Shortly afte
hearing about the pay raise and formation of the Grand Lodge, H. L. Wilmot P
who would later be elected Grand Chief Signalman, wrote that that nearly every 
signalman on the Middle Division had joined the Brotherhood.  The leadership 
jumped from four officers to fourteen, and four new lodges in Pennsylvania were 
chartered.  The growth continued despite anti-union sentiment.  Lodge No. 14 did not 
last as management there let it be known that any employee joining the union would
be fired under the ?yellow dog policy? of individual employee contracts.  On April 6
under an 1874 law in Pennsylvania, and became a Pennsylvania corporation 
                                                 
147
 Ibid. 
 
 95 
 
 
headquartered in Altoona.  The headquarters and charter were signified as The 
Lodge of the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen of America.  This charter gave the 
other lodges greater legitimacy and status by the BRS by having official state 
recognition.  Signalmen on other lines came to meet with them in New York
year.
Grand 
 later that 
ter certified that the purpose of the brotherhood was to:  
and sound bodily health who are actively engaged in 
establish a fund for the relief of sick and distressed 
might be held in social intercourse; and to procure 
thereby creating an active interest in the members? 
 
 
the 
 
 
s 
                                                
148
  The char
?unite fraternally all persons of good moral character 
switch and signal duties of railway signalmen; to 
members; to procure a headquarters in which meetings 
literature pertaining to the work of railway signalmen, 
welfare.
149
   
Lyon said that the BRS purposely omitted any language that signified that the
organization was a trade union and ?was formed for the principle purpose of 
obtaining a wage increase and other concessions from the railroad company.?  Such 
statements might have blocked passage of the charter for the BRS.  It was not 
common practice to incorporate unions, and other unions did not approve of the 
practice.  It is not clear why they incorporated, but it did act as a spur to form the 
Grand Lodge, hold their first convention on Feb. 9, 1908, and lend creditability to 
fledgling organization with signalmen on other lines.  The minutes were recorded by
H. C. Dunn, Lodge No. 2, who became the first Grand Lodge Secretary-Treasurer.
BRS members elected Philip Weller Grand Chief Signalman, and H. L. Neider wa
 
148
 H. L. Neider, First Grand-Vice Chief,  The Birth and the History of  the BRS of A, Pittsburg, PA, 
Sept. 9, 1912, pp. 1-2 BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box; Request for a State 
Charter by the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen of America, Granted by Decree of The Court, April 
6, 1908, Court of Common Pleas, Blair County, PA., March 4, 1908, BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 
1, BRSA Archive file box.; Wilmot J. Pettit,  History of the BRS  of America,  pp. 1?11 
149
 Request for state charter, Court of Common Pleas, March 4, 1908. 
 96 
 
 
selected as the first Vice-Grand Lodge Chief Signalman.  Three Grand Lodge 
Trustees, Detwiler, Neider, and H. C. Brubaker, were elected to oversee the financial 
aspects
 
.  
er 
d 
AF 
ion on 
as approved, and an exploratory 
commi ed 
 of the union.   At this convention, it was decided that the BRS should contact 
and form connections with other unions in an attempt to form one umbrella 
organization.
 150
  
Grand Lodge officers of the BRS took an active role in bringing other unions
into a centralized organization.  On April 12, 1908, seventeen leaders from the four 
existing signalmen unions, which had affiliated with the AF of L, met with the BRS
The meeting included the Interlockers, Switch and Signalmen?s Union No. 11785 in 
Boston and delegates from the Bridgeport Union, and the New York Railroad?s Ord
of Railroad Interlockers of North America. Among the unions present at the secon
meeting were the Interlockers, Switch and Signalmen?s Union, No. 11867 of the 
of L, the Order of Railway Interlockers of North America, an independent un
the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad, and the BRS.  At the following meeting on 
April 19, 1908, a constitution of the Grand Lodge w
ttee was formed to meet with other union officers.  In June, Detwiler report
talks with other signalmen who were organized on the New York, New Haven & 
Hartford, and the West Jersey & Seashore Railroads.  Dunn reported in the minutes 
that a consolidation of unions, which also included signalmen from the Boston & 
Maine Railroad, was approved, with the Order of Railroad Interlockers of North 
                                                 
150
 Spring Meeting Minutes of Railway Signalmen, New York City, April 12, 1908, BRSA History, 
901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box; Anon Lyon, The First 75, p. 18. 1
 97 
 
 
America dissenting.  Months later, the unions would join under a temporary charter of
the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen of America.
 151
   
The significance of this
 
 early alliance with signal department employees from 
other c
 
S 
bor 
ompanies was the positioning of Mountain Lodge Number 1 as the central 
headquarters and the BRS as the central representative of all signal department 
employees.  Having established the BRS as the central representative, other unions 
competing for signal department employees would have to negotiate with them and
this built the power base from which the BRS could reach out to signal department 
employees on other railroads.  Once established as the central representative, the BR
officers could now define the signalmen?s role within the railroads.  This authority 
would better facilitate their demand for recognition and give them access to new 
duties as signaling technology would demand new skills.  In turn, access to new 
responsibilities would, they thought, also broaden the scope of its members' 
involvement in railroad operations and further increase membership by assuming job 
descriptions that were given over to other unions. 
The BRS positioned itself as a central umbrella organization for all signal 
department employees.  As in all labor politics, unions had to control enough of the 
employees to affect change within their departments, the companies, or the institution 
of railroads.  From the start, the leaders of the BRS saw themselves as a national la
organization rather than a labor group within a company.  This pursuit for political 
                                                 
151
 Spring Meeting minutes of Railway Signalmen in New York City, April 12, 1908, approved 
Minutes of  the Meeting at Grand Lodge of the BRSA, Altoona, PA, March 7, 1907, Wilmot J. Pettit, 
History of the BRS of America, pp. 16?20; Anon Lyon, The First 75, p. 30; The First Annual and Third 
Regular Session of the Grand Lodge of the BRS, Philadelphia, August 16,17, 1908, found in The 25
th
 
Anniversary Celebration, BRS of A, Floral Park, North Bergen, N.J., June, 27, 1926. BRSA History, 
1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box, BRS Archives, Front Royal, VA. 
 
 98 
 
 
power and the leverage to affect changes in their working environment would propel 
them into becoming the national representative for all signalmen and maintainers in 
the Uni
 
d 
 the 
re 
 
; 
ame 
groundswell within 
signaling departments, there was widespread opposition to unionization in the broader 
society
 
                                                
ted States and Canada. 
The three temporary officers were chosen from the leadership of the four 
unions, and it was decided that a convention would be held in Philadelphia in August
1908 to write its constitution.  The BRS also decided that each union could only sen
three delegates to the first convention, entitled the First Annual and Third Regular 
Session of the Grand Lodge.  Before this gathering, any signalmen could attend
BRS conventions.   Details of the constitution were worked out, and Grand Lodge 
Officers were elected.  Although attendance was not recorded, thirty-five votes we
recorded in the elections.  They decided that a Grand Lodge Tax of 15 cents a month 
was to be paid by each member.  The tax was, in part, to pay the salaries of The
Grand Organizer ($80 per month) and the Grand Secretary-Treasurer ($300 per year)
the Grand Chief Signalman would not receive a salary.
152
   In 1911, the BRS bec
an international union with the addition of the first Canadian lodge.   
Despite this impressive show of solidarity that created a 
, and carriers refused to recognize BRS.  Managers fired or penalized workers 
who joined the BRS.  This was a time when employers began to realize that trade 
unions were a growing part of the American labor market and employers began to
deal with union demands harshly. Melvin Dubofsky marks the period from 1910 to 
 
on, The First 75, p. 30; ?The First Annual and Third Regular Session of 
ion, 
152
 Spring Meeting minutes of Railway Signalmen, pp. 16?20; Wilmot J. Pettit, History of the BRS of 
America, pp. 16?20; Anon Ly
the Grand Lodge of The BRS,? Philadelphia, August 16, 17, 1908, The 25
th
 Anniversary Celebrat
BRSA, Floral Park, North Bergen, N.J., June, 27, 1926, BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA 
Archive file box.  
 99 
 
 
1915 ?as an age of industrial violence,? and the era from 1910 to 1922 ?as the era 
mass strike.?
153
  
Proponents of anti-unionism argued that a lack of discipline and blamed the 
of 
number of accidents caused by human error on union organizing. James O. Fagan, a 
retired signalman and signal department supervisor, asserted in a letter to the Editor 
of The New York Times in 1913 that the root cause of the disciplinary problem was 
that attempts to discipline workers with suspensions or dismissal brought on the wrath 
of the labor unions.  Attempts to discipline the men were met with a grievance 
committee from the brotherhoods, which the railroads had to placate to avoid strikes 
or walk outs.  Fagan and the editors of the Signal Engineer said the brotherhoods 
controlled who was hired, and the railroads turned over the job of distributing payroll 
to its brotherhoods.  Yet the unions took no responsibility for the actions of its 
members, he said.
154
   It should be noted that throughout the first two decades of the 
twent ehind the 
, 
rnal 
ieth century, the BRS, because of their small size, they worked b
scenes, supported other railroad unions? demands and walkouts, and preferred to 
follow the more diplomatic example of their founding leaders.  
 
The early years were both a financial and emotional struggle for the members 
of the fledgling union.  By the beginning of 1920, the original Lodges No. 2, No. 3
and No. 4 were closed down, although Mountain Lodge No. 1 persevered.  Lyon 
attributed the survival of Mountain Lodge No. 1 to the fact that it was first a frate
                                                 
153
 Melvin Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America, (Chapel Hill, The University of No
Carolina Press, 1994), p. 38. 
154
 James O. Fagan, ?Letter to the Editor: Safety First,? The New York Times
rth 
, (Feb. 1913): p. 12; 
Anonymous author, ?Railroad Accidents and Their Causes, p. A12; The Signal Engineer 2, Editorial, 
(Jan. 1910): pp. 257?258.  
 100 
 
 
organization and a center for social occasions before it became a union hall.  The 
lodge was engrained into the social fabric of the community, which gave the union 
stability .  In  
l 
 other major and successful unions.  They wore uniforms, marched together 
in parad ds, 
 
t shifts 
 and its members resolve to continue despite pressure from management
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
addition, the leadership incorporated highly formalized ceremonies for conducting 
meetings, inducting new members, and installing officers.  Many newly created socia
events strengthened ties among the members.  Mountain Lodge No. 1 borrowed these 
ideas from
Figure 16 A delegation from Mountain Lodge No. 1 in full dress uniforms for the 1904 
Labor Day Parade in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Photo from the Archives of the 
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Front Royal. VA.  
es, wore banners and badges, and had their own drum corps.  Passwor
recognition signals, and special handshakes were part of the process of instilling
loyalty to the brotherhood, as well as having formal written codes of conduct at 
members? funerals.  They also established a fund to care for their sick.  Meetings 
were held both at night and day on a weekly basis so men working differen
 101 
 
 
could attend. Their motto, authored in 1902 by Detwiler, was ?Labor Omani Vinci
?Work C
t,? 
onquers All.?
155
  
Signalmen on western railroads had more success in establishing union 
lodges; however, 1913 was recognized as the low point of BRS activity.  At the 
Detroit convention that year, it was reported that there were only 800 members, 18 
active lodges, and the treasury had only $118.64, with some unpaid bills outstanding.  
Grand Chief J. A. Martin became the second Chief to resign before his term ended 
after he failed for six weeks to recruit new members around the Pittsburgh area.  He 
reported, ?The officials of the PRR had railroad police everywhere, and they were 
instructed to arrest anyone found trespassing on their property.?  He left in April 1913 
and took a traveling salesman job for a wholesale firm.
156
   
The Brotherhood had reached a low point as some lodges were going under 
financially because signalmen were not paying their dues or joining the young union.  
The BRS, at this time, did not instill enough confidence in signal department 
employees that the union could effectively help them.  Added to this, the anti-union 
sentiments in American society stifled the growth of the BRS. D. R. Daniels, Grand 
Secretary?Treasurer is credited with holding the union t 
time.
157
   
The BRS entered a difficult time when they were unable to get signal 
department employees to join or members to pay dues.  A union without active 
members has little power to affect change.  At the same time, if a union cannot affect 
positive changes for their members, few employees will be willing to join.  The BRS 
 together through this difficul
                                                 
155
 Wilmot J. Pettit, History of the BRS of A, p. 5-14; Anon Lyon, The First 75, p. 9 ? 16. 
156
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 31-37; Wilmot Pettit, History of the BRS of A, pp. 24--27. 
, History of the BRS of A, pp. 24?27. 
157
 Lyon, Ibid, p. 31?37; Pettit
 102 
 
 
had to find a way out of this conundrum, and a strong, charismatic leader was the 
answer. 
Wilmot Pettit, Seeking Representational Authority  
After four years of failed lodges and 
came with the election of Wilmot J. Petti
convention.  Pettit would go on to become
vote in 1913.  Born in Ontario, Canada, Lyon said 
Pettit worked as a maintainer-leverman on 
Michigan Central in La Sallette, Ontario and was ?a 
man of considerable vision, of fine character, and of 
great loyalty to the principles of the organization in 
which he deeply believed.?  Pettit made great 
strides in setting the brotherhood during the early, 
anti-unionist decades of the twentieth century on 
the path to becoming a powerful railroad union and 
in gaining the BRS affiliation with the AF of L.
158
  
Pettit?s abilities to gather support for his 
union and to work with other labor leaders set a 
high standard for future BRS officers and 
eventually positioned the BRS to become a force in railroad labor politics, but not 
without the jurisdictional disputes that would continue through World War II.  
Jurisdictional disputes were directly related to the changes in their work caused by 
                                                
poor finances, the revival of the BRS 
t as Grand Board of Trustees at the 1912 
 Grand Chief Signalman by unanimous 
Figure 17 Wilmot J. Pettit, Grand 
Chief Signalman from 1913-1915 
made great progress in establishing 
the BRSA as a separate skilled craft 
union. Photo from A.E. Lyon, The 
First 77, History of the 
Brotherhood of Railroad 
Signalmen, 1901-1976, 1976, p. 36.
 
