New York, NY: Amtrak/Pennsy (A) Tower in Penn Station

(Satellite, on the west end under the building and over the tracks.)

Sahib Akhundzadeh posted

Pennsylvania Station, New York, undated.

The signal and switch tower (Tower A) in the yard at the west end of the station (with its two staircases at the tips of platforms 5 and 7), showing overhead rails which supplement the third rail on the ground for carrying over switches. 

Entrance to the tunnels under Hudson River can be seen in the middle distance.

Philip Donnelly: Overhead 3rd rail for doubleslip switch gaps, reason DC electric locos had tiny pantoshoe on roof.

Kevin Katta shared

 

Sahib Akhundzadeh commented on his post
Tower A, as seen from Platform 7 (shared by tracks 13 & 14) looking west. Photo by Edward Hand, taken in Oct. 2022.

Steven Alexis Eisenman commented on Kevin's share
That is a view of the yards west of Penn Station looking at the Hudson River tunnel entrance. 1910. Here is the view from the other direction looking east.

Peter James Paras posted 16 photos with the comment: "Not my photos.  Tower A. Built by the Pennsylvania RR. Currently owned by Amtrak.  Location: One of four towers for Penn Station in New York City, New York.  Tower A controlled most of the west end of the station complex.   Tower A was remote controlled to PSCC, Penn Station Control Center."

Steve Leunig: It’s still there. Pretty cool to walk around in!

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Tower A. Outside. That metal structure is overhead third rails. Not Catenary wire. Penn Station was all third rail when it was built. Overhead third rail was on the turnouts so locomotives would not stall, they had mini pantographs on top.

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Tower A interlocking machine.

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Tower A in service.

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Tower A. You can see it outside. Before the post office was built over it. Yes it had a roof.

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Tower A. Outside. The metal structure is overhead third rail. Penn Station was all third rail when it was built. Overhead third rails were on turnouts because of the gaps in third rail, locomotives had mini pantographs.

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Tower A. Outside. The metal structure is overhead third rail. Penn Station was all third rail when it was built. Overhead third rails were on turnouts because of the gaps in third rail, locomotives had mini pantographs.

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Tower A before it was closed. 

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Tower A I heard this photo was the last day it was in service.

Photo by: Rich Gunther

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Tower A closed. I heard the track model had switches that would move when you reversed a switch.

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Tower A closed. Model board.

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Tower A. Model board.

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Tower A. Model board.

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Tower A. Flood door controls.

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Tower A Power control board.

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Interlocking machine with dust on it.

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Penn Station Track, signal and switch plans.

Stephen Urban: It wasn’t called tower a, it was A Tower. I worked there on and off 73-80.

Dan Kaplan posted three photos with the comment: "My father hired with Amtrak in 1977. He worked all of the towers in Sunnyside Yard and Penn Station, as well as Fair, Morris, and Grundy towers. He passed away last week. Here are a few pics of him at A Tower. He was Train Director at A. Also, a link to a video of him that was filmed for PBS. https://youtu.be/IO7CZxfIuRE?si=gryNSXQfaYCFTpty."

Dan Kaplan shared

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3:00 video @ 1:47

TrackPlan at 50% pdf via rrsignalpix

TrackPlan at 100% pdf via rrsignalpix

Peter James Paras posted 14 photos with the comment: "Amtrak "A" Tower.  Built by the Pennsylvania RR. Location: Penn Station, New York City, NY.  A tower controlled most of the west end of the station platforms.  Other towers nearby were, KN, C and JO.  Photos by original photographers.  See description in each photo."

James Fenell shared

Frank Magaro: Under MSG nowadays

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Amtrak "A" Tower. Built by the Pennsylvania RR. Location: Penn Station, New York City, NY. A tower controlled most of the west end of the station platforms. Other towers nearby were, KN, C and JO. Photos by original photographers.

A Tower was originally outside.

Steve Peters: Overhead third rail

Brendan Read: Steve Peters Hence the tiny pans on the early PRR electrics like the DD1s.

Peter Hoeffner: Notice there is no AC catenary yet. DD1 motors hauled trains from New Jersey to Penn Station powered by DC third rail. There are segments showing of overhead third rail to carry trains through long switches and crossovers.

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Ariel view. A Tower in the middle left. This is now covered over.

Danny Quinn: Is that C yard off to the right?

Peter James Paras: Danny Quinn Yeah looks like it. LIRR.

Frank Herrling: Peter James Paras Those cars in the storage yard to the right of the main tracks were LIRR during the middle of the day. Actually, LIRR was the first to use the station as things were not ready for the DD1s to bring the PRR trains through the tunnel from Manhattan Transfer out in the Meadowlands after changing over from steam.

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A Tower. The steel structure is over head third rail. This was over switches and turnouts. The over head third rail was to prevent locomotives from stalling due to gaps in the third rail. Locomotives had mini pantographs on top.

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Old photo of A Tower interlocking machine in use.

Stephen McEvoy: In former days, the Train Director at A Tower was also in charge of KN, C and JO, as well as the ERTs to F and Harold.

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Track, switch and signal diagram of Penn Station and the four towers that ran it.

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From what I was told, this is the last day of operation of A Tower before it was cut over to what they call PSCC (Penn Station Control Center

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Inside A Tower. Model Board.

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Inside A Tower Model Board.

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Inside A Tower Model Board.

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Inside A Tower Model Board.

Albert Wilson: I was about to ask when this closed, but I see it written on the board!

[Open Nov 27, 1919; Closed Oct 1, 1994.]

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Inside A Tower. Train Director's board. Intercomms and a few other functions.

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Inside A Tower. Flood Doors controls. This was to close flood doors at the west end of the station to prevent water from the tunnel entering the station.

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Inside A Tower Interlocking Machine.

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Inside A Tower Interlocking to the left train director desk in the middle.

Andis Černoks: That machine was big enough to let someone crawl around inside.

Andis Černoks: There were fewer signal maintainers who knew how to work on them, apart from cleaning the contact bands. For years, you could pull 115 signal right off that machine, but we were told that C&S had to bring a guy up from Philly to fix it. One day when some FRA guy was in the tower, a leverman pulled it off and dropped the lever on top of the machine. Suddenly the guy from Philly cleared his calendar.