Washington Park, Illinois
HN Cabin was built by the B&O Railroad in 1917. It originally had a 48 lever Saxby and Farmer mechanical interlocking machine. In the 1970's the mechanical lever bed and all the rods and switches were removed and replaced with a US&S CTC style control machine. HN Cabin was a 2 story tower but B&O referred to their towers as cabins. The area around the cabin was Hanover Illinois, the population was mainly Germans. During World War I the town of Hanover was changed to Washington Park but the name of HN stayed with the tower. In 2006 plans were drawn up to replace the tower and remote the interlocking to the dispatcher, plans also replaced the panel in the tower for Exermont. In 2007 new signals where installed at a few locations around HN cabin but where bagged and not used. Work started in 2012 to replace Exermont and in September 2012 the cutover of Exermont happened. This replaced the old position light signals at Exermont with new color lights and it took the control of Exermont away from the tower operator and gave it to the dispatcher. This was the first major step in closing HN Cabin. Work then started to replace the tower, and in 2014 it was announced that CSX intended to close HN Cabin on July 1st of 2014. On July 1st 2014 the A&S power switches that were controlled from HN Cabin were remoted except for Switch #6 that connected to the "Conrail" track. It was said that they still abolished the tower operators job at HN Cabin on July 1st and that some went to work at Roselake, the operators where clerks from Roselake from July 1st til it closed. It was then announced that HN Cabin cutover would happen July 14th 2014 and that day came and passed with the tower still being open. The next cutover date was set for August 11th 2014, but the actual cutover happened the next day. on August 12th at 0700 a bulletin was issued suspending the signals at HN Cabin while the old signals where removed and while the new signals were turned into place and wired in. The crews also changed over the track circuits. At 1806 on August 12th 2014 control of the interlocking at former HN Cabin was given to the CSX Dispatcher. The new interlocking was CP HN and the tower was officially retired. The signals were loaded into dumpsters and the cases set next to dumpsters awaiting new dumpsters to be thrown into. The CTC machine was still inside and its fate is unknown, the towers fate is also unknown as rumors ranged from CSX police using it to being torn down.
Photos were taken with a CSX Official's permission.
