From the Chief Dispatcher

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to 2026!
An update from me is long overdue.

MTC Calgary finished 2024 with just over 30 members and our finances in good shape.

Early in January 2025 we received an official version of our chapter charter from the MTC international office, some 25 years after the Calgary chapter was first formed. Better late than never I suppose.

In March we held our annual general meeting where discussions ranged from membership to incorporation to goings on at Heritage Park to the MTC line project. The level of interest was great to see. We also submitted our application to be incorporated as a not-for-profit under Alberta’s Society Act. Incorporation will give us formal standing and help in obtaining grants to fund expansion of the line project.

In April we attended Supertrain, Calgary’s premiere annual model railway show. It was held for the first time in the Olympic Oval at the University of Calgary. It was well attended and the new venue was enjoyed by all.

We commenced our efforts at Heritage Park in May under our alter egos as the Heritage Park Morse Telegraph Club, working Tuesday’s and Saturday’s. In September we attended Railway Days, the parks annual railway extravaganza. We continued to support and steward the junior telegrapher program as well. We had a busy summer and when the regular season ended at Thanksgiving we had worked over 300 shifts, a truly amazing feat! We finished the year at the park by working several days during their Once Upon A Christmas event. In the end we had handled over 140 telegrams to Santa.

We joined the Historical Society of Alberta and the Canadian Pacific Historical Association as corporate members as part of our networking efforts.

On the outreach front we did a dozen presentations to various groups from BC to Alberta to Saskatchewan, spreading our words on a wire, so to speak.

On the advertising front we appeared in print more than a dozen times in various publications from Dots and Dashes to Canadian Rail to the Summerland Museum newsletter.

The Alberta MTC Line continues to be a defining project of MTC Calgary. We received substantial donations of telegraph equipment from several people and purchased a few surplus items from the CRHA/Exporail museum. We added 5 new stations to the line and ended the year with 10 stations, 7 in Alberta and 3 in BC. Soon we will be welcoming the Grande Prairie Museum and Archives to the fold.

On the membership front we welcomed three new members and said so long to two others. On a sad note two other Calgary chapter members, Clifford Hine and Carmen Wallace, passed away.

As we head into 2026 we look forward to our upcoming annual general meeting. While the date has not yet been determined, I expect it will be held once again at the Nichols public library.

Planning for our booth at Supertrain 2026 is underway with the show scheduled for Saturday April 25 and Sunday April 26, again at the Olympic oval. As I write this I heard that there is 106 exhibitors registered asking for over 70,000 square feet of space which might make this the biggest model train show ever held in Calgary.

In conclusion I want to thank all Calgary chapter members for your continuing interest in and dedication to Morse telegraphy and in particular my fellow Board members for the countless hours of time you put in to keep it all running so smoothly. Well done!

And that’s it for now. All the best in this new year.

73
Ken Ashmead, President

Morse Telegraph Club, Calgary “CG" Chapter

Happy New Year!

 Wishing you all a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous, and Safe 2026!

 “Of all the marvelous achievements of modern science the electric telegraph is transcendentally the greatest and most serviceable to mankind … The whole earth will be belted with the electric current, palpitating with human thoughts and emotions … How potent a power, then, is the telegraphic destined to become in the civilization of the world! This binds together by a vital cord all the nations of the earth. It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.”  

-- Charles F. Briggs and Augustus Maverick  in their 1858 book “The Story of the Telegraph”

 

Welcome to 2025.

 Hello everyone and welcome to 2025.

The Calgary chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club says goodbye to the old year and hello to the new on a high note indeed.

Membership continues to climb with the addition of several new members including one young girl who is a junior high school student and is the youngest member in all of the MTC. She joined the CG chapter after attending a telegraphy camp at Calgary’s Heritage Park.

The Calgary chapter initiated a junior telegrapher program at Heritage Park in the fall of 2023. The program now has ten young lightning slingers learning the trade through that program, with more to come I’m sure. My thanks to chapter secretary-treasurer and MTC Board member Marilyn Maguire, and Janice Povey, for their stewardship and mentoring of the next generation.

On a sad note we had to say goodbye to two members last year with the passing of Bill Atkinson in February and Nick Bobrownik in August. We also noted the passing of Edmonton chapter member Jim Crone in May who assisted Calgary chapter members at Heritage Park’s Railway Days in 2023. May they rest in peace.

