Facing northeast, the support track veered off to the right beyond the end of these buildings. The controls for the
interlocker were probably housed in the depot or yard office. The current BNSF building is of newer vintage.
Panhandle & Santa Fe Railway Yard Interlocker
Tower 190 was an interlocker built by Santa Fe in the early 1940s to support yard movements associated with support tracks on the northeast side of Canadian, a town near the Oklahoma border in the eastern Texas panhandle. These movements required crossing the busy Santa Fe transcontinental main line. The Canadian yard included a turntable and a roundhouse, but for unidentified reasons, a major support track was built on the opposite side of town from the roundhouse. Increases in automation on the main line over the years had allowed traffic and train speeds to increase, and thereby created a safety issue whenever local yard traffic needed to cross the main. The interlocker addressed these safety issues. Although Santa Fe was the only railroad involved, precedent established in 1927 by the Railroad Commission (for Tower 135 at Canyon yards) required all interlockers to be authorized, even if they served only a single railroad. Today, the main line is operated by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and the support tracks are no longer in place.
Photo by Jim King, 30 August 2008
Facing northeast, the support track veered off to the right beyond the end of
these buildings. The controls for the
interlocker were probably housed in the depot or yard office. The current BNSF
building is of newer vintage.
Map of Canadian
The support track (blue) was on the northeast side of town while the roundhouse
and
turntable were located on the southwest
side.
The controls for Tower 190 were most likely located in the depot or a
yard
office; there was not a separate tower
structure.
The Santa Fe passenger depot was located at the foot of Main St.
A Harvey House
was located next door from
1910 to
1939. The roundhouse was severely damaged in a locomotive boiler
explosion in
1951. The double track main line
(green) passes through downtown Canadian, crossing the Canadian River on twin
bridges north of town.
