The question about the interlocking/crossing at Gibson St., Kalamazoo is a fascinating problem. Here is what I think may have happened.
The Grand Trunk Western line from Lake Street to the Kalamazoo freight house was completed in August 1910. So it is no surprise that the 1908 Sanborn map does not show the GTW line. Prior to that time there was a tower that controlled the GR&I-NYC crossing. I have no employee timetables that go back into the 1800s to tell me if and when the interlocking was put in. The 1901 Commissioner of Railroads annual report lists a GR&I-LS&MS crossing at Kalamazoo, but does not report it as being an interlocked crossing. This implies that the crossing was governed by stop signs or by a target signal, but the commissioner does state what the protection is.
The LS&MS-GR&I crossings at Sturgis and Plainwell were not interlocked in the 1901 commissioner’s report. My guess is that those crossings were in place before the commissioner’s office was established, and therefore although he had the authority to order interlockings at new crossings, he did not have the power to order them at existing crossings.
A 1917 NYC employee timetable has the NYC-GR&I-GTW Gibson St. crossing protected by a target and that it was operated by a signalman. The same provision governed at the MC-NYC wye crossing with the GTW on Porter St. just north of Michigan Ave. My guess is that the signalman at Gibson St. worked from the tower shown in the image, and the target was operated by pipes or wires from the tower. The image doesn’t make this clear, but this is how the Porter St tower worked its target. The Porter St. target was operated by a signalman until the GTW line north of its freight house was abandoned.
A 1930 MC employee timetable has the Gibson St. crossing protected by a target that now was operated by trainmen, not by a signalman. I can’t tell just when trainmen began operating the target and the signalman was removed, but I would guess it was about the beginning of the Great Depression in the late 1920s. I would guess the tower was removed about the same time; it was not there in the mid-1940s.
The Gibson St. crossing target position was horizontal for NYC trains to proceed, and vertical for GR&I and GTW trains to proceed. The GTW had stop signs on its approach to the crossing; there were no stop signs on the GR&I and NYC. After the end of the signalman controls, all GR&I, GTW and NYC trains were required to stop at the crossing, regardless of the position of the target. The most serious auto traffic blocking was during the night by GR-6 and GR-7, often a hundred cars long, which had to stop at the Gibson St. target. I do remember that GR-7 would call from Vine and GR-6 from Dock before coming through town, to be sure that they would not be held up at Tower 1 crossing the MC main line. After being set for a train to cross, the target was left in that position and not returned to its earlier position.
After the interlocking was installed at Gibson St. it governed movements only over the GR&I-NYC crossing. The target remained to govern NYC-GTW movements, but NYC trains were not required to stop if the target was at “proceed.” I believe the southbound NYC stop sign was removed soon after the interlocking was installed, but I don’t have a date for its removal.
GMM
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