Old West Telegraph Fun

Something a little different today.

This pre-code Western, "The Telegraph Trail" starring John Wayne, was made in 1932.
A fun adventure where the telegraph figures prominently 😃

Here is the storyline from IMDB

"Greedy opportunist Gus Lynch, in order to continue to gouge townsfolk for necessary supplies, convinces High Wolf and his Indian tribe that they need to prevent the completion of the new telegraph lines or their tribe will be wiped out by a new influx of white men. Receiving an incomplete message warning of a white man's involvement in the recent Indian uprisings, cavalry scout John Trent is sent in to rectify the situation."

What's not to like?

If you would like to have a gander at this "classic" there is a copy available to view here.

Enjoy
73
KJ

Today we have a paper by L.E.Trump posted to the Telegraph Technology section of the
 Telegraph Lore website.

Enjoy
73
KJ

Testing on Open Wire Telegraph Lines

by L.E. Trump

Since the ranks of the Open Wire Testboardmen are thinning, and Open Wire Telegraph lines are almost non-existent today, it may be of interest to describe some of the testing techniques employed by those who did such work.

Western Union, the railroads, AT&T and other companies had extensive open wire plants spanning the U.S. up until the 1960's. Technological advances have largely supplanted the open wire lines and over-come their vulnerability to disaster.

The old-time Testboardman or Wire Chief had an interesting job to do, especially when the weather was less than ideal and rain, sleet, snow and ice wreaked havoc on the lines. Then, too, Lightning often walked about, seeking arbitrary paths to Mother Earth, and what better place to go than a nice fat Telegraph wire strung high on wet poles. "Atmospheric" electricity was something to be reckoned with indeed, and it caused many a Wire Chief to tear his hair.

When the weather was fine over his district, the Wire Chief usually did routine tests once a day which were intended to determine the basic "health" of the wires traversing his territory. Routine measurements conducted at one end of the line, with a distant office assisting, were conducted to measure the leakage to ground or "insulation resistance" of each wire, continuity of same, and working current in the circuit assigned to the wire if any. These measurements were usually recorded at intervals perhaps daily, or weekly or even monthly depending on the particular Company's policy. These records were kept for reference, and could be referred to as a "standard" or benchmark when things went wrong.

This testing was service-interrupting, so it was normally done during the "low usage" part of the day when the wire was idle. If this was not possible, service would be maintained by "patching" the circuit carried by a given wire off to a known good spare wire while the testing was done.

The primary testing instrument on a typical telegraph switchboard was the ES7A Volt-Mil-ammeter (VMA). The Switchboard Volt-mil-ammeter was a special "zero center" Galvanometer (micro-ammeter) that was calibrated to 200 units each side of center. A special set of shunt resistances, along with a jack and plug arrangement allowed the meter to be quickly set up as either a voltmeter or a mil-ammeter, with a full scale reading of 200 volts, or 200 milliamperes either side of center, as desired. When set up as a voltmeter, special testing potentials of up to plus 200 volts, minus 200 volts, or ground, could be connected to one side of the meter, with the other side of the meter connected to a test cord with a plug that fit the line jacks on the board. A strap key was also provided that could reverse the testing battery potential applied to the meter. When set up as a mil-ammeter, both sides of the meter were connected to the test cord. Current value in milliamperes and direction could then be easily observed by plugging the test cord into a series jack in the switchboard jack circuit of any given wire.

Running Trains by Telegraph

Continuing on with our recent series of posts on Operator/Agents duties and procedures here is a excerpt from the wonderful "Tales of the Telegraph" by Jasper Ewing Brady published in 1899.

This chapter is entitled "Running Trains by Telegraph - How It is Done" and covers the way a dispatcher worked and the environment he worked in back in 1899.
The entire book is a wonderful read highly recommended but this chapter is a great look at how the Dispatcher kept (or at least tried to keep) everything running smoothly and most importantly safely!
Enjoy
73
KJ

Continued below.

Hooping in 1960

 Once the operator got his orders he had to get them to the train crew.
This great photo by R. Sandusky taken at Morley Alberta on August 16 1960 shows the C.P. Agent Vic Burton hooping orders to the Eastbound "Mountaineer".
You can also see the second shorter hoop he is holding to give to the conductor in the caboose.
This is an original photo currently hanging on the wall of the station at the Alberta Central Railway Museum near Wetaskiwin Alberta.
Worth a closer look!

