Crawford E Staples signals ...late 1930's -40's

[Carey Williams]

Hello all

Yesterday under the 1939 World's Fair cars posting ... the resistor on the trucks was pointed out as a signalling device .

The big layouts at the Fair did have a full signaling system installed and provided by Crawford E Staples .....who produced a full line of signals ....just beautiful pieces ( in my opinion) ....you could buy a kit ...small box filled with tiny little pieces and a set of directions with a hope and pray ...or fully built ..my choice ... they also offered a slow acting semaphore ... only have one of those in kit form ....
Crawford also offered multi contact relays etc for wiring all this stuff up ..just like the real ones ... the use of old radio tube ( not old at the time) sockets is genius for wiring, plug and go ... once the track is down for good and dust has settled ...time to create some more by drilling holes to mount the signaling system .... they add huge amounts of realism to the layout ... or do they just look really neat ?

Catalog C ...no sign of catalogs A, B, D or 1,2,3 for that fact
Cheers Carey

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[rrjjf]

Carey,

The Baltimore Society of Model Engineers' outside 3rd rail O Scale layout that was built around 1951 had many of these signals but they were removed along with about 100 full size railroad relays in glass jars that controlled them and the blocks on the railroad when the railroad was converted to 2 rail around 1979. From reading early Model Railroader Mags from the 1930s, working signals seemed to be a big feature on model railroads back in the 1930s. Since the BSME O Scale railroads went back to the 1930s with three previous locations, this was probably not the first BSME layout that put them to use. Of course with outside third rail systems, a working signal system was somewhat easier to do back then. Today modern electronics make just about anything possible.

The Staples signals are interesting since they were designed to plug into an octal relay socket, at least the ones I am familiar with did. Their one drawback was the large lamps extending out from the signal frames that were used at that time.

There was one signal left on the layout when I was last there. I had converted it with Fresnel lens LEDs into a B&O color position light that changed aspect according to the position of a crossover near the signal. Not prototypical but fun to watch.

Joe

[2railjon]

Interesting! Pretty creative for that era!
Those huge bulbs do look odd though!

[Chris Webster]

Catalog C ...no sign of catalogs A, B, D or 1,2,3 for that fact

The NMRA's library says it has a folder of catalogs and instructions from Crawford E. Staples - you might try checking with them if you haven't already.

Seeing "Consulting Engineer" on the catalog cover made me curious about Mr. Staple's engineering work, so I did a little googling. Here's an article titled "Recent Track Circuit Developments" by Crawford E. Staples that was published in Railway Signaling and Communications, Volume 52, published by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation in 1959.

[Carey Williams]

Hello Chris

thank you for the links ....last I heard the NMRA library was still packed up at the Sacramento RR Museum ... perhaps they have merged it with their library now .

Cheers Carey