The Calgary chapter will be holding our annual general meeting in late March. While the date has not yet been determined, I expect it will be held once again at the Nichols public library.

Chapter members will again be attending Supertrain, Calgary’s annual and Canada’s largest model railway show. The show will go on Saturday April 5 and Sunday April 6, in the Olympic oval at the University of Calgary. Our booth will feature information on the art and science that is Morse and we will host a working, multi-station landline Morse network as we did last year. It’s our expectation that we will connect it to the Alberta MTC line as well. Please visit: https://www.supertrain.ca/ for more information on the show.

And speaking of the Alberta MTC Line, as of the end of 2024 we had 5 active stations on the line. A sixth site, in BC, will be connected later this month. Kevin Jepson, the project’s Wire Chief and network administrator, tells me that he has more than two dozen museums wanting to join or wanting more info. The concept of connecting museums with landline Morse telegraph equipment to a working network is proving to be popular. My thanks to Kevin, and Tim Taylor, for moving the project along so well. If you would like more information on the line project please visit: https://alberta-mtc.blogspot.com/.

Lastly I want to mention that members of the Calgary chapter, and members of the Heritage Park Morse Telegraph Club, will again be demonstrating landline Morse at Heritage Park on Tuesdays and Saturdays from May to September. For more information on the park please visit: https://heritagepark.ca/.

That’s all I have for now. Until next time stay well.

73

Ken Ashmead, President
Morse Telegraph Club, Calgary “CG" Chapter

From the Chief Dispatcher

 Hello everyone. I see pumpkins and witches are showing up in the stores and on people's lawns so it must be time for my fall update. Much has happened since my last one in June so here goes.

Weekly telegraph sessions continued at Calgary’s Heritage Park on Tuesdays and Saturdays with members staffing Midnapore and Laggan stations. The normal course of things had us demonstrating Morse code and sending “name grams” down the wire. We also hooped up train orders to each passing train.

On Sep 14 and 15 members from MTC Calgary, and two from MTC Edmonton, manned three of Heritage Park's four former Canadian Pacific Railway stations for the parks Railway Days event. We did the usual agent operator sorts of things. Members of the junior telegraph club helped at the stations and hosted the telegraphy component of the children’s railway challenge at Shepard station. MTC Calgary members also staffed the millers cabin on the promenade which was set up as a commercial telegraph office. Information on the Alberta line project was prominently displayed.

We closed out our weekly sessions on Thanksgiving weekend. Saturday practices will likely continue
in Midnapore station until it gets too cold.

A most exciting possibility for the telegraph club will be handling telegrams during Heritage Park’s annual Christmas days, this year occupying the three weekends in December prior to Christmas Day. Telegrams to Santa, called Santagrams by Western Union, were once a popular and lucrative undertaking for telegraph companies.

To my knowledge Christmastime telegrams have not previously been offered at Heritage Park and we are looking forward to bringing something new to the park.

MTC Calgary finally received its chapter charter from the international office of the MTC. Having this will allow us to more easily incorporate under the Alberta Societies Act. This is an important step if we want to seek financial help from any level of government in covering some of the costs of the line project, which could be substantial.

And speaking of the line project a brief update is in order. Both the Days of Yore and Railway Days events provided great opportunities to showcase the project with seven and six active stations online respectively. Interest in the line project is growing. Currently the project has five active stations; two at Heritage Park, the museum in Didsbury, AB, our MTC agent in Cardston, AB, and the Dispatcher's station in the Wire Chief's office. Very soon the SS Sicamous in Penticton BC will join the circuit as well. At last count we have more than two dozen other museums wanting to join the fun. This is truly amazing and our wire chief, Kevin Jepson, is to be commended on a job well done! Kevin will be offering a more substantial project update very soon.

That’s all I have for now. I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

73
Ken Ashmead, President
Morse Telegraph Club, Calgary "CG" Chapter

 

 

From the Chief Dispatcher

Supertrain 2024

The Calgary chapter of the MTC will once again be attending Supertrain, Calgary’s annual model railway show.

The show will go on Saturday April 20 and Sunday April 21 and is open to the public from 9 AM to 5 PM MT.