Busy Busy Operator

Transcribed from an article in a1958 edition of the North Battleford newspaper and sent to us by Merle Shockey in Grande Prairie Alberta.
Thanks Merle!

Curry's CORNER

by D. S. CURRY

Telegraph Operators

The telegraph operator appears to have the softest job on the railroad as he pounds away at his typewriter to the tune of the telegraph sounder banging away in his ear. But the truth is that at times he has more responsibility than some presidents, is busier than a factory hand on an assembly line and at the end of his shift is more tired than a ditch digger.

A good example would be the second trick operator down at the station. His day begins at three in the afternoon by signing the transfer from the day operator, checking the train orders and messages on hand and casting a suspicious eye at the west end wire as it hums out of tune with the rest of them.

To the uninitiated click, click, click of the telegraph sounder is merely noise. But to the operator, as he shoves message blanks into the typewriter, it forms a music all its own. For an hour or more he will sit, oblivious to all other sounds, transcribing this musical code at thirty or forty words a minute, into the plain English of telegrams.

Interrupting this smooth flow of words the dispatchers telephone from Prince Albert whirrs into life demanding attention. With a quick movement of his wrist he opens the key to his "bug", telling the sender that he is "9" or in everyday speech, going to copy train orders.

The handling of train orders is the most important part of his duties. A train cannot move until he has given it either a clearance or a full set of orders issued by the dispatcher. With thousands of dollars worth of equipment and many lives at stake he is not allowed one mistake, even a misplaced letter, in a train order. To check on his accuracy, every order is given to at least one other operator, who miles away, listens to him repeat it back to the dispatcher. The three of them are held equally responsible for the correctness of the order and this responsibility is tremendous. With two trains, travelling at over fifty miles an hour, coming against each other, it would take only one word in the wrong order to cause a train wreck. A heavy cross hangs over the fingers of an operator's hand or the sound of his voice on a telephone. But the evening passes quickly. In the course of eight hours he may have copied fifty messages, cleared trains, sold tickets, acted as yardmaster, answered two city telephones at least forty times each, and then have some one ask him why he doesn't look busy as he sits at his desk eating a cold lunch many hours late.

Yes it may appear to be a cinch of a job but it can also be a very quick way to gather a set of ulcers. But ask any operator if they would like to trade jobs and you would get an immediate no.Who else but an operator can, by the touch of his fingers, set in motion a whole railroad or just as quickly pull it to a stop. 

They are "rail-roaders".

The Crew

 An interesting taxonomy of a Railroad crew.
Courtesy of Joe F on the MKOB mail list.

73
Ciao
KJ

Christmas Comes to the Prairie Central

 Christmas Comes to the Prairie Central

"Banker Management Had Nearly Wrecked the System;
 a Blizzard Threatened to Finish the Job."

By Harry Bedwell, Boomer Brass Pounder and Dispatcher,

from the January, 1943 issue of "Railroad Magazine".

The gray bowl of the sky had shut down over the Oberlin yard.  Snow fell in big flakes, sliding in quietly to make a clean carpet over rails and gaunt ties and the dark ballast between.  It washed the sprawling roof of the big station, with division headquarters above stairs.  It made the lines of rolling stock along the sidings look like the huge links of long white chains in the growing afternoon gloom.  The night air was tight as a drum.  You could feel the sullen pressure of the storm climb.  The wind gathered out there somewhere under the dull arch.

Eddie Sand, slim and light-stepping, came up the station platform heading for the dispatcher's office.  A boomer telegraph operator from every place but here, he'd be sure to drift on once more when his feet again became restless.  Right now the swarming flakes and the crisp air trickling in about the high collar of his overcoat stirred a random element inside him.  They shifted his thoughts beyond the lowering sky and the curtain of snow to far reaches of sun and desert.  Eddie felt good.  He was ticking like a watch.  Beside him loped Hi Wheeler, fiddle-footed trainman and comrade on many unseemly pranks.  Hi's sheepskin coat was belted tight about his gaunt middle.  A shrewd glint of oafish eyes showed from the nest of turned-up collar and low visor of his heavy cap.

The thick shutter of snow muffled and blanketed the restless area of the fanned-out sidings.  A yard goat stamped by, sluggishly dragging a string of open-top equipment.  Her exhaust shook the dead air, bouncing back from the low sky.

Eddie and his friend paused before separating at the foot of the outside stairs under the shelter of the wide eaves.  Hi's face cracked in an impish grin.  "I'll bet you got me something nice for Christmas, Eddie,"  he insinuated blandly.  "You wouldn't neglect an old pal."

