Message in a Pocket

 Fascinating discovery in the pocket of an 1880 bustle dress!

@ctvnewstoronto Coded messages found in the folds of a Victorian-era dress were finally cracked by a University of Manitoba researcher almost a decade after they were discovered. The code, dubbed The Silk Dress Cryptogram, was once considered one of the top 50 unsolved codes in the world until it was cracked by Wayne Chan in 2022. #ctvnews #ctvnewstoronto #toronto #foryou #fyp #newstiktok #manitoba #silkdress #cryptogram #codecracked #victoriandress #bustledress ♬ original sound - ctvnewstoronto

https://www.tiktok.com/@ctvnewstoronto/
 

More info on the Silk Dress Cryptogram

Cryptic notes, secret pockets and a UM code cracker 

The full report.

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!

Comrades

 From the Telegraph Office

WE ARE COMRADES, JOHN 

by Jerry Newton

Yes! comrades, John, for thirty years,

Not in the usual way,

Comrades, though we have never met,

This may seem strange to say.

 

You've worked one end - I the other,

Of a circuit all these years,

We've shared our joys - the fates bestowed

Our sympathies and tears.

 

We both are growing shaky, John,

Our MORSE is not so clear,

And not so musical as when

Our cups were full of cheer.

 

Our dashes are of weary length,

Our spaces uncontrolled,

Our punctuation incomplete,

Our touch is not so bold.

 

You always make six dots for H,

Eight for the letter S,

But the alphabet is growing old,

We too are, John - I guess.

 

I will not chide you further,

John, Alas! `tis too my fix,

When H and P I try to make,

I always make a six.

Gene Autry Telegrapher?

 An interesting story.

The Gene Autry story

Gene Autry, the singing cowboy. Yes, he is from a different period of time and this generation may not know him as well as past generations. However, they surely have heard him (even if they didn’t know it). Who doesn’t know “Here Comes Santa Clause” or “Frosty the Snowman”? Yep. That’s Gene Autry. What about “You Are My Sunshine”? Bet you can at least sing the chorus.

What you may not know is the story of how Gene Autry learned the true meaning of “the show must go on”. It all started when the singing cowboy was on a movie promotional tour in 1938 and one of the stops was Columbia, Tennessee. Gene was set to perform at the Princess Theatre, but during as soundcheck it was discovered that the P.A. did not work. When asked if there was anyone in town that could repair the equipment, the suggestion was W. A. Orman. It was just a short trip next door to the telegraph office at the Bethel to get Mr. Orman. However, Mr. Orman said that although he could make the repairs, he could not leave the telegraph. It was suggested that someone else could watch the office while he was away. The problem was that person would need to know how to use the telegraph and that required a knowledge of Morse Code. Turns out that Gene Autry knew both and volunteered to man the telegraph. He had worked as a young man at a telegraph office. In fact, the story goes, that is where he was discovered singing on the job by another legend, Will Rogers.

Well, Gene Autry must have really enjoyed his time in Columbia because he wrote about this story in his autobiography, “Back in the Saddle Again”. He also let Mr. Orman take a couple of candid shots around town. You can see those photos in our Spring Show gallery.

The Brasspounder

Here is another interesting review from Jim Haynes at the old Telegraph Lore website.

Enjoy
73
Ciao
KJ

The Brasspounder
by D. G. Sanders
Copyright 1978, ISBN 0-8015-0881-9
Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York

D. G. Sanders grew up in the little coal mining town of Hemlock, Ohio. At the age of thirteen he got interested in telegraphy by hanging around the railroad depot. "Now be it noted that in that day [1912] telegraphers were a special kind of people. They were thought to be especially talented and their advice was sought. They got notices in the paper now and then, and fables were attached to some. There was one fabulous fellow, never named, who could send a message with one hand while taking down another message with the other hand..." The station agent helped him to learn Morse code. By taking care of horses, and by trapping muskrats, he earned enough money to order a Morse practice set from Sears, Roebuck. A four mile walk took him to a town where the telephone company would sell a used but still serviceable battery for a nickel.

When he was sixteen his family moved to Coshocton, a city large enough to have a bustling Western Union office. Within a few days he had acquired his first pair of long pants and a job as a Western Union bicycle messenger. A fringe benefit of that job was an opportunity to learn telegraphy. After a few months he realized that a career with Western Union would entail working in an office in a city, and that the rural life was more to his liking. A railroad worker friend suggested that he use the railroad telegraph to introduce himself to a supervisor and ask for a job. He was hired by Pennsylvania Railroad and sent to a station to work and be trained on the job. After five months he was assigned to a signal cabin where he would work alone. He was a few months short of seventeen years old - he had told the railroad he was 17 already.

