Whistle Posts

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About a year ago, I found 2 concrete posts collapsed by the road near Brooks, Alabama. One was marked W, the other was marked SW. This was near the Brooks crossing, so I know the W was for that. There was a small station with a siding at Brooks until about 1940. My guess is the SW was for the local that stopped there, and that the SW stands for either Single, Short, or Steady Whistle. I would like to know which, if any, is correct.

-- C. N. Lloyd (cnl@alaweb.com), April 05, 1998

Answers

Regarding C of Ga whistle post.. the only ones i remember seeing did not have a "W" on them.. Thesw whistle post were concrete.. abour 6" square and rose out of the ground about 3 to 4 feet.. the back and sides were painted solid black while the front had a white background with two wide black stripes, one narrow stripe and another wide stripe from side to side.. i do not know if the central had any post marked with a "W".

-- Glenn K. Marsh (glennm@imspipe.com), October 09, 2001.

The "W" whistle post usually means whistle for a grade crossing, as you guessed. As to the "SW" sign, I would suppose it stood for "Station Whistle" or the whistle signal for a station approach, one very long blast. Don't actually know, but this is a semi-educated guess.

If anyone has a lock on the answer to this question, I'd like to see it as well.

Hope this helps.

Bob Hanson

-- Robert H. Hanson (RHanson669@aol.com), April 10, 1998.


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