Morse Musings

Todays bit of lore comes courtesy of Chris Hausler. 

“Morse Musing” 

 By Charles D. Dulin 

 Transcribed from “Railroad Magazine”, May 1951 

 The railroad telegrapher is a great fellow.  Other telegraphers call him “the brains of the railroad.”  He is a modest chap not giving to boasting unless there's a fair chance to get by with it. 

 Operator Vic Pardon told me he ran out of flimsies at Wichita and handed up an order written on pieces of orange crate.  I didn't have a tantrum.  I didn't even bat an eye.  I told him about that time at Norfolk, Okla. when I missed delivery on an order to the rear end of an oil train doing 35 mph and delivered it by Indian runner.  Old Vic, a gentleman to the last switch, walked away and we were both happy.  Incidentally I still believe, barring mishaps with his blanket, that Indian could have circled that extra before she went three poles.   

 

When a telegrapher transmits “trxn” for “train” and puts thirteen dots in the letter “P” you know he's a railroader.  That's not orneriness; we understand each other better that way.  The Morse code is not an iron-clad affair to a railroad op.   

 I used to copy consists from an oldtimer in Shopton, Ia. who had the code down so pat he didn't need to refer to it at all.  It sounded like something you'd expect from Saturn or Jupiter. 

 One time he tried to send me a car of  bologna for Henrietta.  After several breaks I decided it was a car of skudjum.  That was more like it.  At least it made sense.  Who ever heard of shipping bologna as dead freight!  I did wonder what Henrietta would ever do with a carload of skudjum but that was none of my worry.  I wasn't the mayor or superintendent of streets, and if Henrietta wanted a load of skudjum we were just the pair who could give it to 'em.   

 Faithful, trustful old boys, the railroad telegraphers.  Always up and at 'em looking horizontally between their shoes from under a hat set at a 45-degree angle over their eyes.  Once on a line set I was thus posed, batting the soles of my shoes together to hear them pop, when the trainmaster appeared suddenly – as if he ever appeared any other way.  I tried to put my pins under me too fast, hooked a shoelace on a sounder and nearly fractured my pelvis trying to gain footing. 

 I like to get around and talk to the old boys.  They know a lot of things I missed out on and they're dramatists when it comes to telling them. Operator Vernon Brower, now a dispatcher on the GM&O, tells me that when he was on his first job as an op the fellow at the next station got him on the wire, told him the wires were bad and that Brower should drive his ground in deeper.  Brower, anxious to make good, located the ground plug under the depot and had a tough time driving it deeper.   

 Another green op was asked by wire, “Did the agent tell you to keep a pan of water on the stove?”  Being advised that none was there the heckler said, “My gosh!  By now your switchboard is all dried out.  Get a wet rag and rub over it....might help some.”  They tell me the sparks flew out of the seat of the ham's pants but that's one story I don't believe.  I'd have to see that!  I'm going to see it too, if I run across a nice, new green ham somewhere. 

 Railroad telegraphers have fun out of almost anything.  Although it's generally agreed that only about one op in a hundred is dispatcher material, there's a stock saying among ops that a dispatcher is an op with his brains knocked out.  Even ops rib their own fraternity unmercifully.  I asked an oldtimer what the code was for an apostrophe.  “How in hell should I know?” he flared.  “Darn few operators can even read and write.” 

 Good Morse on a not-too-loud sounder is absolutely beautiful.  Even the spacing of letters and words, perfect characters render it quite as thrilling to ops as is the phrasing and intonation of Jascha Heifetz to musicians.  I've seen faces glow as the little metal tongue played through playful polkas, wonderful waltzes and sonorous symphonies.  Many ops can and do send great Morse.  Others, we must admit, sound like a jazz band's rendition of The Spring Song.  I've heard a lot of pretty fast work, but for cadenzas that swing you merrily along I favor the bug. 

 Know what I mean?  Great old boys, the railroad telegraphers.  Take old boomer Joe.  Joe's last actual railroading was done in Alaska but he's still at it in spirit.  Joe drops in on me every whipstich, sits down to my key and starts off with “GA horse.”  We talk on and on, side by side but seldom vocally;  just a couple of old bats thumping out insults and whatnot, making dashes while stalling for time to think and grinning like the famous jackass eating thistles. 

 That oil extra to which I missed rear-end delivery went a sixteenth of a mile before the Indian caught up.  We could have cut that down considerably had the Indian been on hand.  By the time I got hold of the Cushing station and the Indian covered the nine miles to Norfolk the extra had gone pretty well up the line. 

4:30 a.m.  Extra 4007 west passed at 2:50 and since then, with uninterrupted gazing, I've made a disconcerting discovery;  I'm going to need a new pair of shoes pretty soon. 

Story Time

 Miner's Silver Ghost

Centennial Stamps

 Received this email from one of our Junior Telegraphers, Hugh Cowling.
Thanks Hugh!

This framed sheet showcases the U.S. 3¢ Telegraph Centenary stamp (Scott #924), issued on May 24, 1944 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first official telegraph message. The stamp’s design features a prominent telegraph pole with wires receding into the distance, symbolizing the dawn of electrical communication. Embedded in the design is the historic message “What hath God wrought”, the very phrase tapped out by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1844 during his first telegraph transmission from the U.S. Capitol to Baltimore

Jack the Signalman.

 

In the 1880s, a chacma baboon named Jack made history — not for mischief, but for working as a railway signalman in South Africa. And yes, he was paid in money and beer.

Jack belonged to James “Jumper” Wide, a railway signalman who had lost both his legs in a train accident. To help him get around and do his job, James adopted Jack in 1881 and trained him to push his wheelchair. But Jack quickly proved he could do a lot more.

