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.
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.
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