Eddie gestured with his hands inside his overcoat pockets.  Yeah, it was Christmas Eve, he admitted.  So what?  To a railroader it merely meant more grief handling people and packages which were on the move at holiday time.  And on the Prairie Central it'd be a wearisome time, considering she was likely in the clutches of the Big Six Line which would probably kick her into the ashcan.  Anyhow, railroaders didn't celebrate.  They just fixed it so that everybody else could enjoy themselves.  "Also," Eddie admitted, "I forgot to buy you that stick of candy I promised.  I'll try to skirmish one for you in the morning."

Hi tucked his thin nose inside the collar of his coat as the wind whipped snowflakes into his face. "Mebby," he conjectured, "you're jealous 'cause I got me a date to take Sally to the dance and Christmas tree at the Elk's Hall tonight, which I can make, while you work."

The trainman was feeling very well about that setup.  He and Eddie had been feuding over a buxom blonde who worked in the millinery department of the Bon Ton.  Eddie's working hours didn't permit him to step Sally out except on his days off, while Hi was mostly on the road or at the other end of the division, so their rivalry had been sporadic.

Now Hi had maneuvered himself into a spot where he believed he had all the advantage on this festal night.  He'd worked it so he had been called to flag a light engine down to Hugo and help Thirty-three back up the hump, and he'd act as swing man coming back.  Thirty-three was a hotshot, due at Oberlin in the middle of the evening, usually on time; and this gave Hi the break he wanted.

"Sally told me she was going to wear all her pretties, just for me," he gloated.  "That gal is sure a hot sketch!  And can she dance!"  Hi whistled with satisfaction.

Eddie Sand glinted a brief, derisive smile.  His slim height matched Hi's ramshackle longitude. His hands were adept and sure, built to whip out clear Morse on the telegraph key.  Eddie and Hi were as incorrigible a pair as drifted the iron highway.  Firm friends on numberless escapades, they'd sympathetically cut each other's throat over a girl, and think it fun.

The wind was rising and its edge had been whetted.  A switch engine shoved Eighteen's train of day coaches under the long sheds.  George Nelson, her brakeman, came out of the station and stood beside them as he buttoned his overcoat.

"Mr. Nickerson's special is headed back this way," he said gloomily, "but there ain't no word that he's taken over the Prairie Central."  He looked at them as if he hoped they'd deny this.  "Guess the old boy didn't want us enough to buy," he muttered.  "Well, if the Big Six gets us___"   He ran an index finger around his throat from ear to ear and then walked dejectedly over to his train.

Most of the men of the Prairie Central would be feeling that way tonight.  They'd not be celebrating Christmas very much with prospects so grim. The caller trumpeted monotonously inside the waiting-room where a bulging stove glowed red in the afternoon dusk.  They'd put two extra coaches on Eighteen.  Passengers streamed from the swinging doors and across the platform through the curtain of sliding flakes___city folk going to the country for the holidays, shoppers returning home, commuters.  Most of them carried bundles;  all had the bright expectancy that comes at Yuletide.  They greeted George Nelson as he stood by the step helping the women with their packages.  Some paused an instant to bestow a gift.  George was gray and smiling.  He'd been on that local run for ten years, and everybody liked him.

Dan Cadagan, the conductor, came from the trainman's room as Eighteen's engine backed down from the roundhouse and tied on.  Big Dan was as blustering as a spring storm.  A ring of white hair showed around the edge of his cap.  Gold braid and buttons gleamed on his uniform.  He was proud of that uniform and the gold stripes of service, won in honest performance of duty. 

Tonight his broad, pink face wore a worried expression, the same look that haunted the PC these days, but it opened in a lengthwise grin as he saw Eddie and Hi.

"You two look like you'd lost your way in the storm,"  he said.  "Haven't you got any place to hang up your stockings?"

"Mister," Hi declared, "I got all my socks on; and believe you me, I'll likely need more before the evening gets late."

Read the rest of this tale here.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Rogers Pass Station

 I previously posted a photo of the original CPR Station in Rogers Pass.

Here is another photo I just saw on the Vintage railwaystations,Round houses,Locomotives,coaches,cabooses of Canada Facebook group.

Old Rogers Pass Station in the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia. This card shows the original CPR Rogers Pass station which was east of the summit. Sadly, it was destroyed by an avalanche in 1899, and 7 people died in the tragedy. Snow shed number 15 can be seen behind the water tower. After the destruction a new station was built further west where the present visitor centre is located.