The Calgary chapter will have a booth featuring the art and science that is Morse and we will be talking about the Alberta Line Project. MTC Calgary is spearheading the project with plans to bring live Morse traffic to every museum in the province of Alberta that has telegraph equipment sitting silently collecting dust. At Supertrain we will again have numerous “stations” connected to a local Morse circuit as a proof of concept for the project.

So, if you’re in the Calgary area in April we encourage you to come to Supertrain. It’s Canada’s largest model railway show attracting exhibitors and guests from Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

For more information on Supertrain, please visit:

 https://www.supertrain.ca/. 

For more information on the MTC in Alberta, and the line project, please visit the Alberta MTC Line tab on this page.

A report on last year's Supertrain telegraph setup is here.

——

Thank you

73

Ken Ashmead, President

Morse Telegraph Club, Calgary “CG" Chapter

Merry Christmas!

 From all of us at the Calgary (CG) Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club.
May you have a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2024!

From the Chief Dispatcher Fall 2023

 MTC Calgary Fall 2023 Update

The Calgary “CG” Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club has had a very busy summer!

Since May we have been slinging lightning and interpreting a day in the life of an agent operator twice a week, on Tuesday’s and Saturday’s, at Calgary’s Heritage Park. The park is fortunate to have four former Canadian Pacific Railway stations on the property, three of which are connected to the parks telegraph network. MTC Calgary has regularly occupied two of them, Laggan and Midnapore, practicing and perfecting our American Morse code skills and hooping up train orders to passing trains. We have also sent the names of countless guests up and down the wire and have put them in writing in telegrams. We have also shared stories about the local operator and his or her station as the centre of many towns across the prairies in days gone by.

Soon we will kick our efforts up a notch when Heritage Park’s annual Railway Days extravaganza happens once again. This year the event goes on Saturday, Sep 9 and Sunday, Sep 10 so mark your calendars! Not only will MTC Calgary be in Laggan and Midnapore stations, we will add Shepard station into the mix. MTC Calgary will also host a separate information booth which we will be sharing with members of the Victorian Society of Alberta. New this year will be a connection from this booth to the rest of the parks telegraph line, giving us a four station network. Once again members of Edmontons “MO” Chapter, all former railway telegraphers, will be joining us. It’s always a joy to stand back and watch the pros work the wires. 

 MTC Calgary also participated in two open houses at Champion Park this summer. The park is jointly owned by the Town of Okotoks and Foothills County. It has the former Canadian Pacific Railway station from Champion, Alberta (thus the name) on the property, along with a number of pieces of former CPR rolling stock. Chapter members staffed the station, slinging lightning and telling stories, as they do at Heritage Park. Two additional open houses are scheduled in September. The open houses provided a “proof of concept” opportunity for the Alberta Line Project. Using MorseKOB and the internet, Champion park was connected to the telegraph network at Heritage Park, and live Morse wire traffic was successfully exchanged between the stations at both places. It was a first for MTC Calgary and an exciting step for the larger line project.

This year has also seen the addition of three new members to the ranks of MTC Calgary, an encouraging sign for sure. To all those reading this who are not yet members of the Morse Telegraph Club, I encourage you to consider joining. Learning Morse code and sharing the science, art and history with folks is a lot of fun!

So, what does the fall and the New Year hold for us?

MTC Calgary will continue to be at Heritage Park demonstrating Morse telegraphy until Oct 7. While the park closes to the public that weekend, chapter members will meet on occasion to continue practicing until it gets too cold to do that. After that practice will continue online using MorseKOB and Zoom.

Having proven that the Alberta Line Project concept is viable, a formal rollout plan will be developed for 2024. If it goes well, every museum in southern Alberta that now has telegraph equipment sitting quietly collecting dust and rust, will be alive with the sounds of Morse code emitting from the sounder. I can see many road trips in our future!

I expect we will continue to occupy the stations at Heritage Park and may expand our efforts to more than 2 days per week. Feedback on the Champion Park open houses has been positive and hopefully the park will offer more public events throughout the year. MTC Calgary will be there too.

That’s all I have for now.

73

Ken Ashmead, President

MTC Calgary “CG” Chapter

Alberta-MTC-Wire Project

Hello fellow Alberta Landline Telegraphers!

