WA sign and box

[sw4400]

Any rail buff want to shed some light on these?

[wesmich]

WA stands for Workers Ahead and when activated by the WA control box, the speed limit is decreased in the WA zone. I think there is a yellow light that blinks on the WA ahead sign to indicate that the zone is active. Here, on the curve by the Damen brown line station, the operator would not be able to see workers around the curve. Therefore, the train would slowly go around the corner to make sure that everyone stays safe. It basically operates like a temporary slow zone.

[Busjack]

Sun Times article about speeding on CTA and Metra, which says that the CTA says all incidents were in work zones.

It says:

Outside of work zones, speeding beyond a mile or two an hour is next to impossible, CTA officials say, because “automatic train control” technology in each train’s cab quickly alerts operators to speeding — and, if they don’t slow down right away, the train automatically is brought to a halt.

But that technology isn’t programmed for work zones.

But what about the WA boxes, noted above?