The rest of the book is more about railroading than about telegraphy. There was a close relationship between Western Union and the railroads. He mentions that in small towns the railroad station might also be the Western Union office, and that in larger towns the railroad office might be used for telegraph business outside the hours when the W.U. office was open. On one occasion Sanders' boss from his Western Union days telegraphed him at at his railroad office, offering him a one-night moonlighting job receiving returns from the 1916 Presidential election. He typed these on transparent paper, which was then used with a magic lantern to project onto a sheet attached to a building across the street, where the public was gathered.

He mentions the distinctive style, or "fist", of each telegrapher, whereby he could identify who was sending. The possibilities for ambiguity in American Morse code led to some confusing and amusing messages, as when a bridge inspector's report was copied as "Found a lion under bridge 16..." (the intended message was "Foundation under bridge 16...").

In 1922 he was furloughed because a coal strike left his branch of the railroad without any traffic. He quickly found work as a farm hand, but after a month was called to Akron where the railroad was swamped with telegraph work. He could have remained there after the strike was over, but preferred to return to his former station. In 1937 he was offered the opportunity to become a train dispatcher, but turned it down so that he could remain in the country. In 1938 he got the second-shift operator's spot at Orrville and remained there until retirement in 1965, with 50 years service. He notes that by the end of World War II there were many railroad signal operators who did not telegraph.

 

The White Flyer

 In honour of Halloween here is short tale from Syracuse Post Standard.

Enjoy
KJ

Syracuse Post-Standard, Sun., Sept. 23, 1945

Just Around the Corner

By Bertrande (Bertrande Snell)

Not so many years ago, the village depot was a kind of general meeting place, where citizens in all walks of life were prone to meet informally and often to discuss the pros and cons of this and that, while waiting for the evening train from the city.

There was always a continuous flow of light, or heavy, sarcasm thrown in the general direction of the station agent, who, generally, richly deserved it and always had more or less an adequate answer.

Yes, sir, it was always a jovial and carefree crowd that watched No. 3 come in, each evening. After the train's departure, the agent always hied himself homeward, leaving the premises to the tender care of the night operator. All he had to do was hang around from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. - or whatever time the usually fat and always blowsy agent considered near enough - sweep the floor, trim the lamps, copy train orders and telegrams off the Morse wires, and, hardest of all, keep awake - at which last task he was seldom successful.

It was, of course, one of these night men who first saw and reported the "White Flyer" - a legend on the old RW&O railroad- which more or less serves the village north of Syracuse to Watertown and points north and east.

This branch of the NYC has from time immemorial, been known as the "Hojack." The origin of this title seems to be lost in the mists of antiquity, which mists will be in some future article, endeavored to pierce - but that will be another story.

To return to the "White Flyer."

In the lonely watches of the night, as the presumably wide awake telegrapher kept his lonely vigil at the key, he would, betimes, hear a sound like the rush of a mighty wind, and peering fearfully through the window, he would see the White Flyer - ghostly engineer at the throttle and fireman with his hand on the bellrope - tearing swiftly through the night.

It was never my good, or ill, fortune to see this phantasmagorum, but I have the (almost)unimpeachable evidence of many old-time Hojackers who did.

There was George Murphy, now retired and dwelling in Phoenix, who counted the coaches on the ghost train, as it swept through Parish. He made the number six, but Frank Hayner at Mallory claimed there were but five that night.

You don't suppose, do you, that they might have stopped at Hastings and switched one?

George Rowe relates that he saw the White Flyer pulling in to Central Square about 3 a.m. one dark, misty night.

He grabbed a red lantern and ran out on the tracks to flag it. George says he caught his foot on the outside rail and fell flat, directly in the path of the on-rushing train, which passed over his prostrate body, doing him not the slightest harm. He admits, however, that he was considerably peeved!

Railroad Telegraphers Handbook 1991

This delightful little book was printed in 1991 and has since gone out of print.
However the Internet Archive has a scanned/PDF copy available for download at the link under the title below.

This review comes courtesy of Jim Haynes at the old Telegraph Lore website.

Enjoy
73
Ciao
KJ

Railroad Telegraphers Handbook
by Tom French, 1991

The Railroad Telegrapher's Handbook is a newly-written (1991) book that tells all about how Morse telegraphy was used on railroads until nearly the present time. (An article in Dots and Dashes reproduces a train order that was received by Morse in 1982, on the Burlington-Northern, and may have been the last train order so transmitted.) Lists of operating rules are given, presumably taken from the rule books of actual railroads, along with sample train order messages. Railroad telegraphy is a lot more complicated than the ordinary Western Union office. Railroad messages are critical to safety; some messages are not complete until they have been repeated back to the sender, delivered to the addressees, read and signed by the addressees, and the signatures transmitted back to the sender. Most require multiple copies. A railroad operator would write with a stylus on thin, translucent paper, using double-sided carbon paper. Semaphore signals and the hooks for delivering messages to the crews of moving trains are described.