158
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 37. 
 103 
 
 
innovations in signaling technology.   In order to keep current on the many 
ations, the officers of the BRS decided to develop means of communicating 
with their members stretched thinly throughout the United States and Canada.  They 
would go on to publish their own technical and labor journal in 1920, which was also 
the location of their Education Bureau.  The Education Bureau would provide 
signalmen in the field the knowledge and technical background they would need to 
stay current with the new innovations.  The combination of technical and labor news 
stimulated its members not only to take apart in the labor struggles but to develop 
learning skills that helped them rise above the level of laborer.  They were becoming 
part of the technically educated middle class, the backbone of this technically 
specialized and challenging industry. 
innov
 104 
 
 
Chapter 5: The Fight for an Identity and for Jurisdiction over the Signal Department 
 
As discussed, the increased complexity of the innovations in signaling 
technology during the first half of the twentieth century propelled the occupation of 
signalman and maintainer from semi-skilled laborer to that of a skilled composite 
mechanic.  Although the changeover on many lines to centralized Train Control 
(CTC) and automatic signal control (ASC) was stifled during the Great Depression, 
carriers would discover greater economies from installing these systems on their 
lines.  The jump in traffic volume during World War II, the need to lower labor costs, 
the push for more production, and the stricter enforcement of signal inspections (as 
required by the Signal Inspection Act of 1937) gave the carriers the impetus needed to 
upgrade to CTC. Nevertheless, with the changes in technology came the age-old 
jurisdictional battles over which union had control over signal department jobs. 
Upon investigation into whether the BRS could represent signal department 
employees at the end of World War I, Helt reported to his executive staff that William 
Gibbs McAdoo, Director General of the Railroads, recommended, ?Signalmen shall 
receive a separate proposition because of the character of [their] work.?
159
  Although, 
the BRS succeeded in gaining recognition by the federal government as the 
representative of signal department employees, from 1920 to 1949, they would still 
have to convince management and the other unions clamoring for control over signal 
department jobs. 
Jobs 
                                                 
159
 Helt, The Shop Crafts of the Railway Employment Department, pp. 169 ? 183.  
 
 105 
 
 
The wide variety of responsibilities and duties coupled with the fact that the 
BRS had only a fraction of the total number of railroad employees blocked 
recognition of the BRS as a skilled craft union with both the carriers and the
unions.  This lack of recognition frustrated BRS?s attempts to be acknowledged f
their contributions to the railroads a
 other 
or 
nd the public.  In addition, carriers frequently 
 work for them.  This contention was pursued by management 
to keep
S 
, 
d 
iation of Steam and Hot 
Water and Power Pipe Fitters, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 
f 
decried BRS workers as not being semi-skilled manual labor, saying the automatic 
systems were doing the
 wages low.  The BRS was repeatedly compelled to educate new managers 
about concessions and status they had earned through previous negotiations.  
The lack of institutional memory was another ongoing problem that the BR
continues to address even today.  Carriers often brought to the bargaining table new
college-educated managers with little signal system experience.  Conveniently, these 
managers possessed no memories of how signalmen had adapted to technological 
innovations and what recognition they had previously gained.   
Gaining recognition as a separate skilled craft union by the other railroad 
unions and the American Federation of Labor was just as hard to accomplish.  Gran
Secretary?Treasurer H. C. Dunn petitioned the AF of L for affiliation in 1909, but 
after he claimed jurisdiction over a broad sweep of signal department duties, a 
number of AF of L unions protested.  The largest protests came from The 
International Association of Machinists, International Assoc
International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers, and the United 
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.  In Dunn?s request to Frank Morrison, AF o
 106 
 
 
L secre  
d protests, the BRS tried for affiliation again in 1910 and 
1911, b
e.  
kers 
me 
S 
t 
 the 
ity.  The IBEW 
repeate
                                                
tary, for affiliation, the BRS claimed jurisdiction over those employees ?who
constructed electric, pneumatic, and mechanical signals and switches on railroad or 
signal works, and maintainers, repairmen, interlockers, locking machinists, 
batterymen, switch fitters, helpers, electricians, wiremen, linemen, groundsmen, 
lampmen, and signal workers.?
160
  
  After the refusal an
ut to no avail.  
Of the five unions that tried to take jurisdiction over the signal departments, 
the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) was the most aggressiv
It tried repeatedly to gain jurisdiction over some of the signal department wor
and, for many years, effectively blocked BRS entry into the AF of L.  The IBEW 
persisted in attacking the BRS attempts at affiliation with the AF of L because so
of the work of the maintainer was electrical and the IBEW sought control over the 
work of electricians in many industries.  When they demanded in 1913 that the BR
be folded into the IBEW, a thirty-five year political struggle began.  The BRS fough
against being absorbed into the IBEW, citing that the BRS would only be a minor 
adjunct to the electrical workers union, which had little negotiating power with
railroads.  The BRS thought they could do better as a separate ent
dly tried to block the BRS from joining the AF of L, which led to years of 
aggressive competition between the two organizations.
161
   
 
160
 Dunn, H.C. Grand Sec. Treasurer, of  the BRS of A, Letter to Frank  Morrison, Sec. of American 
Federation of  Labor, ?Request AF of L Affiliation,? Washington D.C., Feb. 4, 1909, BRSA History, 
file box.  
eports, Reports and correspondence between the BRS and 
f 
1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive 
161
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 116; Officers R
Noonan, president of the IBEW, Minutes, the Fourth Annual and Nineteenth Regular Convention o
the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 1928, pp. 58?60. 
 107 
 
 
As Grand Chief Signalmen, Pettit petitioned again for AF of L affiliation i
1913 by starting an exchange of letters with Morrison.  The exchange yielded a more 
acceptable and general statement of claimed jurisdiction. In March 1913, Morrison 
granted the BRS a charter of affiliation.  Lyon said it was his experience and 
knowledge of the labor movement and its traditions that helped him to succeed where
his predecessors failed.
n 
 
 President Frank J. McNulty and the 
officers of the Machinist Union fought to keep the BRS Charter from being enacted in 
1913, despite efforts by AF of L President Samuel Gompers to bring the these two 
unions together.  Both unions claimed the duties of signalmen fell under the 
jurisdiction of their unions.
163
  Pettit tried again for affiliation in 1914.  This time, 
Morrison issued the charter on March 14, 1914, despite some opposition.  What 
changed the minds of AF of L leaders were that Pettit gave less detail concerning the 
work signalmen did while defining the parameters of their work.  The application 
simply stated that the BRS represented ?all signalmen who are actively engaged on 
construction, or Maintenance of Mechanical and Automatic Block Signals, Locking 
and Interlocking Plants, Mechanical, Pneumatic, Electrical or otherwise while 
employed in the Signal Department of a Railroad Company.?
164
  
At the annual convention in Hazelwood, PA, June 8, 1914, the BRS approved 
the resolution to join the AF of L under Samuel Gompers, despite some hesitation 
from some of the delegates.  Some delegates were fearful that the small BRS would 
                                                
162
 
Nevertheless, both the IBEW under
 
162
 Anon Lyon, The First 75, p 38. 
163
 Anon Lyon, The First 75, p 61. 
164
 W. J. Pettit, Grand Chief Signalman, ?Request for Affiliation with the American Federation of 
 14, 1914; Lyon, The First 75, p. 112.  Labor, to Sec. Frank Morrison,? Jan.
 108 
 
 
be swal
. B. Perham, president of the Order 
lationship between the two unions 
erks in the 1960s.  Some 
en for the BRS on some western 
could afford only two or three organizers 
             
lowed up by the AF of L, one of the nation?s largest labor organizations.  
What helped sway resolution was the support of H
of Railroad Telegraphers (ORT), which started a re
that lasted until the ORT merged with the railway cl
members of the ORT even helped to recruit signalm
lines.  The BRS, during much of this period, 
to cover the United States and Canada.
165
  
                                    
.  
165
 Anon Lyon, The First 75, p. 41
 109 
 
 
Another volley was fired by an unnamed IBEW vice president at the 1915 
BRS Convention in St. Thomas, Ontario when he 
made an ?unofficial? plea to ask BRS members to 
bring their union under the auspices of the IBEW.  
The IBEW claimed exclusive jurisdiction over all 
work to ?make and install everything that is 
electrically workable.?  He said to continue to divide 
the wor
protest to the AF of L, and protect its AF of L 
charter. They also changed the name of the union 
from the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of 
America to the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, 
with the initials ?BRS? used to represent them.
166
 
Hard times continued for the union, which struggled to gain members during 
strong anti-unionist efforts by industry and to hold off jurisdictional threats from the 
other unions.  Previous to the 1917 Convention, the organization under Grand Signal 
Chief A. E. Adams had run into difficult times.  Despite the increase in membership 
tax, the finances were in poor shape and membership was falling.  At the 1917 
k would create a ?clash? that would harm the 
railroad labor movement and give the carriers 
weapons that could be used against the movement.  
BRS Resolution No. 6 resolved that the BRS would 
Figure 18 Daniel W. Helt, 
Grand President from 1917
from Lyon, The First 75, 
 to 
1935.  Photo taken around 1919, 
History of the Brotherhood of 
Railroad Signalmen, 1901-1976, 
1976, p. 50. 
                                                 
166
 Officers Reports, ?Resolution No. 6, The BRS will protest to AF of L and will protect its AF of L 
12. 
Charter,? the Eighth Annual and Tenth Regular session of the BRS Convention, St. Thomas, Ontario, 
June 14?17, 1915, p. 27.  
Anon Lyon, The First 75, p. 1
 110 
 
 
Convention in New Haven, CT, only twenty-five members plus the Grand Lodge 
officers were in attendance.  Failing to gain benefits for the members, Adams 
resigned after the membership had lost confidence in the leadership of the BRS.  If 
they wanted to continue to organize nationally, they would have to show that
their union would improve the signalmen?s lives and working conditions.  At the 
same time, two new members, Daniel Helt and Clint Cone, attended their first 
convention.
 joining 
 
f 
th, was abolished and the 
Grand C
one 
t, 
167
   
Helt and Cone chaired a resolution committee that recommended a 
restructuring of the BRS, which would later carry the BRS into the national political
arena.  By their resolution, it was decided at the 1917 convention, the dual position o
Grand Chief and Grand Organizer, which paid $200 a mon
hief was given a salary of $200 per year, as it was a part-time position.  
Interestingly enough, at the same convention, Helt was elected Grand Chief 
Signalman, by ?using his political acumen and engaging personality,? and Clint C
was elected Vice-Grand Chief Signalman, which was largely an honorary position.  
Lyon argued that the era of union growth and development started with the 1917 
election of Helt to Grand Chief Signalman.  ?Anyone viewing our history from a 
long-range standpoint must conclude that Dan Helt contributed more to its success 
than any other single individual,? noted Lyon.
168
  
Lyon described Daniel Helt, the former Pennsylvania coal miner, member of 
the United Mine Workers of America, and ex-marine as having ?a dramatic and 
charismatic personality, the expansive and friendly smile of a typical extrover
                                                 
167
 Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, 100th Anniversary Video, ?A Century of Service? Video.  
BRSA, Front Royal, VA, 2001.  
168
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 51. 
 111 
 
 
unusual public speaking ability and above all, a determined devotion to the cause.?  
Helt worked his way up from being a brakeman on the Philadelphia & Reading 
Railroad (PRR) and worked irregularly on the PRR, where he started as a 
in 1910.  Carp
signalman 
entry was his specialty, and he was skilled at maintaining and 
rebuild
 
 
He 
or 
e 
 
19, 
 becoming that of a full-time political and 
union organizer with a $250 per month commission.  Under Helt and Cone, the BRS 
ental 
ing Banjo-type signals prevalent in the first decade of the twentieth century.  
In 1916, his military experience and engaging personality got him the notice of the
Republican Party of Eastern Pennsylvania.  He successfully ran for the state 
legislature twice, despite opposition from the conservative Senator Bois Penrose?s 
political machine that controlled much of the region?s politics.  In 1917, Helt, at 34 
years of age, worked as a signalman for the PRR, held a seat in the state legislature,
and started his new career as Grand Chief Signalman.
169
  
Clint Cone started as a signalman helper on the Erie Railroad at age 18, after 
being fired from the same railroad when he was an office boy at age 14 in 1904.  
went on to work as a signalman for the Interborough Rapid Transit, and later f
signal system manufacturers, such as Union Switch & Signal Co. and The General 
Railway Signal Co.  He was elected Vice Grand Chief Signalman in 1917, while 
working for the union-friendly New Haven Railroad, which frequently allowed Con
time off for union business.  Once, he was granted a seventeen-week leave in 1918, so
he could travel the West, recruiting members and organizing new lodges.  In 19
his position changed from being honorary to
picked up three new lodges in 1917, including Lodge 18 on the PRR, whose 
Recording and Financial Secretary, Gustave C. Malmsjo, would later be instrum
                                                 
169
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 52. 
 112 
 
 
in starting the movement to limit the size of maintainer territories.
170
  Helt?s legacy, 
however, would be his efforts to end the long controversial fight for affiliation within 
the AF of L and to gain recognition as a skilled craft union by the federal 
government.  
 In 1917, Helt initiated talks with the Railroad Employees Division (RED) of 
the AF of L in hopes of gaining affiliation for the BRS.  His request was rejected, 
despite the fact that he had gained support from the AF of L for his organizing efforts 
and for obtaining an eight-hour workday for signalmen and other railroad employees.  
1919 to
g conditions agreements from being executed before the 
expirat ard 
separate from other non-ops employees.
171
  
                                                
Still, RED unions were unified against the BRS having affiliation.  The International 
Association of Machinists (IAM) attempted to sway BRS officers and members in 
 join their union, but Lyon said the IAM did not overtly pressure or actively 
attempt to recruit signalmen away from the BRS.  By contrast, IBEW President Jim 
Noonan ?engaged in opposition tactics and sabotage of many of Helt?s efforts to 
secure recognition of the BRS as a functioning national railroad union.?  The 
electricians union aggressively tried for years to encroach on BRS jurisdiction and 
revoke their AF of L charter. Over the next three years, this rift prevented several 
national wage and workin
ion of federal control of the railroads in 1920. Helt appeared before the Bo
of Wages and Working Conditions trying to obtain classification of signalmen 
 
