Railroad Telegraph

Hi Everyone,

I was recently given a railroad telegraph key by a friend. Can anyone tell me when the New York Central stopped using this means of communication? Thanks in advance.

I don't know the official date of retirement of the last telegraph circuit, but here's a bench mark.

There was one local telegraph circuit betwen BN Tower in the Bronx on the Hudson Electric Subdivision, and the Hudson Division operator's desk at MO Tower in the Bronx in 1961. If both ops were telegraphers, they used the circuit for BN to OS trains to MO so he knew what was coming at him and when. The op at MO would hear something like 722 719 and he knew that Train 722 had passed BN at 7:19 a.m. on his normal track, No. 4. He just reached over to his key and sent K, meaning OK, and that was that.


I think there were some telegraph circuits superposed on the telephone system on the Adirondack Division as late as 1963, but I never saw them in service.

Hi ChiefTroll,

Very interesting. Thank you for your quick response.

There was still, in 1965, a line remaining from TOWER "A" in GCT that linked up MO, and the DIRECTOR....I think that it also connected to "U", and "NK", as we used it when the phones weren't in correspondence. Trains were "OS"d by just an "X" OR "Y" OR "Z" to designate whether from HUDSON,HARLEM, or New Haven. On occasion the OPERATOR at MO would "LOSE" a train, and the inbound fleet would have to be stopped---then re-started ..."X-38-2", meaning HUDSON TRN #38 on TRK #2...and the speed of transmissions in the COMMISION HOUR was awesome. LARRY BAGGERLY

Hi Mr. Baggerly,

Thank you for your response to my question. I would have thought that by 1965 the only telegraph lines in place would be in more out-lying areas of the system. I found it facinating that one existed out of GCT at this late date. Thanks again.

It's very likely that the local telegraph circuit between GCT and MO mentioned by Larry might also be the one that extended to BN. Of course, each office had a plugboard where they could isolate or join circuits, and I don't know if MO had it broken or cut through when I was at BN.

I also remember, about 50 years ago, the communications and signal pole line along the land side of the Hudson Division west of Spuyten Duyvil. It was loaded with about 40-50 communication circuits above the signal circuits, which were many more than were needed to just operate the Hudson Division.

I suspect that most of those were Western Union commercial circuits, telegraph or teletype or both, because up until the late 1940's, I think, the entire telegraph system was owned and maintained by Western Union. The linemen were WU employees who were qualified to operate motor cars on the railroad where they had to. WU handled RR business and maintained the wires in return for occupancy of the RR right of way. RR agents in outlying stations handled WU message traffic and were paid a commission per word and per message.

It is also notable that the Putnam and Upper Harlem Divisions had many more telegraph circuits than their operation would require, probably for the same reason. In fact, it was probably easier to maintain a pole line in some places on the Putnam Division, because of less railroad traffic to contend with. There was also the advantage of redundancy. If a derailment or ice storm took out the wires on one side, they could patch around the other way.

Nowadays, it is common when a railroad grants occupancy to a fiber optic carrier, for the railroad to reserve a big chunk of bandwidh for their own traffic. That's one reason that railroad pole lines are becoming extinct.

ChiefTroll,

Thank you for your very informative response to my question regarding railroad telegraph. Do you think telegraph circuts remained in place during this time in the Cleveland area? Were those lines or circuts also maintained by Western Union?

I was working around Cleveland in 1966, and I didn't see any telegraph circuits in use around the city (QD, Short Line Jct., etc.) Larry Baggerly has earlier and more detailed experience, and he might be able to add to that.

Somewhere I picked up a date of 1948 when NYC took over the maintenance of communication circuits from Western Union. I think most of the linemen switched employers at that time, and came to work directly for the NYC. I think that date came from a lineman around Thurston or Columbus when I was down there later in 1966, but it might be off by a couple of years.

Gordon

ChiefTroll,

Thank you again for your very interesting and quick response to my questions. It's amazing how an answer to a question continues to peak a persons curiosity. Thanks again.