02/07/2026
The San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum installed our U.S.& S. Southern Pacific semaphore Tuesday. This semaphore signal operated on the S.P. Siskiyou line from the early 1900's to the early 2000's. The line transitioned from the S.P. to Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad (CORP) in 1995 and by 2007 all of the Semaphores on the line had been replaced by colorlight signals. Our semaphore was purchased in Oregon from CORP years ago and had the mast and control rods cut in half in order to transport it on a car trailer. The restoration crew has spent the last few months welding the control levers and mast in order to get it operational again. The semaphore has been rewired and now uses LED lightbulbs so that we don't need to climb the ladder and replace the bulbs on a regular basis as the railroads did in years past. In the near future, we'll be getting power to it (via solar panels) down at the south end of the track and get it fully operational so everyone can watch it work.
