I always felt that BO Tower was probably the best interlocking job on the MC to work. It certainly was the most challenging, more so than Pearl Street or Nichols or MA or MX or Woodside. When I worked there in the late 1950s and early 60s, we were still running 10 to 16 main line trains every eight hour shift. Mixed in were five yard engines on the day shift, four on afternoons, and at least two on nights. Keeping everything moving without delaying something was a challenge indeed. Passenger trains were of course the priority, but eastbound hotshots like CD-4 and JS-2 couldn't be delayed; westbound freights had to climb Miller Hill and stopping one of them often meant a pusher was needed.

Part of the challenge came from having to integrate every move with Tower 1 (at the Pennsy crossing). With four diamonds (CK&S, NYC, GTW, PRR), no other MC interlocker had the crossing movements that BO had. Both the NYC and the CK&S wyes then were approached from the west; yard engines from both had to pull west on the main line to clear Pitcher Street, then head into Botsford. Those moves seemed to take forever, especially when a through train was getting near.

At that time there were two MC dispatcher's phone lines, two message lines, manual block phone lines in five directions (yes even to South Haven), a yard phone line, and an open mic system that went to Botsford, Tower 1, and Church Street. There were no radios until the '60s and no Bell telephone until the late '50s. There were a couple of Morse wires, but no one used them any longer. The depot had to be kept up to date on passenger train arrivals. The Grand Trunk had no phones into BO, but their northbound crew would walk over to the NYC phone on Michigan Avenue and say they were ready to come north.

BO operators maintained a record of main line trains approaching to able to judge their arrival. With this you could plan yard engine moves and also "hold out" eastbounds from coming into the depot while a westbound passenger was standing there. Once in a great while you'd hold a westbound passenger at BO to allow an eastbound hotshot to get by the depot--but that didn't happen often. Listening to the dispatcher's phone for operators' OSes and mechanical OSes while a train was going by while talking on the yard or a block phone was the ordinary routine.

Still--in all--it was a good job to work. I think some of the other operators who worked there in the 50s and 60s, still living, would agree that it was a good job. Bob Borsos (the retired judge) said so. A good other many men, now long gone, like Nelson Bates, Bert Krapf, Clare Smith, Carl Shagun, and many more whom I've forgotten, I hope also would agree with me.