The First 75, p. 56?59; Gustave C. Malmsjo, ?Limitations of Maintainers? Territories,? 
4, 
Kansas City, bound typescript volumes dated July, 18, 
919,  p.154. 
170
 Lyon, 
Proceedings of the Fifth Biennial and Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, bound 
typescript volume dated Sept. 18?23, 1930, p. 897; Anon, Lyon, ?The Signal Inspection Act,? pp. 14
170. 
171
 Daniel Helt, BRS President, Resolution No. 28, resolved July 18, at the Twelfth Annual and 
Fourteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, 
1
 113 
 
 
Figure 20 Grand Lodge officers at the 1919 BRSA Convention surrounding Daniel Helt. To his left is 
H.G. Baker, D.C. Cone, W.J. Pettit. To his right are T.A. Austin, M.C. Merritts, and J.A. Works. Their 
vision and efforts established the union as an equal member at the negotiation tables with the railroad
operating unions. Photo from Lyon, The First 75, History of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen,
 
 
1901-1976, 1976, p. 66. 
On Jan. 27, 1919, they filed a brief with the Director of the Division of Labor 
over inequities in wages and appeared in March before the Labor Board.  If they were 
not recognized and the inequities in wages not addressed, the BRS would call a strike.  
This resolution was sent to the Director General of Railroads in Washington.   In 
the weeks following the January meeting, Helt secured favorable decisions over pay 
equity for several classes of signalmen, correct classification of the signalman, and in 
many cases back pay.  
According to Noonan, for the first twenty-five months of federal control, 
before February 1920, the BRS could not get recognized and had no standing with the 
                                                
172
173
 
 ?Minutes of the Thirteen Annual Convention, Kansas City, Mo. Oct. 11, 1920,? condescended 
report in the 25
th
 Anniversary Celebration, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America, Floral 
ox.  
172
 Ibid. 
173
Park, North Bergen, NJ, June 27, 1926; Resolution No. 28, resolved July 18, at the Twelfth Annual and 
Fourteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Kansas City, MO, July, 18, 1919, p.154, BRSA History, 
1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file b
 
 114 
 
 
Railroad Administration.  Just a few days before control was returned to the p
sector on March 1, 1920, Helt was able to get an agreement signed 
rivate 
Changing the Historic Balance between the Workers and Bosses  
What emerged from the chaotic wartime conditions during World War I was 
federal control over the business and operations of the railroads and, for the first time, 
real support for labor from the Executive Branch.  As the war effort ramped up, 
nearly all supplies and equipment were transported by the railroads, which were made 
up of many large and small systems that could not coordinate effectively to handle the 
increased traffic.  Because the railroads were unable to meet the demand, President 
Woodrow Wilson had the federal government take over control and operation of the 
railroads in December 1917.  Meanwhile, Wilson, who had become a pro-labor 
candidate in order to secure the presidency, added the Department of Labor to his 
cabinet and cemented a lasting relationship between the Democratic Party and labor.  
The Department of Labor continued to be a neutral, if not positive presence in 
railroad negotiations and gave unions a voice they did not have before.  The Labor 
Department promoted the recognition of the AF of L and ?so-called legitimate 
or disputes.  ?In a real sense, the 
Labor D
174
    
unions,? and interdicted successfully in industrial lab
epartment acted as organized labor?s advocate in Washington.?
175
  
In the two years leading up to the war, labor became more militant and 
aggressively demanded closed shop powers in a time of extremely low 
unemployment.  Unemployment hit a low of 1.4 percent in 1918 because of the 
                                                 
174
 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, A True Insight into the Signal Situation, Pamphlet, 
no date; however, letters and documents cited place publication date after 1921, BRSA History, 1901-
SA Archive file box.  
e State & Labor in Modern America, p. 53?60.  
1950, Vol. 1, BR
175
 Melvin Dubofsky, Th
 115 
 
 
growing number of war industry contracts with Europe.
176
  On one hand, the 
Executive Branch urged labor to organize, and on the other, the Supreme Court m
it illegal to form unions under certain conditions.  Wilson needed to get labor behin
the war effort, and he wanted labor to understand its role in the country?s growing 
involvement with World War I.  After a national strike by railroad employees 
threatened to shut down the railroads, Wilson pushed Congress to pass the Adamson 
Bill in 1916, giving railroad workers an eight-hour workday with overtime benef
for operating employees.  At the same time, Wilson defined his administration?s 
policy on railroad strikes.  He made it clear that any attempt to shut down the 
transportation system would not be tolerated and would trigger federal intervention.  
He also passed a law stating that in an emergency, the federa
ade 
d 
its 
l government could take 
control at 
Gaining Recognition from the Federal Government 
Anti-union sentiment took on new dimensions and further hampered 
recruitment efforts by those unions that were unrecognized before the war, which 
included the BRS.  Unions that were established and had control over their 
jurisdictions before the war made major gains in membership and concessions for 
their members.  Those unions that ?were absent in the prewar years, still fought 
                                                
 of the railroads and conscript train crews and managers.  Dubofsky wrote th
?in less than a year, federal wartime policies had transformed labor-management 
relations from a basically private arena to a semi-public one, and, in the process, had 
upset the historical balance of power between workers and boss in many 
industries.?
177
  
 
176
 Ibid, p. 64.  
177
 Ibid,  pp. 58-60, 74. 
 116 
 
 
among themselves, or lacked able organizers,? remained outside federal support an
were subject to company discrimination.
d 
penaliz r 
e 
 
 pledged his 
union's
ver 
e 
for 
t 
 to twelve hours a day and were ?subject to 
call? when not on duty.  They complained that they were frequently called out for 
yon said that once during the winter, two 
178
  At the same time, railroads fired or 
ed workers who joined these illegitimate unions.  In addition, the turnove
rates for railroad employees were high; keeping experienced workers during wartim
was hard as many went to work for higher wages in other industries that supported 
the war effort.  Many BRS lodges went under during World War I.  However, despite 
the turnover that shrunk the ranks of the BRS, Helt, acting mostly alone, gained 
access to some of the highest-ranking officials in the federal government.  Within 
three weeks of William G. McAdoo?s appointment by President Woodrow Wilson to
be the Director General of Railroads in late 1917, Helt met with him and
 support in his efforts to restructure the railroads. 
179
 
At this meeting, Helt and McAdoo discussed the concerns of the BRS o
wages and working conditions.  Wages for signalmen had risen slowly through the 
first half of the twentieth century.  The hourly rate across the nation in the first decad
of the 20th century was between 20 and 25 cents an hour, or roughly $65 a month 
about 300 hours work a month. In 1912, on many eastern lines, which had the highes
rates, the rate was $75 a month for all services performed, frequently working 300 
hours a month.  By 1917, wages had increased to $95 per month due to pressure from 
individual lodges and by railroads trying to prevent unions from organizing.  Yet 
signalmen and maintainers worked ten
extra duty, and often times, needlessly. L
                                                 
178
 Ibid, p. 76. 
179
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 63. 
 117 
 
 
signalm
ped.
180
  
t and operations and creating dangerous working conditions.
181
   
Poorly es 
,596, 
 
                                                
en were called out at dawn to look for a glove dropped by an engineman.  
When the eight-hour day and overtime were instituted, these incidences stop
During World War I, railroad employees worked longer hours.  Normal 
standards and scheduled service on the railroad plants were deferred to the point of 
damaging equipmen
disciplined, inexperienced workers made more mistakes, and safety advocat
lost faith in the block system as a means of preventing collisions and derailments.  
The number of collisions and derailments spiked from 13,990 in 1916 to 19,435 in 
1917. Then the numbers continued to rise in 1918 to 24,695, and in 1919 to 25
and finally topped out in 1920 at 36,313 collisions and derailments.
182
  
In addition, living conditions for the road crews were getting worse.  The 
maintenance- of way workers and the signalmen frequently lived in converted 
boxcars that were no longer suitable for freight.  They traveled up and down the lines 
on mostly overnight runs, but in emergencies, they could be on the road for weeks.  
One type of camp car had ten beds, three sinks, and three showers.  According to 
Harvey H. Park, signalman and Lodge General Chairman from 1971?1994, the cars
were so dilapidated that ?if it snowed over the weekend, we had to scrape the snow 
off the beds before we could go to bed.?  By the 1920s, when good labor was scarce, 
some railroads started to improve living conditions in work camps and camp cars to 
attract ?a better class of workers.?
183
 
 
182
 Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails, Appendix 2, Table A2.6, p. 322. 
180
 Ibid, p. 89. 
181
 Dixon, ?The Railroad Situation,? p. 14.  
183
 Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Personnel Management on the Railroads, (New York, Simmons-
Boardman Publishing Co., 1925), p. 125?126; BRS, 100th Anniversary Video, ?A Century of  
Service;? Cottrell, The Railroader, p. 52. 
 118 
 
 
McAdoo arranged for Helt to appear before the federal Railroad Wage and 
Working Conditions Commission where Helt presented his case and began 
strength BRS 
?
he 
rked 
 
skills 
on-
supervisory support, be on duty 24 hours a day, and be responsible for the protection 
of the public and the property of the railroad.  Signal foremen also had to have a 
working knowledge of train operations on a par with those who worked in the 
operations unions, such as the dispatchers, tower operators, and enginemen.  This 
                                                
ening relationships with other railroad unions.  At the same time, the 
established itself as a separate union unto itself, despite ongoing jurisdictional battles 
with other unions. 
Entering into a new era for the BRS in national politics, Helt prepared and 
presented his presentation to the commission?also called the Lane Commission
alone, without staff. 
 
 At that time, Lyon said that the BRS ?received recognition at 
the highest levels of government.?
184
  Helt also went before the Railroad War 
Commission, Feb. 4 and 5, 1918, where he presented the need for proper 
classification of signalmen positions with wages appropriate for a skilled craftsman.  
There, he explained the evolution of the job of signalman, which corresponded to t
many innovations in signaling technology.  He also explained that signalmen wo
for an entirely separate department, much like those working for the telegraphy or the
maintenance of way departments.  Their work as composite mechanics involved 
used by other trades; however, it was the combination of skills used in signal work 
that distinguished them from other craft unions.  In addition, unlike some other n
ops and laborers, the signalmen had to work independently, make decisions without 
 
 18, 
?19, 1919, p. 158; Lyon, The First 75, p. 63?64. 
184
 Daniel Helt, BRS President, Statement before Board of Wages and Working Conditions, March
1918, Twelfth Annual and Fourteenth Regular Session of the BRSA, Kansas City, bound typescript 
volume dated July 14
 119 
 
 
knowledge was necessary in making daily decisions during routine maintenance of 
the signal systems. 
185
  
Despite Helt?s success before federal labor boards, the U.S. Railroad 
Administration (USRA) delayed negotiation with all national wage agreements until 
they could settle all of the jurisdictional disputes.  The BRS, as the other railroad 
unions had done, pressed for a national agreement for the working conditions and 
wages of the signal department employees.   Helt appeared before the Board of 
Wages and Working Conditions to try to obtain classifications of the many classes of 
maintainers, signalmen, helpers, and signal foremen separate from other non-ops 
employees,   The carriers wanted to classify the foremen as management, so they 
would be paid a straight salary and would not come under the eight-hour day plus 
ove
hou
overtim  pay, which meant some of their men were making more money in a month 
 inequities in wages and appeared in March before the Labor 
Board. 
he  
                                                
rtime ruling of the USRA.  Foremen complained that they were on standby 24 
rs a day, even when they were not at work.  In addition, foremen did not get 
e
than they were.  On Jan. 27, 1919, the BRS filed a brief with the Director of the 
Division of Labor over
 In the brief, they said if BRS were not recognized and the Board did not 
address the inequities in wages, the BRS would call a strike.  Helt held talks with t
 
t, Statement at the Railroad War Commission, Washington D.C, the 
185
 Daniel Helt, BRS Presiden
Eleventh Annual and Thirteenth Regular Session of The BRSA Convention, Baltimore, MD, June 10-
13, 1918, p. 36. 
 120 
 
 
 
union?s General Chairmen from the sixty-three major railroad systems in Washing
on March 6,
Figu
inte
and variety of their skills maintainers needed to acquire is demonstrated in the complexity of 
Railroad Signalmen. 
re 21 The ?A? Tower, Pennsylvania Railroad, NYC. Maintaining these all electric 
rlocking systems put the BRS members in jursidictional conflicts with the IBEW. The level 
these traffic management systems. No date, File Photo, The Archives of the Brotherhood of 
ton 
 1919.
 186
 
 
                                                
Helt met with the signal engineers and then with the AF of L, RED to hammer 
out the provisions of the agreement.
187
  This heated discussion with RED officers 
shed light on why the jurisdictional battles were beyond merely acquiring more dues-
paying members. 
William Hannon, representing the Railway Employees Department, tried to
convince Helt that recognizing the BRS charter would further divide railroad 
 
p.154. 
es of the meeting held with the shop crafts, of the Railway Employment Department and the 
ood of Railroad Signalmen, pp. 169?183. 
186
 Resolution No. 28, 
187
 Minut
Brotherh
 121 
 
 
employees into smaller unions, which he said was what the carriers wanted.  In 
addition, like the BRS, the 7,000 member International Association of Carmen (IAC)
wanted to be recognized by the USRA.   If the RED allowed the BRS to have an AF 
of L charter and be recognized by the USRA, then RED would have to do the sam
for the IAC, which would further fractionalize union?s power base.  Yet Hannon?s
most compelling argument was that the other craft unions were organized along the 
shop crafts they performed in sheet metal work, blacksmithing, electrical work, 
plumbing, and pipefitting, carpentry, and machine work.  These shop craft unions had 
been established first. The work of signalmen, on the other hand, was defined by 
industrial job classifications and not by crafts lines, which meant that the BRS 
encroached on those unions? jurisdictions already established.
 
e 
 
nd what 
 the BRS 
RED. Helt quoted O. L. Wharton, the past president of RED, as 
saying,
one 
y 
                                                
188
  
Hannon asked Helt if the BRS ever applied for affiliation with RED a
was the outcome?  He replied McNulty of the IBEW vehemently opposed
affiliation with 
 ?Now these damn Signalmen, they will get into the organization that they 
belong.?
189
 
?I only need to give you the other side of the question and say?damn any
that will force us to lose our identity,? Helt said,   ?Our convention represents sevent
percent of all signal employees and is the outcome of their declaration [to be 
recognized as a skilled craft and be represented by the BRS].?
190
 
Cone interjected that signalmen and maintainers are unlike other industry 
workers, in that they were spread thinly along the railroad lines.  They have to 
 