It is hard to imagine just how isolated that station was back in the day.

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 1963 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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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’.

History in the making... with a golden key!

 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ASSISTS CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN OPENING NEW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK. WASHINGTON, D.C. MARCH 6. THE MUCH COVETED HONOR OF BEING THE FIRST YOUNGSTER TO PRESS THE HISTORIC GOLD TELEGRAPH KEY USED BY PRESIDENTS WENT TODAY TO CAMP FIRE GIRL JANE BRANDT, RIGHT, AS SHE ASSISTED PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, HONORARY PRESIDENT OF THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS, IN LIGHTING BY WIRE THE CROSSED LOGS AND FLAME LAMP IN THE ORGANIZATION'S NEW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK CITY. TODAY'S CEREMONY MARKED THE 27TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS. ON THE LEFT IS CAMP FIRE GIRL MARGARET PATSY BIRGE.

Book Review "Tales of the Telegraph" 1899

 This is another review by Jim Haynes from the old Telegraph Lore website.

A PDF of the book is available at the Internet Archive here.

Enjoy

73
Ciao
KJ

"Tales of the Telegraph"

The Story of a Telegrapher's Life and Adventures in Railroad Commercial and Military Work

by Jasper Ewing Brady, 1st Lieutenant 19th United States Infantry, Late Captain Signal Corps U.S. Volunteers

Published by Doubleday & McClure Co. 1899

This book is a collection of stories from a lifetime of employment in the telegraph business in the late 19th century. The span of jobs held by Mr. Brady covers just about every type of landline Morse telegraph work imaginable. Reading this book should give the reader a pretty good picture of employment in the telegraph business in the 19th century, particularly in the south and western areas of the United States.

Brady started out as a boomer telegrapher straight out of telegraph school. The first few chapters of the book contain various stories and incidents while working various railroad telegraph offices. The quantity and destructiveness of the various railroad accidents he describes led me to believe that this was a work of fiction, until later I read that 2000 railroad related deaths per year was not uncommon in the late 19th century. The next phase of his career was spent doing commercial work. I have never found a description of working quadruplex Morse circuits until reading this book.

After tiring of commercial work, Brady decided to return to the railroad, this time with aspirations of becoming a dispatcher. Interrupting the flow of the book, Brady did a fine job with a chapter describing the role of the dispatcher in the running of railroad. He then continued on with several chapters covering various train dispatcher stories.

Brady then suddenly decides to join the military, hoping to quit the telegraph for good. He succeeds for a year, and then he took an assignment working as a telegrapher for an isolated Texas military camp. The next chapter is a detour to a story he picked up from one of the older soldiers while out west. The story is about an operator who literally dies at the key. The remaining chapters conclude Brady's military career including work as a censor of telegraph traffic while stationed in Florida during the Spanish-American War. This book is excellent reading for fans of Morse telegraphy. Brady gives a good overview of three important phases of telegraphic communications: railroad dispatching, commercial, and military.

 

Book Review "The American Telegrapher"

Here is another interesting review from Jim Haynes at the old Telegraph Lore website.
I have included the second part of the Review as it has some great stories.

Enjoy
73
Ciao
KJ

Review - The American Telegrapher: a social history 1860-1900by Jim Haynes

The American Telegrapher: a social history 1860-1900
Edwin Gabler
Rutgers University Press, 1988
ISBN 0-8135-1284-0 (hardbound), 0-8135-1285-9 (paperback)

I seem to read a lot of books which are at the same time both interesting and tedious. This is one such book. Written by an academic historian for reading by other academic historians, it is long on footnotes, theories, and statistics and short on flesh-and-blood storytelling; yet there is enough of the latter to entertain the casual reader. Part I of this review is an attempt to convey the general message of the book. Part II is for fun: a selection of stories about the lives and times telegraphers a century ago. 

Part II

Dr. Gabler had access to a vast amount of material: census records, archives of the telegraph companies, contemporary newspaper accounts, magazines published for the edification and amusement of operators, and even novels in which telegraphers were used as characters. The footnotes and bibliography take up 48 pages. One page in the book is an illustration of advertisements in a telegraphers' magazine of 1883. They include a book on shorthand, a book of money-making secrets, a book on the mysteries of love-making, a book on fortune telling, watch charms with microscopic pictures, a book of advice to the unmarried, a package of stationery, a book on politeness, a book of letters for all occasions, playing cards with marked backs, a book of magic tricks, a book on business, and a book on ballroom dancing. The theme is that these appealed to working-class young adults who felt a need to learn how to behave properly as new members of the middle-class.

