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I found an old photo of our signal crew working in town on a tower truck. Of note is the guy on the right, who's position I took when he retired (his brother is on the left). I CSI'd the photo and determined that the intersection is Division & Yakima.


The monkey tree in the background above the hood is still growing on Yakima just north of Division. Not sure of the date but I have a couple clues from the old documents:

1949 Eagle EA 3phase no ped on 60s cycle
4/4/61 1826D actuated with 2 ped phases
12-6-77 box span
7/15/82 discontinued AR operation
6/2/86 LC8 controller and cabinet installed
12/17/98 390 controller and cabinet installed

It would have to be between 61' and 77. There wasn't a ped head before 61 and the spans were changed to a box span in 77. I'm thinking more likely in the 60's because we had a different tower truck when I started in 78.

Thumbnail to full size photo

Awesome picture, that poor sap on the side of the truck is missing out!

Early 60's by the rounded look of all the cars parked on the street in the background...??



Thanks for sharing the historic awesomeness!!

Awesome picture!

I'll check into our streetlight records. I may be able to find when the old series streetlight in the photo was changed out to the current concrete 240 VAC circuit.

When I started with West Palm Beach, we had two ladder trucks and one creaky bucket truck. I did lots of signal construction from those ladders!

You would think that a platform truck would be the best and safest way to mount a 4-way, but strangely we didn't get our first platform truck until all of our 4-ways were gone. We installed 4-ways by lashing them to the side of the bucket and "flying" them up into place.

Cool picture Joe, where are their safety vest's, cones, etc...

I'm backing the date up. The ornamental streetlight was changed to 30' concrete 400W mercury vapor with a series ballast in the pole base 1/27/56. The new circuit was converted to 200W sodium 240VAC on 12/9/99. Seems about right, that puts the guys age at about 27.

I don't know when the "ped-heads" came about but do suspect the photo was taken in the late 1950s.

I'll need to dig into the files some more. There is a clear record of the peds with the 1826D controller. And I know a 6 impulse EA controller running 3 phases doesn't have enough intervals for peds.

where are their safety vest's, cones, etc...

Safety hadn't been invented yet. I recall digging strain pole bases by hand 3' by 3' by 6' deep, sometimes with a jackhammer in the hole.

We installed 4-ways by lashing them to the side of the bucket and "flying" them up into place.

We did that too. Also walked them out to the end of the ladder truck, balancing them as I worked the foot controls.