188
 Ibid, pp. 169?183. 
189
 Ibid. 
190
 Ibid. 
 122 
 
 
perform all five classes of work and to say that one union has jurisdiction over 
signal department employees were hard to enforce.  He e
some 
xplained, for example, that 
there w
t has not 
.  The 
 
qualizes 
ans.
191
 
an 
es 
o the railroads and they would get rid of him.  
Helt sa ane Commission and the 
Railroad Administration Director of the Railroads.  Upon investigation, Helt said, the 
                                    
ere no more than ten maintainers working on one territory and ?the next man 
is forty miles away, but that man has to perform five classes of work in his day?s 
work.?  There are four or five classes of work [that] are required to maintain any 
given signal.  The signalman cannot wait for a blacksmith or a sheet metal worker to 
come and do the work for him.  He is required to do it himself.  Managemen
the time, money, or inclination to send out a blacksmith to do a few hours work
managers expect signalmen to handle the work necessary to keep signals maintained,
especially in emergency situations. Some days he does some classes of work more 
than others, and other days he performs the other classes of work and this ?e
it.? To follow the IBEW?s argument, Cone said, as signalmen are composite 
mechanics, then the blacksmiths have as much right to jurisdiction as the 
electrici
Helt added, those sitting on the federal boards have little knowledge about 
what signal work is, as do representatives of RED. ?I question whether there is a m
here without signal experience that can speak on our position five minutes under 
questioning ... the greatest trouble we have, (is) men not familiar with the duties we 
perform.?  If a maintainer above the grade of helper couldn?t perform all five class
of work, he would be of little value t
id that he had to explain this to members of the L
             
191
 Ibid. 
 123 
 
 
Directo
was a s
the 
seven 
 
ld 
d craft 
ailroads returned to the private sector.  The unions needed to be 
establis
ut 
ad 
?What would you do then?? asked Hannon. 
195
 
                                                
r General McAdoo recommended, ?Signalmen shall receive a separate 
proposition because of the character of [their] work.?
192
 
Helt said, unless the government agreed to the national wage adjustment the 
BRS proposed, it would go on strike.  Hannon said, ?Striking against the government 
erious matter.?  Helt agreed but said that the main reason the national wage 
agreement was being held up was because of the combined efforts of some member 
unions of RED to block recognition of the BRS.  ?We have been before the 
government and exhausted every means ? as stated before, 90 percent of the 
signalmen realize that it is simply because of the combined efforts or protests of 
Railway Employees Department.?
193
  Helt said they had organized on ninety-
railroads and at forty-one union terminals and have 90 percent of the signal
department employees eligible to join.  He asserted that the BRS had 15,000 members 
and with four organizers in the field, it could expect another 1,000 a month wou
join.
194
 
As with the other unions, the BRS needed to gain recognition as a skille
union before the r
hed, or risked being broken up by management once they had the chance.  
Some RED officials tried to find ways to bring the BRS into their organization, b
their proposals were rejected.  The last proposal was to have the [signal] railro
department come under the IBEW.  
 
192
 Ibid. 
193
 Ibid. 
194
 Ibid. 
195
 Ibid. 
 124 
 
 
Helt responded, ?Would anyone be autocratic enough to think they h
power to say where our men shall classify themselves, and we can classify ourselves 
where we choose, and we choose to classify ourselves as Signalmen, laying down our 
rules and abiding by them and no one can assign us to any particular organization.?
ad the 
6
 
senting signal department 
employees, and that classes of signalmen, maintainers, and foremen would be 
standardized.
197
  
The national wage agreement with the BRS was signed on January 22, 1920, 
and it finally gave the BRS official national representation of signal department 
employees on the sixty-three major railroads under the control of the federal 
government, which was virtually the entire industry.  
19
The meeting ended without a compromise or a solution.  After further debate 
with RED in the weeks that followed, an agreement on the majority of provisions 
with the other railroad unions and the agreement was sent to the U.S. Railroad 
Administration for approval.  However, Helt conceded on one provision to the 
IBEW?any signalmen performing 50 percent or more of his time on ?anything 
electrical? would come under the jurisdiction of the electrician?s union. The 
agreement was approved, and it helped to separate the signalmen from the 
maintenance-of-way laborers, the clerks, and the other craft unions.  The BRS also 
sent its resolution to the Director General of Railroads that it would strike if its 
members were not recognized as a legitimate union, repre
198
                                                 
196
 Ibid. 
197
 Resolution No. 28, p.154. 
rhood of Railroad Signalmen of America; Anon Lyon, The First 75, p. 124. 
198
 ?Minutes of the Thirteen Annual Convention, Kansas City,? the 25th Anniversary Celebration, 
Brothe
 125 
 
 
In the months following the meetings with the Wages and Working 
Conditions Commission, Helt secured through negotiations favorable decisions over 
pay equity for several classes of signalmen, correct classification of the signalman a
separate from other department employees, and in many cases back pay.  The ef
of this, however, ?was more psychological than material? as the war had ended, and 
the agreement lasted only a few months.
s 
fect 
 
al 
 
 
ignalmen?s Journal.
200
 
With Federal Recognition Comes New Prosperity  
Labor benefited greatly from the McAdoo administration. On Feb. 21, 1918, 
McAdoo issued General Order No. 8, often referred by labor as ?the Magna Charta, 
the Bill of Rights, or the Emancipation Proclamation of Railroad Workers.?  Under 
this administration, employees had the right to choose whether to belong to a union.  
Union activists could not be discriminated against or fired, and the government 
                                                
199
  Still, Helt had placed the BRS in charge
of all negotiations concerning the signal department employees with the feder
government, the other unions, and the carriers.  Yet, the BRS would continue to have 
to fight with RED and the IBEW over the settlement agreement that gave partial 
jurisdiction of those signalmen performing fifty percent or more of their time doing
electrical work over to the IBEW.  ?It can be seen by this [settlement agreement] that
railroad labor has at last set up a cooperative plan in which we are given voice and 
vote on a par with other organizations.  This in itself is a splendid victory for our 
membership,? Helt wrote in the S
 
199
 ?Minutes of the Thirteen Annual Convention,?  the 25th Anniversary Celebration, Brotherhood of 
Railroad Signalmen of America, Floral Park, North Bergen, NJ, June 27, 1926; Lyon, The First 75, p. 
124. 
nal Agreement,? The Signalmen?s Journal1, (March 1920): p. 
200
 Daniel Helt, ?Concerning the Natio
11.  
 126 
 
 
prevented layoffs.  As a result of the order, in three months, twenty new lodges were 
added and the BRS improved its financial standing, reporting a zero balance.  In the 
followi
rship 
es-paying members 
and onl
ad 
n 
, 
eet 
t 
ovided wage increases, especially for the lower-
paid employees and made those increases retroactive to January 1, 1918. The 
government instituted the eight-hour day and overtime pay, and signalmen who did 
not go to other industries received ?substantial amounts of back pay as the result of 
General Order 27.  Back pay checks ranged from $1000 to $2000.?  Helt?s work in 
obtaining the eight-day rule and back pay created an enduring loyalty by the members 
to Helt, Cone, and the other Grand Lodge Officers.  This loyalty also helped the BRS 
  
ng twelve months, the BRS added 100 new lodges, and it was announced at 
the Kansas City Convention in 1919 that the membership had grown to 13,000 
members.  This membership can be compared with the union?s low point membe
during the 1913 convention at Detroit, when it had only 800 du
y 18 delegates voted in the election of Grand Lodge officers.
201
   Helt 
participated in joint formal and informal meetings with the ?standard national railro
labor organizations,? and Lyon credits Helt with the BRS finally gaining recognitio
among other labor unions.  The BRS was now financially able to open an office in 
Washington, D.C. on October 16, 1919, on the second floor of 728 13th Street, NW
and six months later, it moved into offices at the Machinist?s Building at Ninth Str
and Mt. Vernon Place.
202
  In addition, Helt?s title was changed to Grand Presiden
and Cone?s to Grand Vice President. 
General Order No. 8 also pr
                                               
201
 Lyon, The First 75, pp. 164?165.  
202
 Ibid, p. 66. 
 127 
 
 
endure the ongoing jurisdictional war with the IBEW and the loss of jobs during th
Great Depression of the 1930s.
e 
ds 
 
.
204
  As 
riod 
The Great Depression Nearly Bankrupts the BRS  
As with all power struggles between labor and management, the financial 
health of the carriers and of the country influenced decisions that degraded employee 
working conditions during the 1929 Depression.  With railroads struggling to remain 
solvent, labor lost what political power they gained after World War I. In order to 
maintain what little power they had, the signalmen had to keep members employed 
                                                
203
 
In his time in Washington, Helt was able to educate influential groups within 
the government about the responsibilities of the signal department employees in 
providing efficient railroad operations and public safety and that they should be 
thought of as a separate and skilled craft within the railroads.  
His work here also improved relations with the other railroad brotherhoo
and with other unions outside the railroad industry.  Before 1918, non-operational 
brotherhoods were excluded from participating on issues with the train service, or 
operational, unions, who through their shared interests had formed an elite, political 
federation.  Now the chaotic wartime conditions helped bring together the railroad
unions, despite their many disagreements, to fight for their common goals
Lyon explained, ?Helt?s energy and dynamic personality, without doubt, put our 
organization in the forefront of the general railway labor movement during the pe
of federal control of railroads.? 
205
 
 
t 75 p. 63. 
203
 Lyon, The First 75, pp. 65?70 
204
 Helt, Statement at the Railroad War Commission, p. 36. 
205
 Lyon, The Firs
 128 
 
 
and enrolled in the union.  At the 1932 convention held in Chicago, Helt said the 
condition of the BRS was healthy but gave an impassioned speech on why the union?s 
situatio rst 
oke of the 
ere 
e 
e 
 increase their purchasing power and 
employ
 
 
men on their roles without paying union dues and to give those on short time a break 
                                                
n changed so drastically.  ?We were unprepared for the ?shock? of the wo
depression the world has ?experienced probably in the last century.? He sp
suffering of the unemployed and those members getting by working short time?
working only two to four days a week with reduced wages.  He estimated that ?25 
million people in the United States were suffering and destitute, and another 25 
million were living a bare existence.?  He said that he and the members of RED w
?groping for solutions.? They, with the help of Attorney Donald Richberg, put befor
Congress a bill to create a corporate organization called the ?United States Exchang
Corporation, which would ?provide emergency funding facilities for unemployed 
workers, to relieve their distress, to
ment.?  The bill proposed that it would be financed by a $500 million fund 
from the Treasury Department. The bill never passed, but many of its proposals 
became part of President Roosevelt?s Blue Eagle Recovery Program and the National 
Relief Administration, which Richberg helped create and administer.
206
  Layoffs, low
traffic volume, and bank foreclosures all hurt union?s growth and financial standing, 
but they continued to pay off their loans and debt despite having fewer members and 
those members working shorter workweeks.  The BRS voted to keep unemployed
 
  addressing the Sixth Biennial  and the Twenty-First Regular 
, 1932, p.7?8; Lyon, The 
206
Daniel Helt, BRS President,
Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 15?19
First 75,  p. 121. 
 129 
 
 
on dues with the hopes that the depression would lift and they could resume their 
position as representatives of signal department employees.
207
  
At the same time, the railroads were trying to keep up payments on thei
mounting bond debt and cut w
r 
ages as a means to stay in business, which 
Hoogen
, and 
 
 
f hundreds of thousands of workers.?
209
  The membership of the 
BRS fe
boom blames the ICC.  He said that the Transportation Act had failed, 
because the ICC failed to develop a national transportation plan, check abuses, and 
control the transportation systems. It was given the task to ?plan, shape, innovate
act, but it continued merely to reflect power and respond to pressure from other 
sources.?  Despite the fact that railroads had grown and improved service, they did 
not recover from the Great Depression because the ICC did not make the railroads 
reduce their bond debt and force them ?to consolidate, as Congress wanted, into a few
strong competing rail systems.?
208
 
Track departments were paying employees only ten to fifteen cents an hour, 
while skilled employees, including the signalmen, were paid less than eighty cents an
hour.  Worse still was that they did not have a guaranteed workweek, which dropped 
to just two to four days a week. ?The industry was paying interest to its bondholders 
out of the life blood o
ll from nearly 19,000 in December 1929 to its lowest point in June 1933 since 
1913, with only a little over 10,000 members.  The BRS would never regain the 
                                                 
207
 Lyon, The first 75, p. 92.   
208
 Hoogenboom,  A History of the ICC: From Panacea to Palliative,  p. 118 
2.   
209
 Lyon, The first 75, p. 9
 130 
 
 
number of members it had in 1929. 
210
 Lyon, as acting Grand President, said that 
adding the 300?400 signal department employees, including those on the smaller  
railroads and terminals would probably raise the number of signal department 
employees above 12,000.
211
  
The BRS faced financial disaster in 1933.  Grand Secretary-Treasurer Austin
reported that some local lodges were unable to pay the
 
ir per capita taxes (a portion of 
the lodge members dues used to support the Grand Lodge).  The BRS roles had 
declined to about just over 10,000 members?down from just fewer than 19,000 in 
December 1929?during the Depression because of the short work weeks and layoffs 
that impoverished the workers.  Moreover, seasonal hiring practices left signalmen 
unemployed for long periods every year.  By 1936, there were only about 7,000 dues 
paying members in the union. Lyon credits the work, often unpaid, of local lodge 
officers as what held the union together throughout ?this catastrophe.?  Lyon, during 
this period, helped hold lodges together by issuing mimeographed bulletins to local 
officers, giving them up-to-date information on social and political activities.  These 
were not widely distributed to the membership but were mostly for keeping the lodge 
officers informed.  
Helt reported in 1934 that the low point of the Depression had been reached in 
1933, as Roosevelt?s New Deal reforms were beginning to work.  He gave a forty-
page report on May 1, 1934, about their success in terminating the wage reduction 
program that had been put in place Feb. 1, 1932.  There was hope that the Railway 
                                                
212
 
210
 Lyon, A.E. Efforts to Secure Passage of the Signal Inspection Bill. Report of the Acting Grand 
President. The Eighth Biennial and Twenty-third Regular Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound 
typescript volume dated Aug. 16,-19, 1936, p. 4. 
7. 
t 75, p. 142 
211
 Ibid, pp. 4?
212
 Lyon, Firs
 131 
 
