N&W depot communications wiring

[NW Mailing List]

Frank Akers wrote: 

Abram, 
Thank you for this great, detailed, information. Is it possible that any of the 
items you mention as missing from the BC photograph can be seen in this photo 
from AY, Rural Retreat? 
................................................... 

Okay, I have made an interpretation of the items in the photo of J. L. Akers in "AY" Telegraph Office at the Rural Retreat depot, and it follows. The photo, as you are aware, is lifted from your Rural Retreat website at: 
http://www.theruralretreatdepot.com/Telegraph_Office.html I have attached a copy of your photo to this present List submission. 

Anyone going to this link will hear a minute or so of well-sent Morse, sent by someone using a hand key. Let me give a translation of the message being sent, and my interpretive remarks will appear in brackets, thus [ ... ] 

HR DS [Here Dispatcher] FM [from] CHICAGO. TO CONDR NO. 227 FN [FN would be the call of the office copying the message.] PICK UP CAR FLOUR AT DUVAL AND CAR HAY AT HAMILTON SIG [signed] KCK {initials of Superintendent or perhaps Car Distributor.] 

This is not a typically worded railroad message, but it is interesting. 

Okay, now to my interpretation of the photograph (which I have attached as a JPG.) I have inserted green numbers on the photo identify the pieces of equipment. 

1. Area of the negative "whited out," probably to make the swing-arm telegraph resonator more prominent. 

2. Telegraph sounder in a swing-arm resonator. Note that the tobacco tin jammed down behind the sounder (to amplify the sound) is a Half-and-Half tin, not the usual Prince Albert tin. Telegraphers refer to this as "the PA can," regardless of the brand. 

3. Through the station window is visible a building across the tracks. I do not recall this building having been there in my time on the Bristol Line (which began in 1964.) 

4. Six-hole oak jack box. Probably used for cutting the local telegraph instruments in on the various telegraph wires that ran along the Bristol Line. There was probably a separate jack box for cutting the local telephone instrument in on the various telephone wires that passed through the station (Dispatcher's Wire, Block Wire, Message Wire, etc,) but I don't see it in the photo. The reason I believe the telegraph jack box and the telephone jack box were separate is that they required different kinds of jacks (series jacks for the telegraph circuit, and "bridging jacks" for the telephone circuits.) Jack boxes came "hard wired" from Western Electric, the jack boxes were not furnished with both types of jacks in the same box, and the job of changing out those jacks is such a cussed job that I highly doubt it was done in the field by the local wireman/maintainer. It's a workbench job... 

5. Barely distinguishable above my green numeral "5" is the telegraph "hand key" or "straight key." It is screwed to the desk. 

6. Operator Akers' personal "bug" or semi-automatic key. Looks like a Vibroplex brand. A "bug" makes sending less fatiguing on the wrist and and is much faster. These were not provided by the railroad and if an operator chose to use one for his own convenience, he bought his own and carried it from job to job. Vibroplexes came in a small rectangular wooden carrying box, leatherette covered and equipped with a carrying strap on top. Mine measures 4.5" wide by 4" tall x 10.5" deep, is fabric lined, and has the door on one end. They were distinctive and identified the carrier as a telegrapher. My own telegraph teacher, Harry Clark, had been a "boomer" telegrapher and worked on 20-some railroads, and told me that when the Conductor on a passenger train saw the carrying case, he knew the man was a telegrapher on the way to some job and never asked for a ticket or a pass. Harry said he had ridden all over the country by displaying his bug carrying case ! The "bug" was invented and patented in 1902 as the answer for "telegrapher's glass arm," which we today call Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. 

7. The ink well. Very important in station work as public telegrams were always written in ink and the station block sheet was kept in ink. 

8. Desk-mounting base for the Chicago Railway Supply Co. telephone, which base accepts a pipe that extends upward, then outward, then downward to hold the transmitter (mouthpiece) in front of the speaker. 

9. The gate-arm telephone ("scissors-phone") mounted on the desk. This would have been used for cutting in on the block line(s) and the message line. It probably had its own oak jack box screwed to the desk top somewhere near the phone. I am curious about how the Train Dispatcher "raised" (called) the individual stations on the telephone circuits. Did he ring a combination of longs and shorts on some kind of annunciator bell (the bells ringing in all open offices simultaneously,) and the called operator answering when he heard the ring for his station? Or did the Train Dispatcher have a "selective ringing" apparatus, which enabled him to ring any station individually, without the bells going off at other stations? (As I recall, the N&W didn't install telephones for train movement purposes until 1913, and Western Electric didn't market the "selective ringing" equipment until 1917.) 

10. The N&W passenger Time Table, stuck in a rack. As I recall, the Time Tables with maroon covers and a head-on photo of a Class J engine didn't come out until 1947. 

11. The city phone directory, no doubt tied to a nail in the wall with a piece of train order twine... as most were. The "city phone" is not visible in the photograph. (It would be interesting to know when Rural Retreat received a city phone.) 

12. The "All Cap Mill." "Mill" was the telegrapher's word for a typewriter, and those for use in station work were furnished with all capital letters, "all capitals" apparently being a requirement for the preparation of freight waybills. 

Yes, there are several items not visible in the "BC" Waynesboro O.W. Link photo which are visible in your "AY" Rural Retreat Photo... jack box, hand key and "bug" key, resonator and ink well. 

If you need close-up photographs of any items of telegraph equipment, I will be delighted to provide them from my own working Telegraph Office. Just ask. 

-- abram burnett 
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