Passenger Station "Flag Stop" in the 1960's

In the 80’s my practice was in Chicago. I needed to take the early South Shore train from Ogden Dunes IN to the Randolph St Station. It was a flag stop or flash light stop, not certain when or if it was discontinued.

The Essex, MT station on Amtrak's Empire Builder route here in Montana has been considered a "flag stop".

The station's information on Amtrak's website doesn't use that phrase specifically, but from my visits to the nearby Izaak Walton Inn, it is referred to as a "flag stop" by the locals. The lounge in the Inn is called the Flagstop Bar. The current wiki article for the station considers Essex a flag stop.

https://www.amtrak.com/stations/esm

Note that 'flag stop' means a stop where you had to 'flag down' the train to stop, it doesn't necessarily mean you literally waved a flag.

I believe if someone had bought a ticket far enough in advance, the crew of the train would be notified of the need to stop at that station.

In some very remote wilderness areas, like parts of Canada, I've read that trains are required to stop for anyone who flags them down, the assumption being the person could be lost and in need of possibly life-saving assistance.

Amtrak's commuter rail from Boston north to Haverhill (on a B&M line) has a few "flag stop" stations along the way. One reason is that there are a few stations that are tightly bunched together, all within a short distance. Supposedly, many of B&M's early executives lived in the Melrose area and didn't want to have to walk very far in the winter months to board the train, so they built a lot of stations within very short distances from one another.

On one of the Discovery channels, not sure which one, they had episodes for the Alaska railroad serving the interior of Alaska.  The one I remember was where a family got off in the middle of nowhere after getting stuff in the town many miles down the line, and they left something in the car.  The train had gone down the track quite a ways, the conductor noticed it, and had the train back up to the waiting family who had discovered they had forgotten something.

I'd say that was a flag stop!

Here's How it worked at San Juan Capistrano on the Santa Fe:

There was a flag holder with two white flags in it* -- the same white flags that were displayed on the locomotives of Extra Trains.  A sign on the depot displayed the schedule of trains for which Capistrano was a flag stop, and instructed passengers to step to the yellow line upon the approach of their train and to wave the white flag until acknowledged by two short blasts of the whistle.  If flags were missing, passengers were to wave their arms.  Encinitas had the same setup.

One difference between the two flag stop stations was the track speed.  Due to nearby curves, the maximum allowable speed at Capistrano was 60 MPH, but Encinitas was in 90 MPH territory.

Don't panic yet.  You can't flag a high speed passenger train in such short flagging distances.  Engineers were required to approach flag stop stations at a speed that would allow making a normal stop at the station platform, until it was ascertained that no passengers were flagging the train.

*  Supplying two flags provided prudent redundancy in case one became damaged.  Both of these stations were in small towns in those days, and theft of the flags was uncommon.  Special Instructions required Trainmen on passenger trains to observe that there were two flags in place, when passing flag stop stations.  White flags were supplied on all locomotives and available at all on-duty points, and were replaced by the next train if required.

When I was about 12 I was going to take SP train “Senator” from Richmond to Sacramento. Richmond was a flag stop. The agent, whom I knew, was busy so he gave me a red flag and told mo to go out and flag the train. I had seen it done before, so when I saw the headlight I unrolled the flag and stuck it out standing a safe distance from the track. As the train was coming to a stop the agent came out and recovered his flag. I climbed aboard and off we went. The train was a geep and two Harriman coaches.   The car was very cold, but the steam was on and by time we got to Sacramento it was nice and warm.

Great thread.  

I had wondered the same.  How do you flag a locomotive going 100 MPH.  In the world of automation, when a ticket is purchased, the flag is waived.  Pretty cool to me.

Pre-technology, how did this work?  I get that some of it would apply.  Is there someone actually doing the flagging???  Who is it?  

@jbmccormick posted:

Great thread.  

I had wondered the same.  How do you flag a locomotive going 100 MPH.  You don't.  See my post about how Engineers were required to approach flag stop stations.

Pre-technology, how did this work?  I get that some of it would apply.  Is there someone actually doing the flagging???  Who is it?  If the station was manned, the Agent or Train Order Operator would normally do it.  If the station was unmanned, then the passenger would do it.  Again, see my post and David Johnston's post.