 
Labor A
e combined efforts of the 
 by Roosevelt.  The 
was starting to improve 
Exhausted, Daniel Helt Steps Down 
At the 1934 convention, Helt surprised the delegates with his announcement 
that ?he wanted to be relieved of his presidency? and named Lyon as acting president 
in his place.  Lyon said he had served as assistant to the President for the last seven of 
Helt?s seventeen-year tenure. Now Helt, only 52 years old, w
fighting for skilled craft union status and the right to represen
employees.  Helt proposed he be granted a lesser role in the brotherhood and was 
named vice president, representing the BRS on the National Railroad (way) 
Adjustment Board.  The BRS granted him a two-year leave of absence from the 
presidency and named Lyon as president temporarily.   Helt was exhausted both 
mentally and  physically and was through leading the BRS.  He would remain as vice 
president and member of the adjustment board until he retired in 1948.
214
  
ct would better enable the BRS to represent its members and would help 
those secure improvements in wages and working conditions and living standards.  In 
addition, the first railroad pension law written under th
Railway Labor Executives? Association (RLEA) was signed
situation of short-time work schedules and unemployment 
and membership in the BRS was increasing again.
213
 
as ?burned out? from 
t signal department 
                                                 
213
 Ibid, 123. 
214
 Ibid, 128. 
 132 
 
 
At the 22nd regular convention at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago in 
August 1934, there was considerable improvement in the state of the BRS made sin
the last convention two years ago.  ?FDR?s New Deal 
created many programs to relieve the distress of the people 
and to rescue the business establishments from their own  
mistakes,? said Lyon.  He believed that the worst of the 
depression was over.  The RLEA was finally established, 
with Lyon as founding member, and it ?exercised a great 
deal of cooperation and created a working relationship 
which had been unknown in previous years.?  He credits 
the success of the cooperative efforts of the RLEA in 
overhauling the 1926 Railway Labor Act through 
amendments that replaced the ineffective U.S. Board of 
ce 
Mediation with the National Mediation Board.  The Board, which consisted of three 
men provided methods for obtaining official certification for unions as bargaining 
agents for employee groups; they outlawed company unions and yellow dog 
employment contracts, and established the National Railroad Adjustment Board, a 
quasi-governmental agency for the adjudication of disputes between labor and the 
railroads. The RLEA was able to get Congress to enact a national industry-wide 
pension system for the railroad employees.  
Lyon presented a plan to create a federation of non-operating unions to share 
Figure 22 Anon Lyon, BRS 
1956 when he went to wo
Photo 
book, The
President from 1935 until 
rk 
for the RLEA fulltime. 
from Anon Lyon's 
 First 75, p. 136. 
215
one headquarters, a statistical bureau, and other cost-saving measures.  Those unions 
                                                 
215
 Lyon, A. E. Lyon, ?The Beginning of a New Era,? Review of my Brotherhood Career (1919?1945) 
and the History of the Brotherhood, Red loose leaf binder, The Archives of the BRS, Front Royal, 
Virginia. 
 133 
 
 
were Railway Employees Department of AF of L, Maintenance of Way workers, 
Signalmen, Telegraphers, Clerks, and Dispatchers.  This would also increase th
financial standing and increase their power within the railroads.
eir 
 
er 
 
Jurisdictional Battles with the IBEW Define the BRS  
What delayed passage of the national wage agreement and recognition for the 
BRS during World War I were the ongoing jurisdictional disputes with the IBEW.  
The disputes would continue to play out over the next twenty-six years.  Even after a 
settlement between the two unions was signed, IBEW President Jim Noonan 
vehemently railed against the BRS in hopes of swaying some signalmen away from 
their union.  In one pamphlet entitled A True Insight Into the Signal Situation, 
                                                
216
  In a letter from
ORT officers, they were in favor of an amalgamation of the two unions as there is 
often confusion about assignments and classifications, as their jobs overlap.  They 
had already done this with the tower operators.
217
  The BRS joined with the oth
associated railway labor unions to get a number of improvements in their members? 
quality of life and working conditions.  A pension system, fought for during Helt?s 
administration, was nullified by a Supreme Court ruling, but was modified and 
approved thanks to as many as thirty-three meetings of the RLEA to work out the
details.  Much of the first two years of Lyon?s administration went to addressing 
poorly worded or overly generalized provisions of prior agreements in an effort to 
close loopholes management found to renege on their agreements. 
 
5. 
They completed the basic agreement on March 28, 1935, Minutes of the GEC, bound typewritten 
216
 Grand Executive Council, Minutes of the GEC, 10 a.m. meeting, bound typewritten volume dated 
March 21, 1935, p. 4. 
217
 Grand Executive Council, ?Memorandum prepared by the board of Directors of the Order of 
Railroad Telegraphers, regarding proposed Amalgamation of the ORT and the BRS, March, 26, 193
volume dated, March 28, 1935, pp. 4?11. 
 134 
 
 
Noonan said, for the first twenty-five months of federal control, the BRS could not 
get recognized and had no standing with the Railroad Administration.  Before 
February 1920, the BRS was not recognized by the U.S. Railroad Administration 
until just a few days before control was returned to the private sector on March 1, 
1920. I
eat 
composite mechanics.? (7) The IBEW procured a three cents higher wage increase for 
 
n the recruitment pamphlet, Noonan had argued that (1) the AF of L organized 
along craft and trade lines and not under industrial forms of organization.  The 
signalman position was an industrial form in an organization and not a single craft or 
skill.  (2) Because signalmen worked 24 hours, 7-day-a -week shifts, and worked in 
isolated areas of only one or two workers, or in gangs when constructing signal 
systems, they cannot be represented by a local union.  They need the benefit of a 
larger craft union because the BRS was so small that it couldn?t ?keep a man on the 
road to stay in contact with all its members.?  (3) The six craft shop unions should 
absorb the signalmen positions entirely.  (4) The BRS was too small and would def
labor by dividing labor organizations in the eyes of railroad management, ?the 
common enemy.?  (5) The IBEW had over 150,000 members with 1,312 local unions, 
compared to the BRS 10,000 members.  (6) ?IBEW members can take their [union] 
cards and work in other industries, [members of the] BRS are strictly railroad 
its members over BRS members? rate.
218
 
In order to represent the signalmen before the federal labor boards at the end 
of World War I, the BRS Grand Lodge Officers first had to settle jurisdictional 
problems with the IBEW. Helt eventually had to sign the settlement agreement, which
Lyon said was untenable and unworkable, and yet signing it was necessary to find 
                                                 
218
 IBEW, A True Insight into the Signal Situation, Pamphlet. 
 135 
 
 
resolution for the national wage agreement. Noonan?s settlement agreement 
the IBEW and the BRS stated that any signa
between 
lmen who for 50 percent or more of his 
time pe e 
 
loyees 
enter th ts 
 
 
 
rformed any kind of electrical work would come under the jurisdiction of th
IBEW.
219
  
Jurisdictional battles between the IBEW and the BRS moved into the hearing 
rooms of the United States Railroad Labor Board in the early 1920s.  After hearing 
testimony, for example, over the classification and assignment of J. W. Hickey, to the
Calumet River Drawbridge and listing in detail his work assignments, a decision was 
issued that Hickey?s work all falls under the duties of the signal department, that 
signal work is a unique form of work that while it consists of electrical work and 
other skills. ??it is work peculiar to railroad signaling. Signal department emp
e department as helpers and rise up within the department and are fitted to i
service.?  The board stated, the signal department ?is an established branch of the
railroad service, in most cases it is separate and distinct from any other department 
because of the peculiarities of the service.?  Signalmen?s duties are different from any
other class on the railroads.   ?The carrier supports the BRS claim in this case, saying
that electrical work is relatively new to the service and much of the work is done 
                                                 
219
 The agreement between the BRS and the IBEW states: All work pertaining to maintenance a
repair of electric, electro-pneumatic, electro-gas, electro- mechanical or mechanical signals, 
interlockings, interlocked switches, derails or railroad crossing gates, train staffs, automatic t
or controls, highway crossing alarms or signals, and all other signal appliances maintained an
by the regular signal department forces under the supervision of the signal engine
nd 
rain stops 
d repaired 
er. This shall include 
e 
iths, 
 
ted 
 EW, and D. W. Helt, BRSA, IBEW, A True Insight into the 
all composite mechanics, their helpers, and apprentices, who hold regularly assigned positions in th
signal department; and shall not be construed to include electricians, linemen, machinists, blacksm
sheet metal workers, and carpenters, or signalmen who for fifty percent of more of their time perform
work as defined in Article 140 and 141 of Shop Crafts National Agreement, under the date of 
September 20, 1919, or other craftsmen who for the performance of their craft work may be recrui
from other departments or outside industries, for the purpose of constructing new sections of Signal 
Appliances. Signed Jas. P. Noonan, IB
Signal Situation, pamphlet. 
 136 
 
 
mechanically, and therefore Hickey should be classified not as an electrical 
worker.?
220
 
The  Labor Board went on to say that to rule in favor of the IBEW ?w
without a doubt disrupt the signalmen?s organization, as well as destroy establish
and we
ould 
ed 
ll-organized practices that have grown up in the railroad service performed by 
the emp es in 
s 
efore the 
se 
udiated the settlement, denying that he ever 
signed 
 
loyee involved in this particular dispute and in accordance with the rul
effect.?  The board ruled against the IBEW and went on to say that an employee ha
the right to choose whatever representatives he wanted.  Similar cases went b
Labor Board with similar results.  The carriers supported the BRS claims over tho
of the IBEW; the IBEW said the reason for the carrier?s support for the BRS was that 
the carriers think they can wield more power over the smaller organization.
221
 
After the national wage agreements were secured and after several defeats 
before the Labor Board, Noonan rep
the settlement and that his signature was forged.  Earlier, Noonan said he 
signed the agreement for the benefit of the Director General of Railroads because he 
had refused to sign any agreement that would give jurisdiction of electrical work on 
signals could be performed by electricians over to the BRS.
222
  His repudiation of the
                                                 
men
problems of t
220
Argu ts and challenges to the Noonan ? Helt?s settlement agreement was reflective of the 
he agreement, The Signalmen?s Journal 9, ?Response to IBEW Signal Situation, 
Correspondence Between President Helt and President Green, of the A F of L, on the IBEW. 
Controversy, (Jan. 1928): pp. 28?35; Decision No. 1091 (Docket 358) Railways Employees 
Department AF of L (Federated Shop Crafts) vs. New York Central Railroad Company The 
Proceedings of the United States Railroad Labor Board, Chicago,  July 6, 1922. 
221
 Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Clarifying the Signal Situation, Response to IBEW signal 
situation arguments as played out in the proceedings of the United States Railroad Labor Board, 
2.; Decision no. 1091 (Docket 358) Railways Employees Department 
s. New York Central Railroad Company, United States Labor Board, 
phlet. 
pamphlet, Chicago, July 6, 192
AF of L (Federated Shop Crafts v
Chicago, July 6, 1922; United States Labor Board , Decision No. 1092  (Docket 1702), Railway 
Employees Department; A. F. of L., (Federation of Shop Crafts) vs. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe 
Railway Co., Chicago, July 6, 1922. 
222
 IBEW, A True Insight Into the Signal Situation, Pam
 137 
 
 
settlem
 
en.   In those cases, Lyon accused the IBEW of bribing and 
corrupt
ting 
mpt 
f 
tion and 
                                                
ent agreement canceled it, which the signalmen thought was unworkable 
anyway.  To begin with, the term electrical work never was adequately defined, and
Lyon said it would have taken a judge intimately familiar with the work of a 
signalman to decide where the line between signalman work and electrical work 
lay.
223
 
For years after, the IBEW continued to fight over jurisdiction and had 
succeeded to establish representation on a few small lines, taking in less than one-
hundred signalm
ing several local BRS officers in order to gain control of their locals.  The 
IBEW also fought jurisdictional battles with other unions, such as those represen
workers in elevator construction. Lyon found it interesting that IBEW did not atte
to organize the growing number of telephone, radio and public utility workers who 
had no trade union organization.
224
 
The attacks over jurisdiction continued. Helt spent much of his energies 
fighting the jurisdictional claims of the IBEW throughout the 1920s.  At every AF o
L convention, the electricians? union said the BRS was invading their jurisdic
called for censure or expulsion. This bickering took Helt away from important wage 
negotiations in 1927 that had to be handled by the vice presidents and his assistant, 
Lyon.
 225
   
 
223
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 114. 
of the 
. 
224
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 114-5. 
225
 Lyon, The First 75,  p. 128; ?The Election of Grand  President Helt and his nomination of A. E. 
Lyon as Acting Grand President,? the Seventh Biennial and Twenty-second Regular Convention of the 
BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 23, 1934 , p. 546?523, The Archives 
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Front Royal, VA
 138 
 
 
In 1928, through its ties with major construction and building trades, the 
IBEW acquired a decision that if the BRS did not comply with terms giving IBEW 
jurisdiction over a wide range of signalmen responsibilities, the AF of L would 
suspend the BRS charter.  In an eloquent speech before the 1928 BRS Convention in 
Chicag
as he 
f L 
ers 
 Lodge Officers would reaffirm their positions that signal 
departm
.?  
EW 
ion of 
The reason was because the IBEW had no collective bargaining rights or recognition 
o, William Green, president of the AF of L, asked the BRS delegates if there 
were some way they could find to meet with the terms of the decision.  Even 
spoke, Lyon was writing a resolution that essentially ?told the IBEW and the AF o
to get lost!?
226
  
The resolution stated that the AF of L decision would deprive BRS memb
of the collective bargaining rights and recognition they had already obtained.  It 
resolved that the Grand
ent work ?was a craft in itself and [those] signalmen had an undeniable right 
to maintain membership in their own organization without interference of the IBEW
The resolution went on to say that it refuses to surrender any members to the IB
and it accepts under protest any suspension of their charter rather than agree to the 
?impossible and illogical demands made upon us.?
227
  The resolution passed 
unanimously and was adopted without any dissent.
228
  Delegates had no intent
honoring the decision to become a second or third tier organization within the IBEW. 
with the railroads?its own members, many of whom worked in the carriers? shops 
did not have these rights on about three-fourths of the railroads.  The Grand 
                                                 
