Illinois' last manned rail tower torn down

SPRINGFIELD — The last manned railroad control tower in Illinois and one of the last in the country has been torn down.

The (Springfield) State Journal-Register (http://bit.ly/qP8Zzb ) reports that workers from Springfield's Parkland Environmental Group demolished Ridgely Tower on Monday.

That means a computer in Nebraska is now controlling traffic on the rail line.

For about 100 years, a worker staffed Ridgely Tower around-the-clock. The control operator used a radio to communicate with engineers and maintenance crews. More recently, the operator also watched rail traffic on a computer.

The operator then used a series of iron levers to manually change switches on the tracks to route traffic safely.

Those levers were salvaged from the demolition site Monday and now belong to a railroad historian in Missouri.