Around 29 years ago?

I found this on Bull sheet monthly news (and decided to share it because it's a neat question):

"...nearly 29 years ago. Trains still had cabooses; trains still had four-person crews. Two-way radios - although many other railroads used them - had not been formally introduced to road trains on the B&O. Some crews did use their own CB radios, albeit unofficially, but radios were not yet available in the towers or in the dispatchers' offices."

If using hand signals, do you have enough room to swing a lantern around in a big circle over your head in your train room? lol

Hand signals

I have actually switched a model railroad by hand signals.  It's not easy!  It helped immensely that both of us involved are professional railroaders, meaning that we are fluent in the language.  Still, it was difficult to watch his hand signals and control the speed of my train properly, since I had no sensory feedback on how fast the train was running (as I do on the 1:1 scale trains).  It was fun, though, and it's something we often do when one of us is helping the other from some distance.

We didn't use lanterns, though.  The room lights were on.

"in the 50's and guess that hand signals were still used."

Here on the Southern Pacific hand signals were certainly still used. Around 1957 there was still firemen in the diesel cabs and part of their job was relaying hand signals to the engineer(along with ringing the bell that had a toggle on the fireman's side). The ground crew was usually a head brakeman, a rear brakeman ,and a conductor and they were experts at working with hand signals. Some  locos in 1957 did have radios and some caboose might have had them by then too but the trainmen usually stopped at the stations if they needed to contact anyone. I recall a conductor going into the freight house and using the phone to call my mother and ask her if it was ok for them to take me up to davenport with them and that they would drop me off a the crossing near our house on the way back. When I started surveying in 1967 we didn't have radios either and used hand signals much like the railroaders used. We had some radios in trucks and ocassionally would take two trucks to a job if we had some extra long shots to make but mostly just used hand signals. A rolled up map ( or a switch list or timetable for the trainman)can be seen form quite a distance if one's eyes are young and sharp. We started getting handheld radios in the mid 70's but still used signals for a lot of our work as it was easier than carrying and handling a bulky radio with antenna. Eventually in the 80's  radios got small enough to fit in a pocket then we liked them better :> ) also as instruments got more features we did a lot more long distance work where signals would be too hard. I imagine the railroad followed a similar timeline.......DaveBranum

Hand Signals

  Depending on the railroad and division.  In 1968 we had radios in the engine and caboose.  And the conductor could check out a portable if needed.  This was on the Aurora Div of the CB&Q.  The big limitation back then with radio range(later fixed with repeaters).

  A lot of crews still used hand signals and it was personal preference on use.  We had one conductor who did not use radios very much and got in trouble one night when his lantern was jogging up/down as he walked and was taken as a 'come ahead' - and a freight car was pushed through a dirt 'bumper'.  If he had taken the portable with him he would not have had the problem of re-railing a car in the dark!

Jim

Search this...

Motorola had the "lunch box" radio that the conductor would carry around like a lunch box, using a battery for power. Generally they were only 2 channels. I would say those were readily available in the early to mid 60's.

Then GE had their "Pocket mate" and Motorola had their HT-200 hand held radios. 

While the Railroads may not have heavily relied on hand held radios, they were starting to show up in the late 50's, early 60's.

Steven

Hand Signals

Radios vs hands

The railroad at the company I worked at uses radios all the time. But interestingly enough when some crane work requiring a man in the overhead crane, we used hand signals. Each man had a radio but it was easier to read the hand signals. Go figure!

Radios

It was late1960's before Illinois Central had radios on most trains ..... only locals and yard crews before that. SOme crews used CB radios (illegal.)    Hand signals are still valid.  I retired as a switchman a few years ago .... we used radios most of the time but hand signals at times. We would sometimes use hand signals so the Trainmaster couldn't hear what we were up to.   

The only rule is that you can't mix up radio and hand signals ... whole crew has to change and understand at the same time. It's "either/or."