226
 William Green, President of AF of L, addressing BRS, the Fourth Biennial and Fourteenth Annual 
n President Helt 
Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 719?748. 
227
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 117; The Signalmen?s Journal 9, ?Correspondence betwee
and President Green, of the AF of L on the IBEW Controversy, (Jan. 1928): p. 28?35. 
228
 William Green, addressing BRSA, pp. 719?748. 
 139 
 
 
Executive Council sent Green a copy of Resolution No. 27, adopted in 1928, which 
outlined their ?attitude? that if the A F of L continued to suspend their charter, they 
would continue to solicit for membership only those employees who performed their 
class of work. The charter was suspended on Oct. 23, 1928.
229
   
t 
 the AF of L seal from their 
membe rter 
 
ffect 
                                                
Worn out both physically and mentally from the battles, Helt stepped down 
from his post with a surprise announcement at the 1934 Convention.  Helt?s 
nomination of Lyon, his assistant and prot?g?, for acting president passed, and he 
took a two-year leave to recuperate. Lyon was voted into the presidency at the nex
convention and Helt took a less strenuous position as Grand Vice President and 
continued to represent the BRS on the National Railroad Adjustment Board until his 
retirement in 1948.
230
  
In 1936, another dispute over construction jobs with the IBEW erupted on the 
New York Subway. An attorney was employed to represent the BRS.
231
  In August 
22, 1936, the GEC of the BRS decided to remove
rship cards.
232
  There were productive talks about reinstatement of the cha
in 1937; however, the GEC said that the AF of L should initiate any actions. No 
concessions would be made in this regard. Lyon and Cone went to meet with
Green.
233
  The charter remained suspended; however, Lyon said this had little e
 
t to the AF of L stating they 
ifth Biennial and Twentieth 
gular Convention of the BRSA Denver, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 18-23 1930, p.127. 
 Lyon, The First 75, p. 128; ?The Election of Grand President Helt and his nomination of A. E. Lyon 
as Acting Grand President,? p. 546?523. 
231
 General Executive Council., GEC decides to hire an attorney in jurisdictional dispute with the 
IBEW, Minutes of the Grand Executive Council, bound typewritten volume dated June 27, 1936.  
cil,  Lyon spoke about the possibility of reinstatement in the AF of L, 
 Council, bound typewritten volume dated July 3, 1937;Grand 
229
 Grand Executive Council, Docket No. 6, Resolution no. 27 will be sen
will continue to solicit for new  members in the signal departments, the F
Re
230
232
 Grand Executive Council, Resolution to remove ?AF of L? from the BRS seal, Minutes of the 
Grand Executive Council, bound typewritten volume dated August 22, 1936.  
233
 Grand Executive Coun
Minutes of the Grand Executive
 140 
 
 
with their standing among the other railroad unions, and the BRS continued to grow. 
Finally, an invitation to rejoin the ?House of Labor? went unopposed in 1946 without 
restrictions to its jurisdiction.  The BRS delegates voted to approve its affiliation with 
the AF of L and rejoined later that year.
234
 
The leadership of the BRS took the initiative to explore avenues that would 
ensure it would successfully become institutionalized.  They looked to what other 
unions did in regards to formalizing and organizing the BRS.  They took extra steps 
to charter and incorporate the BRS, which gave them exposure and status, which 
stimulated interest in signalmen from other lines. They initiated talks with other 
unions in attempts to consolidate and were successful in consolidating and developing 
linkages with signalmen in the northeastern United States.  They were careful from 
the beginning to position their union in terms of higher goals and to exclude language 
 
would take in negotiations and public relations.  
While the jurisdictional battles with the IBEW and other AF of L unions 
pushed Daniel Helt into semi-retirement for health reasons, the controversies that 
played out in front of mediation boards and wage commissions in the 1920s 
nevertheless helped define the duties of a signalman.  This in turn, defined the 
jurisdiction of the BRS and had it recognized as the representative of the signal 
department employees and as a separate skilled craft union.  
   
                                                                                                                                          
that inferred they organized solely to raise wages.  This would be the approach they
 
Executive Council, Lyon is to meet with  AF of L President William Green in Washington concerning 
re-affiliation with the AF of L, Minutes of the Grand Executive Council, bound typewritten volume 
dated Nov. 20, 1937.  . 
234
 Lyon, The First 75 , p. 117. 
 141 
 
 
 
Figure 23 Signalmen installed, maintained, and repaired complicated signal systems such as this 
photograph depicts. File photo noted only as Signal 029, no location or date given, BRS Archives, 
Front Royal, VA. 
 142 
 
 
Chapter 6: Conclusion, Expanding the Role of the BRS 
rked became consistently 
more complicated during the twentieth century.  Each innovation in train traffic 
manage  
 
ns, 
lled 
labor. W ent, they 
ork with 
 
tly are lobbying 
Congre
 and 
.  
approaching them, and the signal indications for the blocks ahead. 
235
 
                             
 
The job of signalmen and the signal systems they wo
ment increased their levels of skill, which subsequently propelled them into
new areas of public debate over railroad safety and expanded their role in labor 
politics.  
In the beginning, their job consisted mostly of greasing the rollers of the pipe
carriers, filling and lighting the oil lamps, and wiping the train soot of the lamp le
said Tim DePaepe, Researcher for the Grand Lodge of the BRS, Front Royal, 
Virginia.  For that reason, management did not consider the signalmen as ski
hen they began to work on the new labor-saving electronic equipm
saw themselves becoming a skilled craft union. Today, DePaepe said, they w
fiber optics and software-driven, digitally controlled signal systems.  They went from
working with DC current in the early twentieth century to motion detectors and 
algorithms to determine traffic flows, said DePaepe.  They curren
ss to adopt such safety innovations as Positive Train Control (PTC), which 
utilizes GPS systems not only to track train movements but to give train crews
dispatchers more information vital in the prevention of collisions and derailments
With PTC, engine crews can get the locations of other trains that are following or 
                    
 
235
 Tim DePaepe, Researcher for the Grand Lodge of the BRS, Front Royal, Virginia, phone interview
with author, Oct. 27, 1907. 
 143 
 
 
?[Members of the] BRS are known for their ability to adapt to new 
technology, said DePaepe.  ?Bring it on, we love the new stuff. However, it has to be 
proven to us that it will improve safety and be efficient.?
236
 
 
During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the BRS battled with
railroad management and ot
 
her labor organizations in private meetings and labor 
conven  the 
hich tried to take members away from the BRS.  This 
tension
k the 
r 
                                                
tions. While the pro-business politics and anti-union sentiments stymied
growth of the BRS, management undermined their positions as custodians of public 
safety and rail traffic efficiency by extending territories beyond what signalmen 
thought was safe.
237
  In addition, most managers outside the signal departments saw 
them as semi-skilled laborers on par with the maintenance of way laborers.  
To complicate matters, while the BRS was going through all of the 
jurisdictional controversies, its members continually had to work to prevent 
company-organized unions, w
 between labor unions and company unions went on until company unions 
became illegal by a 1934 revision of the Railroad Labor Act.
238
  
At the same time, other unions, primarily the IBEW, worked hard to bloc
BRS from gaining recognition after signal systems evolved from mechanical 
interlocking systems to a number of electronic systems.  These included electro-
mechanical, electro-pneumatic, and all electric interlockings that paved the way fo
 
ial and 
238
 Grand Executive Council Docket No. 48, Company Unions, p. 9, Minutes of the Grand Executive 
Council, bound typewritten volume dated May 2, 1934. 
236
 Ibid. 
237
 Gustave Malmsjo, ?Limitations of Maintainers? Territories,? Proceedings of the Fifth Bienn
Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 18?23, 
1930, p. 897. 
 144 
 
 
automatic train control, automatic signal systems, and by the 1930s, centralized train 
control.  The growing complexity of signal systems continually challenged signalmen
to broaden their skills in order to keep up with the many technological innovations,
which later gave them leverage in asking for recognition as a skilled craft u
the authority t
 
 
nion and 
o represent signal department employees in government, labor, and 
manage
rk 
rial job descriptions, not 
craft de  
 1800s in 
e 
 new industrial trade union movement in the early twentieth century. 
Signalm  
, 
s 
es, such as 
s 
ment negotiations.  
Similarly, their increasing skill levels kept them embroiled in ongoing 
jurisdictional conflicts with other unions and frustrated the BRS in its attempts to be 
recognized. As many as five unions in the AF of L claimed jurisdiction over the wo
of signal department employees. These five unions opposed the jurisdictional claims 
by the BRS because the union based their claims on indust
finitions.  Other unions reasoned that those men performing, for instance,
machine work should belong to the machinist union; carpenters should join the 
carpenters union, and so on.  
While the original unions were founded along craft lines during the
factory or shop locations, signalmen had an entirely different work situation and wer
part of the
en and maintainers, spread thinly over the lines, covered territories as long as
40 miles, which could contain many types of signal systems, highway crossing gates
safety appliances, and track-switching equipment.  To repair a faulty signal could 
mean performing any number of skills claimed by the other unions.  The railroad
refused to hire signalmen who would only perform specialized trad
electricians? work or blacksmithing.  Signalmen had to perform using all the skill
 145 
 
 
necessary to keep the trains running efficiently and safely through each territory.
this reason, signal work was a particularly different kind of work. 
 
In addition, signa
departments were unique organizations that were responsible for extended, si
system territories or large, highly complex switching yards, junctions, and 
terminals.
239
  
Signal technology changed so rapidly during the first thirty years of th
twentieth century that it was hard for outsiders to comprehend, much less dev
standards and rules to govern both working conditions and maintenance sched
The frustrations reflected in the commissioner reports of the Interstate Commerce 
Commission?s (ICC's) Block Signal and Train Control Board attest to the difficulties
created in trying to keep trains running safely on time.
240
  
In addition, BRS President Daniel Helt complained that few department
supervisors outside the signal departments, other railroad employees, or outside unio
representatives understood the work well enough to ?address the subject for more 
than five minutes.?
241
  The lack of understanding by people outside signal 
departments meant the BRS had to continually define itself and fight 
  For 
l 
gnal-
e 
elop, 
ules.  
 
 
n 
to maintain its 
identity
th the 
s, the 
.  
In defining their role within railroad institutions and in negotiations wi
federal government for the authority to represent signal department employee
Grand Lodge officers in the 1920s profited from the lessons they learned from the 
                                                 
239
 The use of the word ?particular? when describing signal work, J. W. Steliker, General Signal 
of the Santa Fe and  Southern Pacific Railroad, Oct. 3, 1926. 
240
 First Annual Report of the Block Signal and Train Control Board to the Interstate Commerce 
Commission, reprinted in The Signal Engineer 1, (Feb. 2. 1909):  p. 351. 
241
 Helt, Daniel, BRS President, The Shop Crafts of the Railway Employment Department of the 
Supervisor, in lecture and paper given at an education meeting in Stockton, Calif. to signal employees 
American Federation of Labor and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen,  pp. 169 ? 183.  
 
 146 
 
 
former leaders.  From its early meetings as a fraternal organization in 1901, the 
leadership of the original Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen of America took the 
initiative to explore avenues that would ensure the institutionalization of the 
organization.  Grand Lodge officers Detwiler and Judge had been careful from the 
beginning to position their union in terms of higher goals and to exclude langu
that inferred they organized solely to raise wages.  In addition, the founding 
committee also cited in its demands the changes in the signaling technology, 
age 
standar
his 
 
tion?s lawyers, they learned to take advantage of federal 
mediati al 
n 
 
ds for maintenance, and the amount of equipment the signalmen were 
responsible for as evidence of their skills and their importance to the industry.  T
evidence supported their demands for a specialized signal department separate from 
the maintenance of way workers, and their claim that signalmen needed training on 
the latest innovations.  The BRS officers made their appeal in a respectful and 
professional manner, but with the implied threat that if their demands were not met 
they could strike.  They made it clear that if they walked off the job, efficiency and 
public safety would suffer.  The BRS officers would use this approach in future 
negotiations with the federal government and other railroad unions.  
Because the BRS dealt with so many conflicts and disputes with other unions
and with the corpora
on boards in order to solidify its position as representatives of sign
department employees.  The BRS leadership learned from the conflicts how to gai
support and political leverage from ICC commissioners and the Director General of
the U.S. Railroad Administration, as well as from the other railroad unions, despite 
having only between 10,000 and 19,000 members.  Representing such a small portion 
 147 
 
 
of the million and a half railroad employees, before World War I, its officers quickly
learned to negotiate using reason and evidence to demonstrate its importance in the 
industry as the custodians of public safety and rail traffic efficiency.  The Grand 
Lodge officers did this whenever they made demands and represented themselves to 
their employers, other unions, and state and federal governments.  Other non-
operations unions were not as organized and aired their grievances in the press to 
further their demands or at times defeated their goals by walking out of negotiations. 
The leadership at the Grand Lodge of the BRS, under Helt and Cone, not to 
mention the many
 
 
 other lodge General Chairmen, was able to effectively court 
influen or 
ion 
ical 
n and wage adjustment boards.  The 
BRS w e 
on 
tial members of the community, state and federal governments, and other lab
unions in order to gain recognition and have some of its demands met.  Unlike other 
non-operations unions that were left out of negotiations held before federal mediat
boards during World War I, the BRS was able to gain access through Helt?s polit
skill and determination.  He went to the Director General of the Railroads to present 
his case and show support for the administration?s efforts.  From his singular efforts, 
the brotherhood gained access to federal mediatio
ould also gain the authority to represent signal department employees befor
these labor boards. 
Within the first two years after World War I, under a Republican 
administration, control of the railroads returned to private hands.  Under this pro-
business administration of President Warren G. Harding, many of the gains unions 
had made in wages, benefits, and working conditions were rolled back and unions lost 
control of their work situations when closed shops practices ceased.  President Wils
 148 
 
 
and the Democrats toward the end of his administration still advocated that workers 
should organize but feared radical unionism, and they ignored the AF of 
labor?s influence.  In the two years after World War I, the unions lost more than 1
million members.  Once again, private industry was in control, and labor had to have 
its grievances aired at an ineffectual Labor Board, created under the Transportation
Act.  The tripartite board of equal representation of industry, labor, and governmen
had authority to decide wages and working conditions and to resolve issues betwee
L, reducing 
.5 
 
t, 
n 
the car
ther 
il 
evelopment of The Labor 
Cooperative Educational & Publishing Society, which published Labor.  The BRS 
ong the original owners of this labor newspaper based in Washington D.C.  At 
riers and the employees.  Unions saw that the board was stacked two to one 
against labor.
242
 
