The A and S, unlike routes that served passengers and local freight customers, required relatively few staffed facilities, and westward from Atglen it was desolate compared with the main line's frequent village stops. Built after the PRR decided to transition from telegraph to telephone, it used a modern communications system of pole-mounted telephone boxes placed about 1 1/4 miles apart along the route and available to almost all levels of railroad employees, making the wooden box a vital part of operations. Q Tower at M.P. 10.8, the first A and S switching tower west of Parkesburg at M.P. 0.0, was an active steam-era point where an operator received and relayed telephone orders from a dispatcher in Columbia, while the tower's projecting bay allowed visual confirmation of train movement and time markers. A solitary watchman monitoring road conditions and track gangs also depended on the copper telephone wires. Located about 600 feet west of Bushong Road on the south side of the tracks, Q Tower had six tracks, including sidings to move helper engines out of traffic and crossovers so they could reverse direction and return to assist another freight, since even with an easy grade eastbound freights often needed helpers for the long climb to Mars Hill Summit. Two pairs of water columns served all six tracks and supplied essential water to the helpers. Watchmen were stationed in troublesome places such as cuts prone to landslides and fills subject to washouts, and the stove-heated single-room watch box was staffed in two 12-hour shifts seven days a week. A watchman often boarded with a local farmer, and his tools included a white day lantern with a round reflector, a red night lantern, red flags to stop trains if tracks were blocked, and a large wooden bin that held coal for the stove. One watch box at LG-27 stood on the west side of the Safe Harbor Viaduct along the cliffs of the Susquehanna River.