Wiring diagrams are given for an operating table connected to several circuits, and for a Morse repeater. There is a map of the New Mexico Division of AT&SF;, showing how various offices are connected to several line circuits. A selector system is described, which allows calling up a particular telegraph office without requiring operators to listen constantly for their office call letters. (Most circuits were "way" operated, meaning that several offices were connected by the same circuit and sounders at all responded to all the traffic on the line.)

The book is made all the more enjoyable with reproductions of advertisements that appeared in trade magazines: typewriters, telegraph instruments, Vibroplex keys, swivel chairs, shorthand instruction, and an attachment to enable a bicycle to be ridden on the railroad rail. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad was advertising for operators "able to copy Morse at 25 words per minute, and should be in good physical condition." as recently as 1954. Of considerable interest in this day when we hear so much about repetitive motion injuries and carpal tunnel syndrome, there is an advertisement for Telegrapher Liniment, which never fails where directions are followed implicitly. "Operator's Paralysis or Writer's Cramp comes like a thief in the night, and almost before you are aware of it you find it impossible to send any kind of readable Morse." Another advertisement is for the "Operator's Friend" a massage or exercise device which "prevents and cures telegrapher's paralysis and writer's cramp." The front cover reproduces an artist's illustration from the front cover of a 1904 telegrapher's magazine, showing a young man clad in white shirt, high collar, and vest working at his key while a uniformed trainman waits at his elbow for orders. There are two pages of railroad slang and two pages of bibliography.

The Song of the Open Wire

Today I am showcasing a fantastic website:

 The Song of the Open Wire

This website covers the history of wired telecommunications from 1843-2020.
Filled with articles and photos covering telegraphy, telephones, physical systems, personnel, memoirs, and has technical articles, historic photos and more.

This is a site well worth the perusal if you are interested in how these systems were built, maintained, and operated.

Below in its entirety is an article, the first in a series, on the analysis of telegraph lines, just to give you a taste for what this site contains!

Enjoy
73
Ciao
KJ

DC Transmission Line Modelling: Initial Studies on Telegraph Lines

By Tom Hagen

Introduction

This set of articles is intended to be an introduction to transmission lines and transmission line parameters.  I’m hoping that anyone interested in this topic will get a good intuitive feel on why open parallel wire communication systems are built the way they are.  This subject can be very technical if you go into the mathematical constructs.  It took a number of “first rank” physicists several decades in the 19th Century to get to the point of where the behavior of parallel open wire systems could be definitely modeled, characterized, engineered, and reliably operated in the real world.

I’ll add to this section of Doug’s website as time permits, so check back every few months and I hope to add one or two more articles after the first one.

Sections:

DC Transmission Line Modelling:

• Theory of capacitance and resistance
• Underground vs. overhead telegraph lines (early work)
• Undersea telegraph cables
• William Thomson’s (Lord Kelvin) efforts
• Thomson’s square law

Traveling Wave Transmission Line Modelling:

The work of the “Maxwellians”

• Comparison of DC and AC transmission line characteristics
• Distributed parameters of the transmission line
• Characteristic Impedance of the transmission line
• Travelling waves on transmission line
• Group delay problems on transmission line

Practical Examples:

• Distributed inductance to improve telegraph cable speed
• Loading coils on telephone lines

Open Wire Telephone Lines: Application of transmission line characteristics to open wire lines and technology.

Some Basics

The first inklings that long wires behave differently than short ones came about during he early development of the first telegraph systems in the early to middle Nineteenth Century.  It was observed that a wire acts one way when it is mounted overhead on poles and insulators and another when it was laid underground.  Experiments performed in the 1820s showed that a wire laid underground or in water passes electrical signals more slowly than a wire held overhead in air.  Michael Faraday (1791-1867), explained this effect as an effect of the electrical capacitance between the wire and the medium surrounding it.  Electrical capacitors were known to scientists by this time because the first electrical charge storage device, the Leyden Jar, was invented in the middle Eighteenth Century.

Referring to the below figures, an electrical capacitor is formed between the ire and the medium.  An electrical capacitor stores energy in the form of an electrical field between two conductors in close proximity.

A long wire buried in the ground can take on an electrical charge if you connect a voltage source such as a battery to it and a ground rod driven into the ground.  This is similar to giving a balloon a charge of static electricity when you rub it against a cloth.

Under the right conditions, i.e., if the wire is long enough and if the charge leakage to the earth is low enough, you can measure the retained charge that results in a measurable voltage between the wire and the Earth.