 
This is the first post concerning a new "pie in the sky" project proposal for the Alberta-MTC group, and the Calgary "CG" chapter of the main MTC.

The "pie in the sky" element will become clear pretty quickly I suspect :-)

Here is the 30,000' view:

The project is to create a working landline telegraph system that includes ALL (if possible) railroad museum displays in Alberta and potentially Western Canada.

The days when railroads had right of ways and telegraph lines alongside those right of ways to most places in Alberta are long gone. However we are no longer constrained by the existence of physical wires! The widespread adoption of the cellphone network coverage in Alberta and Internet access , even if only dial-up, means that it is possible to have telegraph connectivity pretty much anywhere!

Freed from the need for physical wires, the MorseKOB program and its associated server allow computers running MorseKOB to communicate across any Internet connection. Devices under development allow connection of tiny inexpensive computers to physical telegraph equipment and local circuits, thus putting that equipment into virtual circuits that mimic physical long distance wires.

Imagine walking into any railroad station display in Alberta and hearing their telegraph instruments click clacking away, and not just producing random clicks but actual traffic from other telegraph stations across Alberta and beyond.

It is likely that most museums that include railway station displays have old telegraph equipment as part of that display. My proposal is to hook it all up and get it working again.

This is a potentially big project and not something that can be done simply or, alas, that cheaply.

Subsequent posts to this thread will cover the various phases of the project and the target objectives of each phase.

In thinking about how to proceed, given our small numbers of telegraph "enthusiasts", and of course our very real budget constraints, I have sought to make the objectives of each phase worth while in themselves. So that even if the project never gets past the first couple of phases something useful will have come out of the work. I am also hoping that by keeping the objectives modest that they can be accomplished without stressing us out or putting a burden on our already constrained time and pocketbooks.

As we improve our telegraphy skills this project is also an opportunity to spread landline telegraphy to a larger group of people and perhaps inspire more people to learn! (If only so they can explain what is happening in their displays).

Keep an eye out for further posts and discussions about the #AlbertaMTCwire project on the Alberta-MTC email group Recent posts are highlighted in the box on the left of this page.

The name and hashtag for the project is "#AlbertaMTCwire".

Subsequent posts here on this page will be labelled with "AlbertaMTCwire" and will be available on the Alberta MTC Wire tab above.

This is an exciting project and there will be lots of opportunities to help out so stay tuned!

Thoughts and comments welcome as always.

73
Ciao
KJ 

Editor
and AlbertaMTCwire Wire-Chief

From the Chief Dispatcher!

 

MTC Calgary at Supertrain

 

The Calgary Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club will be hosting a booth at Supertrain 2023 on April 15 and 16 at the Genesis Centre, 7555 Falconridge Blvd NE in Calgary, Alberta. The show is open to the public from 9 AM to 5 PM both days. The Calgary Chapter will be the focal point of a four station live telegraph circuit, a first for Supertrain. Other points on the line include two Alberta-based museums and a museum from BC. We will use the circuit to demonstrate the art and science of Morse code, the invention that “changed the world”, and how it became central to time table and train order operation on Canada’s railways for more than 100 years. We will also talk about how Morse code supported public communication through the use of telegrams. We will have on display some of the hardware and paperwork that was once common to virtually every train station in Canada and we’ll have a hands-on telegraph display for those who want to try their hand at “slinging lightning”.

 

For those unfamiliar with Supertrain, it is Canada’s largest annual model railroad show, attracting rail fans of all ages and stages since 1995.

You can get the latest on this event from their website here:
Supertrain 2023

 

 

MTC Calgary and First Canadian Collectors Club

 

The Calgary Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club will be giving a presentation at the March 13 meeting of the First Canadian Collectors Club. The presentation is titled MORSE TELEGRAPHY AND WHAT IT MEANS TO CANADIAN COLLECTORS. The presentation will begin with a brief history of Morse telegraphy and its use in Canada before delving into how the increasing scarcity of once common hardware and paperwork makes collecting it fun, and profitable! It will include a demonstration of the craft and will conclude with a brief question and answer session.

More information on the First Canadian Collectors Club is available from their website here:
First Canadian Collectors Club

 

Mark your calendars and come and join the fun!
73

Ken Ashmead

President

Calgary Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club

"CG"