A number of telegraph operators rose to prominence. Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie are the best known; Theodore N. Vail was a founder of AT&T; others found success in business or politics; and almost all the upper management of Western Union was drawn from the ranks of operators. In 1885 there were five doctors and one dentist moonlighting as telegraph operators - maybe medicine and dentistry didn't pay all that well in those days.

Thomas Edison, as a young telegrapher in the 1860s, would work a full day and then stay in the office at night, listening to a press circuit to get high speed code practice. Later he worked the Boston end of a New York circuit with an operator named Jerry Borst. Operators formed friendships with their counterparts at the other end of the wires. The telegraph companies insisted that operators should work at whatever circuits they were assigned. Edison and Borst conspired to change three characters of the code, so that nobody else could copy their transmissions and they could always work together. Cockroaches were such a problem in the office that Edison devised a bug zapper to protect his lunch from the little beasties.

Friendships over the wires were nourished during lulls in traffic by exchanges of jokes and local news, and by checker games. Sometimes love and courtship blossomed too. At other times operators were rude to one another. On one occasion two operators got so angry at each other that they arranged to meet at a town halfway between their posts and settle the matter with fists at 1:00 AM. "Salting" (sending too fast for the receiving operator) was a frequent source of irritation. Salting was also part of the common practice of hazing new operators.

Operators frequently got privileges, such as free passes to theaters and on trains. With the chronic oversupply it was common for operators to travel back and forth across the country looking for work, or for better conditions. Operators didn't get vacations, paid or otherwise; but in the summer months telegraph offices would open in the resort towns where the rich took their vacations, and operators could find work there.

In 1883 Western Union employed 444 telegraphers in New York City, 96 in Boston, 88 in St. Louis, and 83 in Chicago. This seems to support a conjecture of mine that W.U. was weakened all its life by overattention to serving New York City and insufficient effort to develop the business in other parts of the country.

There was friction between the city operators and the rural operators. The city operators were proud of their skills, and wanted to move the traffic. They resented they way country operators would frequently interrupt transmissions. The country operators, usually working in railroad depots, countered that telegraphy was but a small part of their duties. They had to answer questions from the public, sell tickets, meet trains, tend switches and signals, handle freight, and keep the lamps burning. They commonly worked shifts as long as twelve or even sixteen hours.

Development of duplex and then quadruplex operation greatly increased the pressure on operators, as the receiving operators could not interrupt the senders. Gender stereotyping held that only male operators had the stamina to handle these heavily-loaded circuits; yet the book cites a number of examples of women who worked these circuits. Women were consistently paid less than men. The companies were well aware that women were a bargain compared with men, and continually tried to replace men with women.

Nellie Welch had full charge of the telegraph office in Point Arena, California in 1886. She was eleven years old.

Western Union and the Cooper Union Institute in 1869 jointly started a free eight-month telegraphy course for women. It lasted through the early 1890s, turning out about 80 graduates a year. They would first take non-paying jobs assisting regular operators, and then be hired as operators on lightly loaded city circuits. This school was much despised by men for its contribution to the oversupply problem, thought it probably hurt the opportunities for women more than those for men.

Beginner and less-skilled operators were called "plugs" or "hams." (Note the endless controversy over the origin of the term "ham" for amateur radio operators.) The schools that turned out these operators were called "plug factories."

Craft magazines sought to shame operators who taught telegraphy. They were urged to pass on the secrets of Morse only to brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. At least one railroad operator quit his job rather than cooperate with a student placed with him by the company. (Some other material I have read tells of operators who took on students for a fee; and notes that the operator not only gained the income but also used the students to run errands for him.)

 

Artifacts

 Fascinating finds from Calgary MTC member Janice Povey.

"Historic remnants - on a hike along the Wild Pacific Trail came across this piece of history well preserved in the bog.  We had heard of this story while living on the west coast in the 80’s and when the trail was restored this wonderful artifact was discovered!

Wire Cache - came across this bit of history at a rest area just north of Avola, BC on Hwy 5 (Yellowhead).  Apparently the locals have been collecting the old wire for years.

 

Ray Johnson Camrose's last operator reminisces

This video is the reminiscences of Ray Johnson who retired as the last Station Agent at Camrose Alberta in 1987.

Courtesy of the Canadian Northern Society.

Enjoy