Frustrated with the Labor Board, unions bypassed it and began negotiating 
directly with the carriers.  The twenty-one major railroad brotherhoods came toge
and formed the Railway Labor Executives? Association (RLEA), of which Grand 
President A. E. Lyon was a founding member and organizer.  Out of the chaotic 
World War I and post-War periods, the BRS had allied itself with the other twenty-
one major railroad unions, and Helt and Lyon would be members of the RLEA unt
they retired in 1948 and 1969, respectfully. 
As the BRS became more established after World War I, Helt?s affiliation 
with the other national brotherhoods resulted in many joint actions, such as 
participation in the Plumb Plan League of 1919?a failed attempt to keep the 
railroads under some form of Federal control?and the d
was am
, the same time, the BRS under Helt, and with his assistant and prot?g?, A. E. Lyon
                                                 
242
Melvin Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America, pp. 83?100. 
 149 
 
 
began p  
 Grand 
of 
service
 
rote and pushed through Congress was the 
Signal 
of 
ed carriers to publish their rules and standards for 
the installation evented carriers 
from removing 7, the ICC?s 
Safety Bureau lve hours of 
service inspect dition, there was 
a staff of attorn u of Safety had 
increas
244
                                                
ublication of the Signalmen?s Journal in 1920.  The BRS added an Education
Bureau within the Journal to provide technical information supplied by 
manufacturers and lecturers on electrical theory and application, as well as other 
facets of signal work.  In 1930, Lyon started a Statistical Bureau to supply the
Lodge officers with a wide range of data, among other things, wages and hours 
, accidents and information on the latest signal technologies. The Statistics 
Bureau would provide evidence for future state and federal legislative actions.
243
  
Winning the jurisdictional battles with the IBEW and going up against the 
railroads? corporate lawyers taught BRS leaders the political skills needed to go
before Congress and government agencies, and to write needed safety legislation.  
Among the bills the BRS members w
Inspection Act of 1937.  This law gave the ICC much needed authority to 
oversee and to demand, upon investigation, the installation, repair and maintenance 
all signal systems.  The law requir
, repair, and maintenance of signal systems; and pr
 signal systems without government approval.  In 193
grew to fifty-seven safety appliance inspectors and twe
ors, under a director and two assistant directors.  In ad
eys, engineers, and clerks.  Expenditures for the Burea
ed from $12,000 in 1901 to $966,000 in 1936.  
 
reau,? the Fifth Biennial and Twentieth 
 
 U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1937), pp. 117?
243
 Grand Executive Council, ?Docket No. 17, Statistical Bu
Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, bound typescript volumes dated Aug. 19-23, 1930, p. 129.
244
 The Bureau of Statistics of The Interstate Commerce Commission, The Interstate Commission 
Activities 1887?1937,  (Washington D.C.,
129. 
 150 
 
 
The law is still in use today as part of the Federal Railroad Administratio
standard operating procedures.  It remained a relevant piece of legislation becaus
unlike other safety laws enacted in the early twentieth century, it based its provisio
on standards of performance rather than on the requirement of contemporary 
technologies that became obsolete when better innovations took their place.
 245
 
 Working on industry and government labor boards and helping to establish
the RLEA, the leadership of the BRS earned a reputation as experts in arbitration
negotiation.  By placing themselves in crucial arbitration
n?s 
e 
ns 
 
 and 
s and by embracing a ?learn-
as-you-
In conclusion, the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and 
rchives at Cornell University gives one of the best descriptions of role signalmen 
lay in daily railroad operations: 
The railroad signal department performs the vital 
functions of expediting and controlling traffic while 
maintaining safe conditions. It represents one of the 
most responsible and sensitive units of the entire 
railroad system. Signalmen are directly involved with 
expanding the mileage of protected track and 
modernizing existing railroad plants. Their activities 
necessitate smooth coordination with other units of the 
system to [ensure] maximum safety and efficiency.
246
 
 
Few people understand what signalmen do or how trains move through rail 
systems without crashing into each other.  Train traffic safety goes unnoticed until 
go? policy, they gained expertise on union issues, thus cementing their 
position within labor and the railroad industry.  Their expertise gave the small union 
political clout within the industry.  
A
p
                                                 
245
 Ian Savage, The Economics of Railroad Safety, p. 42. 
246
 Introduction to Guide to the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, General Committee of
York Central Railroad (Lines West), 1909?1962, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation
and Archives, Cornell Univ
 the New 
 
ersity, 2002,  
ttp://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05182.html. h
 151 
 
 
something goes wrong.  The BRS rem d organization that 
continues to be the custodians of railroad safety and efficiency and continues to 
s as signal systems innovations change 
 
 to innovations in technology, the railroad?s 
ide contractors, and the changes in policy that 
s during the administrations of Presidents 
 and George W. Bush.  
, 
ains a little understoo
improve the working lives of their member
their work environments.  They continue to be the custodians of safety and railroad
efficiency, even as they lose members due
attempts at farming out work to outs
have negatively impacted labor union
Ronald Regan, George Bush Sr.,
In day-to-day operations, the signalmen?s importance to the railroads is a 
matter of who you talk too, CSX Maintainer Ed Mac said jokingly.  ?To train crews
we are heroes.  To the maintenance of way crews, we are just in the way.?
247
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
st be explained that Mac?s joke about how the maintenance of way workers see signalmen as 
in the way is part of the ongoing, interdepartmental rivalry that exists in any large institution. The 
gnalmen also share a term for the Maintenance of Way workers, calling them part of the 
nance in the Way Department. Both departments have to do their job, which sometimes means 
halting train movements. 
 
247
 It mu
si
Mainte
 152 
 
 
Appendix 
Abbreviations for Unions and Institutions 
AAR        The American Association of Railroads, a railroad industry association. 
AF of L   American Federation of Labor 
ATS    
f 
the Bro rica, but it was later changed to the 
Railroa lmen (BRS). 
Commi
IAM   
ICC    mmission 
ARA 
ATC        Automatic Train Control 
ASC        Automatic Signal Control 
    Automatic Train Stop 
BRS         The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen?originally the union called itsel
therhood of Railway Signalmen of Ame
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America, then changed to the Brotherhood of 
d Signa
GEC       The Grand Executive Council of the BRS, also referred to as the Executive 
ttee in convention minutes 
IAC        The International Association of Carmen  
    The International Association of Machinists  
IBEW     The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 
     The Interstate Commerce Co
PRR        The Pennsylvania Railroad 
RED        Railway Employees Division of the AF of L 
USRA      The United States Railroad Administration, which was replaced by the 
 
 153 
 
 
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Industr
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Books, Railroad Industry, and Engineering Manuals 
Adams em of Signaling on American Railroads, the 
Methods and Appliances Used in Manual and Block Signaling, also 
 
oad Gazette, 1901. 
1965.  
 Press, 2006. 
can Association of Railroads, 
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Brignan oad 
ple Who Made Them. Commissioned by the Union Switch 
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Brother al 
 
ne 27, 1926. 
Dixon, Frank H. ?The Railroad Situation, an
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Signals and the Peo
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th
Anniversary Celebration, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America, 
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, 
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Licht, W nth 
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901-
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June 1915, Plate A0101. 
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Commission Activities, 1887-1937. Washington D.C.: Superintendent of 
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Lavarack, Frederick C.   Locking; Being an elementary treatise on the mechanism
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conflicting switch
alter. Working for the Railroad, The Organization of Work in the Ninetee
Century. New Jersey: Princeton
Lyon, Anon E. The First 75: History of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen 1
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Pittsburg, PA, Sept. 9, 1912, pp. 1-2. Pamphlet. 
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Phillips, Edmund J. Railroad Operation and Railway Signaling, A Handbook of 
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mons-Boardman Publishing 
Corporation, 1942. 
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Savage ic 
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Signal 
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d 
s, 1970. 
Politics, 1840-1920.  England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 
Wright, Sedgwick N. Centralized Traffic Control, Bulletin 154. General Railway 
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ns by a 
Railroad Man.? The Washington Post, Dec. 24, 1904, p. A12;  
Boyden, Hanson. ?The Block System, what it is and why it failed last Sunday ? How 
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Chase, F. D. ?Signal Tower for Saxby & Farmer Machines?, The Signal Engineer, 2 
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 156 
 
 
Fagan, James O. Letter to the Editor. ?Safety First.? The New York Times, Feb. 8, 
1913, p. 12. Helt, Daniel. ?Concerning the National Agreement.? The 
Helt, Daniel, BRSA Grand President. Negotiations with the Railroad Employees 
eting held 
with the shop crafts of the Railway Employment Department of the American 
lmen. Kansas City, 
July 17, 1919, The Signalmen?s Journal 1, (Jan., 1920): pp. 3-14. 
--------- f Labor, Dec. 
23, 1927. Reprinted in the Signalmen?s Journal 9, (Jan. 1928): pp. 29 ? 35. 
--------- ?Concerning the National Agreement.? The Signalmen?s Journal 1, (March 
Train 
(October 2, 
1937): p. 469. 
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Patterson, W. J. Director of the Bureau of Safety, Interstate Commerce Commission. 
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 Railro
Railwa 0. ?More Signaling ? Greater Economy.? (Jan. 8, 1938): p. 26. 
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ailway Age 10. ?The Key to Further Progress lies in Personnel Policies.? (Dec. 19, 
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Department of the American Federation of Labor. Minutes of the me
Federation of Labor and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signa
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1920): p. 11.  
Interstate Commerce Commission. First Annual Report of the Block Signal and 
Control Board to the Interstate Commerce. Reprinted in The Signal Engineer 
1, (Feb. 2. 1909):  p. 351. 
--------. ?ICC Circular on Signal Inspection Law.? Railway Age, 103, 
r, James. ?Railway Signaling.? The
New York Times. Topic of the Times. ?Safety for Railway Passengers.? Ju
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Railway Age 127. (Sept. 24, 1949): pp. 50-52. 
of electric and Mechanical Interlocking Plants.? The Signal Engineer 2
ad Gazette 56. ?Block Signaling Progress.? (Jan. 2, 1914): p. 1. 
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 R
R
 157 
 
 
Railway Age 104. ?Accident Trend Upward.? (Jan. 8, 1938): p. 237.  
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7-8. 
Signalmen?s Journal 1. ?Memorandum of Agreement.? (March, 1920):  p. 8. 
 Signalmen?s Journal 9. ?Response to IBEW Signal Situation, Correspondence 
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The Signalmen?s Journal 16. ?Signal Schools.? (May 1935): p. 115. 
The Sig  installations in service 
on 38 roads.? (July 1935): p. 17.  
Splawn tion by the Interstate Commerce 
lic Utilities.? Annals of the 
American Academy of Political and Social Science 201(Jan. 1939): p. 158.  
Washin
Washington Post. Editorial. ?The Cheapness of Life.?  (Dec. 28, 1908): p. 6. 
Welch, General 
9): pp. 
 
 
 
 
Railway Age 104. ?CTC increases the capacity of single track on the PRR.? (Jan. 8, 
1938): p. 122. 
Railway Age 104. ?Train Control and Signal Statistics.? (Sept. 1938): 237.  
y Age 126. ?Signaling Construction.? (Jan. 8, 1
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to the Interstate Commerce Commission.? (Feb. 1909):  p. 53.   
Signal Engineer 2. Editorial. ?Combating the Collision.? (Jan. 1910): pp. 25
between President Helt and President Green, of the A
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512.   
 158 
 
 
Interviews  
DePaepe, Tim, Researcher for the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Front R
VA, phone interview with author, Oct. 27, 2007. 
oyal, 
Haley, Kelly, Communications Director for the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, 
th 
ations, 
08 
Interne ocumentaries 
chig
Front Royal Virginia, interviews, conversations, and correspondence wi
author, from Sept. 2007 through April 2008. 
Mac, Ed, CSX Maintainer, Hancock, West Virginia, phone interviews, convers
and interviews with author from October 2006 through March 20
Maniscalio, Tony, retired maintainer, Long Island Railroad, interviews and 
correspondence from March 2006 through March 2008.  
t Sources and D
Berry, Dale. Michigan's Internet Railroad History Museum. 
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Railroads/MichiganCentral/Mi
anCentralHomePage.htm,  
Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. 100th Anniversary Video, ?A Century of 
Service? Video.  BRSA, Front Royal, VA, 2001.  
 J. B.  Position Light Aspects (PRR) Chart. Early Railway Signals, July Calvert 25, 
2004, Revised August 15, 2004, 
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1962.  2002, 
Kheel C
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nformation Institute. Hours of Service Act of 1907, amended 1969 and 1976, 
Title 45 chapter 3, Sec. 16(4), 102 Stat. 635, related to signal system 
employees' hours of ser
Legal I
vice. See sections 21102, 21104 to 21107, and 21303 
of Title 49. Legal Information Institute, US Code Collection Cornell 
University Law School, 2008. 
http://www.thecre.com/fedlaw/legal12/uscode45-61to64b.htm. 
 
 
 
 159 
 
 
Government Publications and Documents 
Interstate Commerce Commission. Bureau of Statistics. Interstate Commerce 
 of 
---------
---------
Railways Employees Department, American Federation of Labor. Federated Shop 
cket 
U.S. Co
ilway Signal Systems: Hearing before the House 
Subcommittee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. 74th Congress, 2d. sess., 
 U.S. C
ployees and 
travelers on railroads by requiring common carriers engaged in interstate 
s, 
p, 
s 
the safety of Railroad Operation, (The Signal Inspection 
bill):Hearings before the Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce. 74th Cong., 
United yees Department. A.  F. of L., 
Federation of Shop Crafts vs. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co. 
 