Soon, Jack was opening gates, fetching keys, helping with gardening, and — most remarkably — operating the railway signals. James taught Jack to recognize which lever controlled which track. At first, Jack followed hand signals from James to pull the correct lever. But before long, he didn’t need any cues — he learned to do it on his own.

Jack never made a single mistake in his years of service at Uitenhage station. He worked faithfully under James’ supervision and became a local legend. What started as a practical solution turned into one of the most heartwarming examples of human-animal teamwork in history.

Junior Telegraphers mentioned in dispatches!

The TV network here in Calgary did a segment on the Junior Telegraphers at Heritage Park
Enjoy!

https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/at-heritage-park-the-morse-telegraph-clubs-junior-members-are-keeping-the-code-alive/

The year the CPR crossed Alberta 1883

I found this map in a copy of the July-August 1883 copy of Canada Rail magazine.

It covers the the progress the CPR made in 1883 starting just East of Maple Creek in April and ending at Laggan in November.
It made it to Calgary in August that year.
Fascinating.

A story from the days of Steam!

 Todays story comes from Thom Cholowski, Administrator of the Historic Saskatchewan FB page. Enjoy 73

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Funny railway story from the steam days as told to me by a veteran Canadian Pacific Railway engineer.

Alex Lucak (1918-2011) had a 35 year career with the CPR beginning in 1943, working primarily out of Sutherland (Saskatoon). I had the pleasure of interviewing him several times about his career and he shared many colourful stories, especially about his time working on steam locomotives.

Alex was normally a quiet, dignified and proper gentleman in the time that I knew him, but as he got to know me and understood my background (having worked almost 20,000 hours as a steam locomotive engineer/fisherman/mechanic, mostly on ex CPR steam locomotives), he found somewhat of a kindred spirit who, as I ‘spoke his language’ gradually viewed me as a colleague rather than a curious youngster.

As his trust grew, he began to readily share life experiences and open up. He loved talking, becoming more lively in his stories and - I say this with the upmost respect- started to freely use more and more ‘colourful’ language that would be wholly appropriate in the cab of a locomotive.

When Alex would share his stories with me, a funny thing would happen, almost every single time. Alex used to walk hunched over, with a stoop and the assistance of a cane. When he would begin his stories he would shuffle over to a chair and get comfortable sitting with his hands on his legs, leaning forward for the important details, raising his bushy eyebrows, while his right hand rested on his cane. As the story went on, Alex would start to wave his hands around and at some point, he would stand up to ‘go through the motions’ to demonstrate his adventure. Invariably, by the time he reached the end, the cane was gone and Alex was up out of his chair, bouncing around the room, hands wildly gesturing, standing fully upright, slapping his knee and laughing heartily.

One time, at the end of a story his wife Anne came in and in shock said ‘Alex! You’re standing upright!!!’, to which he replied with out missing a beat ‘Well how the Hell else am I supposed to stand?’😆

Anyhow, on to the story.

Alex had just completed his 3 student trips under the supervision of a ‘set up’ fireman and was called up off the spare board to go on his first trip by himself on a night time freight run onboard a #2500 series, G2 class ‘Pacific’, 4-6-2 locomotive. This class was not equipped with a ‘mechanical’ stoker to feed coal into the firebox, so Alex had his job cut out for him shoveling a scoop full at a time into the hungry firebox.

The run was between Sutherland and Wynyard, a distance of 113 miles, and with the heavy freight train, Alex would have to shovel by hand almost 14 tons of coal to get the engine over the road.

They had just passed the halfway point at Lanigan when Alex paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. He gazed up at the engineer’s seat box and his blood ran ice cold.

The engineer was no where in sight.

The cab of a CPR steam locomotive is a small, cozy place that is designed for a singular purpose of running a locomotive and there is nowhere a person can hide. Alex, frozen in fear, mid pose as he was wiping his brow, quickly scanned the cab for any trace of the engineer.

He was simply gone.

Alex quickly took stock of his situation. He was completely alone in the cab of a steam locomotive, at night, doing 35 miles per hour, with a fully loaded freight train behind him, full of steam and heading to Wynyard, and the engineer, THE person in control of the whole show was nowhere to be found.

Frozen in absolute terror, Alex contemplated his options and indeed, the entirety of his life and the choices that led him to this exact moment.

Before Alex could react, he watched the engineer shuffle by the OUTSIDE of the cab window, hand over hand, swing in through the cab door and assume his position in the engineer’s seat. He adjusted his coat and pants, pulled out his pipe placing it between his teeth, tamped and lit it and set his hand authoritatively on the throttle as if nothing had happened.

Alex stood there dumbfounded. The engineer looked up and down at him and said ‘What…the headlight was dirty!’

Alex shook his head in disbelief and went back to the routine of taking a shovel of coal, taking a few steps ‘doing the dance’, stepping on the pedal to open the ‘butterfly’ doors of the firebox to feed the iron horse and repeating the process until the got to Wynyard.

Now for those unfamiliar with steam locomotives, what had happened was this- the seasoned engineer, knowing that this was Alex’s first solo trip had pulled a prank on him.

While the train was running at 35 miles per hour, and while Alex was preoccupied with shoveling coal, he had set the throttle, and using the handrails along the outside of the cab and boiler, walked along the length of the speeding locomotive to ‘wipe the headlight’ with a handful of cotton waste, at the prow of the engine and return! Some joke!

I will always treasure the stories told to me by Alex and his fellow railroaders of that generation who have long since gone to the great ‘roundhouse in the sky’.

Alberta MTC Line at Supertrain 2025

 During Supertrain in Calgary this year I was interviewed by the Ham Radio Blogger Vince d'Eon.
Check it out!
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