Re: Daytime signals

In addition to working as a fireman on the D&RGW narrow gauge, I also spent some time working as a switchman on the Western Pacific RR in California (Stockton Yard, and 25th Street SanFrancisco, on the west end of theWP ferry run from Oakland). We didn't have radios in the mid 196o's, we used hand signals by day and electric trainmen's lamp signals by night. Day signaling was augmented by holding an employee timetable (later versions were printed with bright orange covers just for this purpose)in the hand doing the signaling. Standard hand signals were used during the day, basically the "come to me" and "go from me" , along with other signals for "slow", "highball", "kick 'em", "number of cars to coupling" etc. Lamp signals at night were similar.."vertical" lamp movement for "come ahead", Large circular movement for "back up", and of course the "stop" signal, the wide horizontal swing of the lamp ("washout") etc.
Hand and lamp signaling was somewhat of an art, and once learned, you never forget it, however, you seldom see hand and lamp signals today due to the widespread use of handheld VHF radios.
Wonder what those folks do when the radio's are broke??