rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Part 1:

Today was a lovely, though cool, spring day, so I took myself for a drive. While going through the tiny town of Knox, I saw the object in the first picture. This sort of thing is commonly called a 'gate tender shanty' ... before the advent of automation, this sort of structure would shelter the man who manually controlled the gates that stop traffic from crossing railroad tracks when a train was coming. This picture is SOOC - I may eventually decide to make small modifications ... for example, to increase contrast in the light areas so the individual boards stand out better.

When I got home, I went through my files, and found the second picture. It looks the same at first, but my wife and I played the comparison game and found three differences other than the windows {I'm willing to assume that windows in the one I saw today were replaced recently - but I do not honestly know that}

(1) the smoke jack in the top picture is right at the ridge-line of the roof, while the smoke jack in the second picture is slightly offset - thus the two jacks are of slightly different design.

(2) the one I saw today has some fancy wood-work under the windows; at the moment, I have no way of determining whether that was part of the original design, or whether it was 'cutified' {made cute} when put on display in the park.

(3) boards on the top one are placed vertically, while they were placed horizontally on the lower one.

So I decided the one I saw today is sufficiently different from the one I saw 35 years ago to get its own entry.

2018 - NKP Gate Tender Shanty in park, Knox IN

(Download)

1983 - LE&W Gate Tender Shanty in situ, Kokomo IN

(Download)

chaman

Interesting. You need to clean your sensor. :)

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Part 2:

After dinner I did research on the Internet that would have been much more difficult in 1983. The Railroad Station Historical Society website {rrshs.org} attributes the Kokomo tower to the Lake Erie & Western {LE&W} railroad, and gives a construction date of approximately 1940; this information must have been vetted by someone, because they say this structure is now on the Historical Landmark Register. They attribute the Knox tower to the Nickel Plate {NKP} railroad, but give no date of construction. Doing further research, I discovered that the LE&W was purchased by the NKP in 1922, 18 years before the tower was constructed, so even if they were still running the LE&W as a subsidiary in 1940, the NKP was ultimately responsible for both structures {which would explain why they look so similar to each other}

Stephan G

Thanks for sharing. Those of us who still have steel in their blood surely appreciate them. Plus the fill-in information.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

Interesting structures. Over here level crossings (as we know them) usually had a full-blown signal box beside them or within spotting distance and the signalman controlled the gates, signals and any points in the vicinity. The boxes were a two-storey structure with the signalman and his controls all on the higher level. Nowadays it’s all automated and, in some cases, quite dangerous.

Stephan G

Some switch towers at work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WSseTVAFAA

R.G. Loc: Scotland

They look like dovecotes for well-to-do pigeons .