Commission Activities, 1887-1937. Washington D.C.: Superintendent
Documents, March 1937. 
-. Safety Division. Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 33. 
Washington D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, Dec. 1919. 
.  Safety Division. Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission 34. 
Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Dec. 1920. 
Crafts vs. New York Central Railroad Company. Decision no. 1091 (Do
358). The Proceedings of the United States Railroad Labor Board, Chicago, 
July 6, 1922. 
Request for a State Charter by the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen of America. 
Granted by Decree of The Court, April 6, 1908. Court of Common Pleas, 
Blair County, PA., March 4, 1908. 
ngress. House. Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign 
Commerce, H.R. 2748, Ra
March 4, 1936. Washington D.C., United States Printing Office, 1936. 
ongress. Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce. 
S.1288, Railroad Block Systems: A bill to promote the safety of em
commerce to install, inspect, test, repair, and  maintain block-signal  system
interlocking, highway grade-crossing protective devices, automatic train sto
train  control, cab signal devices and other appliances, methods, and system
intended to promote 
1st session, July 9 and 10, 1935. Washington, D.C., ICC, United States Gov. 
Printing Office, 1935. 
States Railroad Labor Board. Railway Emplo
Decision No. 1092 (Docket 1702). The Proceedings of the United States 
Railroad Labor Board, Chicago, July 6, 1922.   
 
 160 
 
 
Primary Documents, The Archives of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Front
VA. 
an Federation of Labor. ?Senate Bill S. 29: To promote the safety of 
employees and travelers by requiring railroads engaged with the ICC to 
install, inspect, test, r
 
Royal, 
Americ
epair and maintain block signal systems, interlocking, 
automatic, train stop, train control, cab signal devices, and other appliances, 
f 
the AF of L, Denver, Colorado, bound typescript volumes dated Oct. 4-15, 
-------- 
he Law Reporting Printing 
Co., bound typescript volumes dated Nov. 9-21, 1914. 
Brother
nd Lodge of the BRSA, Altoona, PA, March 7, 1907.? BRSA 
will protest IBEW claim for jurisdiction over signal department employees in 
 
--------- Clarifying the Signal Situation. Responses to International Brotherhood of 
, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.  
bound typescript volume dated Aug. 23, 
1934, pp. 546?523. 
---------  
y Celebration, 
BRS of A, Floral Park, North Bergen, N.J., June, 27, 1926. BRSA History, 
--------- ion will be sent to the Lane Commission. (The 
Board of Wages and Working Conditions). If the BRSA is not recognized, 
escript volume dated July, 14--19, 1919, p.154. 
methods and systems intended to promote safety of railroad operation, passed 
both houses. Administration of law is under the ICC.? American Federation of 
Labor, Report of the Proceedings of the Fifty-seventh Annual Convention o
1937, p. 171.  
Report of the Proceedings, 34
th
 American Federation of Labor Annual 
Convention, Philadelphia, PA. Washington D.C.: T
hood of Railroad Signalmen of America. ?Resolution No. 6. Minutes of the 
Meeting at Gra
New York City to the AF of L.  The Eighth Annual and Tenth Regular Session
of the BRSA Convention, St. Thomas, Ontario, bound typescript volume dated 
June 14-17, 1915, p. 27.  
Electrical Workers? (IBEW) signal situation arguments. The proceedings of 
the United States Railroad Labor Board. BRSA pamphlet, Chicago, July 6, 
1922. BRSA History, 1901-1950
--------- The Election of Grand President Helt and his nomination of A. E. Lyon as 
Acting Grand President. The Seventh Biennial and Twenty-second Regular 
Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, 
 ?The First Annual and Third Regular Session of the Grand Lodge of the
BRS, Philadelphia, August 16, 17, 1908,? The 25
th
 Anniversar
1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box  
 ?Resolution No. 28. Resolut
they will strike.? The Twelfth Annual and Fourteenth Regular Convention of 
the BRSA, Chicago, bound typ
 
 161 
 
 
Detwiler, H.G. ?To begin the begin, The beginning of the Brotherhood of Railroad 
Signalmen of America ? in Altoona, Pa.? Handwritten account believed to be 
 
y of 
.C., 
ox. 
nd Executive 
Council, bound typewritten volume, 1920?1950. 
---------  3, 
und typewritten volume, 
1920?1950. 
--------- ispute 
with the International Brotherhood Electrical Workers. June 27, 1936. 
---------
nd Executive Council, bound typewritten volume, 1920?
1950. 
---------
 typescript volume 
dated Aug. 15?19, 1938, p. 205.  
---------
es of the Grand 
Executive Council, bound typewritten volume, 1920?1950. 
---------
 
20 ?
 
written by Detwiler (or possibly another member of the committee) who 
attended the second meeting with PRR Pennsylvania Railroad General 
Superintendent J. M. Wallis, 1902. BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA
Archive file box. 
Dunn, H.C., BRSA Grand Secretary Treasurer. Letter to Frank Morrison, Secretar
American Federation of Labor. Request AF of L affiliation. Washington D
Feb. 4, 1909. BRSA History, 1901?1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file b
Grand Executive Council of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen. Lyon is to meet 
with AF of L President William Green in Washington concerning re-
affiliation with the AF of L, Nov. 20, 1937. Minutes of the Gra
 Lyon spoke about the possibility of reinstatement in the AF of L, July
1937. Minutes of the Grand Executive Council, bo
 Grand Executive Council decides to hire an attorney in jurisdictional d
Minutes of the Grand Executive Council, bound typewritten volume, 1920?
1950. 
 Resolution to remove ?AF of L? from the BRSA seal, August 22, 1936. 
Minutes of the Gra
 ?Docket No. 96, Track Motor Car.? Officers Reports. The Twenty-Fourth 
Regular Convention of the BRSA, Toronto, Canada, bound
 Minutes, BRSA will hire an attorney to help with jurisdictional dispute with 
the IBEW on New York Subway. June 27, 1936. Minut
 ?Docket No. 17, Statistical Bureau,? the Fifth Biennial and Twentieth 
Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, bound typescript volumes dated
Aug. 19?23, 1930, p. 129. 
--------- Minutes of the Grand Executive Council, bound typewritten volume, 19
1950, dated March 21, 1935. 
 162 
 
 
 
 ?Memorandum prepared by the board of Directors of the Order of Railroa
Telegraphers, regarding proposed Amalgamation of the ORT and the BR
March, 26, 1935.? They completed the basic ag
--------- d 
S, 
reement on March 28, 1935. 
Minutes, bound typewritten volume dated July 3, 1937.  
---------
Ninth Biennial and the Twenty-Fourth Regular Convention of the BRSA, 
---------  
e Committee. The Fifth Biennial and Twentieth Regular Convention, 
Denver, bound typescript volume dated 18?23, 1930, p.839. 
--------- h 
SA. Denver, bound 
typescript volume dated Aug. 18?23, 1930. p. 30. 
---------
---------  
continue to solicit for new members in the signal departments.? Report of the 
?
Green, William, President of American Federation of Labor. Address. The Fourth 
Helt, Daniel, BRS President, ?Resolution No. 28,? resolved July 18, at the Twelfth 
--------- The Shop Crafts of the Railway Employment Department of the American 
1-
lorado, 
0. 
 ?Docket No.96, Docket 14, the 1936 Convention.? Officers Reports, the 
Toronto, Canada, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 17?20, 1938. 
 ?Docket No. 27, Limitations of Maintainers Territories.? Report of the Grand
Executiv
 "Docket No. 22, Education." Report of the Grand Executive Committee. Fift
Annual and Twelfth Regular Convention of the BR
 ?Docket No. 48, Company Unions.? Minutes of the Grand Executive 
Council, 1920 ?1950, bound typewritten volume dated, May 3, 1934,  
 ?Docket No. 6. Resolution no. 27 will be sent to the AF of L stating they will
Grand Executive Council. The Fifth Biennial and Twentieth Regular 
Convention of the BRSA, Denver, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 18
23, 1930, p. 127. 
Biennial and Fourteenth Annual Convention of the BRSA. Chicago, bound 
typescript volume dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 719?748. 
Annual and Fourteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Kansas City, MO, 
bound typescript volumes dated July, 18, 1919, p.154. 
Federation of Labor and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Meeting 
Minutes. Kansas City, July 17, 1919, pp. 169 ? 183. BRSA History, 190
1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.   
-------- ?Motor Car Accidents.? Opening Address, Forenoon Session, The Fifth 
Biennial and Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, Co
bound typescript volume dated Aug. 18?23, 1930, p. 19?2
 163 
 
 
Helt, Daniel, BRSA President, and Delegates M.C. Merritts, I.M. Fisher. Discussions 
on a motion to have the Interstate Commerce Commission define the 
maintainer?s responsibilities in regards to ATC. The Fourth Biennial and 
Nineteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript 
--------- , 
26, pp. 1-5. 
18, 
19, 
 
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. ?A True Insight into the Signal 
ties 
place publication 
date after 1921. BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.   
Lyon, A ort of the 
ird Regular 
Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 16,-
--------- Lodge Officer L. 
R. Smith. March 26, 1926. BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive 
---------
ection Bill, Officers Reports, bound typescript volume dated August 1936, 
p. 24. 
---------
inder.  
volume dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, P. 841-846. 
 ?Officer?s Reports.? The Third Biennial and Eighteenth Regular Convention
New York City, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 13?18, 19
---------?Statement before the Board of Wages and Working Conditions.? March 
1918, Twelfth Annual and Fourteenth Regular Session of the BRSA 
Convention, Kansas City, bound typescript volume dated July 14?19, 19
p. 158.
--------- ?Statement before the Railroad War Commission.? Eleventh Annual and 
Thirteenth Regular Session of the BRSA Convention, Baltimore, MD, bound 
typescript volume dated June 10?13, 1918, p. 36. 
Situation.? The agreement between the BRSA and the IBEW about the du
of signalmen, Signed Jas. P. Noonan, IBEW, and D. W. Helt, BRSA, IBEW 
Pamphlet, no date; however, letters and documents cited 
non E. Efforts to Secure Passage of the Signal Inspection Bill. Rep
Acting Grand President. The Eighth Biennial and Twenty-th
19, 1936, pp. 24-29. 
 Note about problems that cause false clear signals to Grand 
file box.   
 Report of the Acting Grand President. Efforts to Secure Passage of the Signal 
Insp
 Assistant to the President. ?Report to the Delegates.? The Fifth Biennial and 
Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA. Denver, Colorado, bound 
typescript volume dated Aug. 18-23, 1930, pp. 97-99. 
--------- ?The Signal Inspection Act, a Major Achievement of the BRSA, (A Lyon 
Chronicle.? (Unpublished history/memoir of the BRSA?s role in the 
enactment of the Legislation, 1972). Red loose-leaf b
 164 
 
 
Malmsjo, Gustave. ?Limitations of Maintainers? Territories.? The Fifth Biennia
Twentieth Regular Convention, Denver, bound typescript volume dated Aug. 
18?23, 1930, p. 897. 
l and 
Merritts, M.C., Grand Trustee, Grand Executive Committee.  Discussing the need to 
oad 
d 
ipt volume 
dated Aug.18--23, 1930, p.127. 
Officer
 
--------- ?Resolution No. 28, resolved July 18.?  The Twelfth Annual and Fourteenth 
. 
--------- ?Education, reports and correspondence between the BRSA and the ARA and 
Manufacturers.? The Fourth Annual and Nineteenth Regular Convention of 
the BRSA, Chicago, bound typescript volumes dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 5?
15. 
------- ?Reports and Correspondence between the BRSA and Jason Noonan, 
President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.? The Fourth 
Annual and Nineteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA. Chicago, bound 
typescript volume dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp.58?60. 
--------- ?Resolution No. 10, Job Description.? Officers Reports, The Twelfth Annual 
and Fourteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Kansas City, bound 
typescript volume dated July 14 ? 19, 1919, p. 146. 
regulate signal system maintenance and installation. Proceedings of the 
Fourth Biennial and Nineteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Chicago, 
bound typescript volume dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 841?844. 
?Minutes of the Thirteen Annual Convention, Kansas City, Mo. Oct. 11, 1920.? 
Condescended report in the 25
th
 Anniversary Celebration, Brotherhood of 
Railroad Signalmen of America, Floral Park, North Bergen, NJ, June 27, 
1926. 
--------- ?Section 1. This organization shall be known as the Brotherhood or Railr
Signalmen of America.? Grand Executive Committee. The Fifth Biennial an
Twentieth Regular Convention of the BRSA, Denver, bound typescr
s Reports, BRSA. ?Letters presented in the Officer?s Reports.? The Third 
Annual Biennial and Eighteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA, New York
City, bound typescript volume dated Sept. 13-18, 1926. 
--------- ?Resolution No. 6, The BRS will protest to AF of L and protects its AF of L 
Charter,? the Eighth Annual and Tenth Regular session of the BRS 
Convention, St. Thomas, Ontario, June 14?17, 1915, p. 27. 
Regular Convention of the BRSA, Kansas City, MO, July, 18, 1919, p.154
BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.  
--
 165 
 
 
 166 
 
--------- ?Reports and Correspondence between the BRSA and Jason Noonan, 
President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.? The Fourth 
Annual and Nineteenth Regular Convention of the BRSA. Chicago, bound 
typescript volume dated Sept. 10?15, 1928, pp. 58?60. 
Order of Railroad Telegraphers, Board of Directors. Memorandum in regards to the 
Proposed Amalgamation of the ORT and the BRSA, March 21, 1935, pp. 4?
10.  BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.   
Patterson, W. J., Director of the Bureau of Safety, Interstate Commerce Commission. 
Address to the Delegates. Twenty-Eighth Regular Convention of the BRSA, 
Jacksonville, FL, Original typewritten document dated Aug. 21, 1946. BRSA 
History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRS Archive file box.  
Pettit, W.J. Grand Chief Signalman. ?Request for Affiliation with the American 
Federation of Labor.? Letter to AF of L Secretary Frank Morrison, Jan. 14, 
1914. BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.  
Railway Signalmen of America. Request for State Charter before Judge Martin Bell, 
Court of Common Pleas, Blair County, Pa., March 4, 1908. Spring Meeting 
Minutes of Railway Signalmen of America, New York City, April 12, 1908.  
BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.   
Steliker, J.W. General Signal Supervisor. Lecture and paper on the importance of the 
signal department given at an education meeting in Stockton, Calif. to signal 
department employees of the Santa Fe and  Southern Pacific Railroad, Oct. 3, 
1926. BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.  
Wilmot J. Pettit, History of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America, 
BRSA Pamphlet, (no date except for a handwritten date, ?1915?). pp.16?20. 
BRSA History, 1901-1950, Vol. 1, BRSA Archive file box.