The Milw. Rd. operator/dispatcher at Newport Tower
always favored the telegraph key. When a phone rings
you have to stop whatever you are doing and answer it
(even wrong numbers or junk calls). With the key you
listen and know everything thats happening.
--- PSHedgpeth@aol.com wrote:
> John
>
> Most of the orders I heard being transmitted
> involved passenger trains which
> were then exclusively "hauled" by E units in the
> 9900 series...I would either
> be listening on the DS phone or sitting there while
> the OP repeated.....Number
> 26 twosix engine 9922 nineninetwotwo...(you can't
> get the effect by writing
> it you have to hear it)...all done it a rapid
> "singsong" with no breaths.
>
> You didn't explain...you didn't have to for me, but
> maybe someone "younger"
> than we....BK came from the telegraph "shorthand"
> for "break"...I can't keep
> up....the old guys still continued to use BK even
> though they were on the phone.
> Break came from the concept that anyone in "The
> Loop" could open his key
> (break the circuit) and thus stop all communication
> until the key was closed and
> the circuit restored.
>
> Just as a little aside at the RITS (Thats ROCK
> ISLAND TECHNICAL SOCIETY)
> meeting in OKC last week some of the retired
> dispatchers from El Reno...most of
> them were working when I was there in 1960-61) set
> up a little "practice set"
> with a key and sounder (complete with Prince Albert
> can), on a board...Visitors
> to the area with kids would bring them over and they
> would whisper their name
> to the guy handling the key and he would "send" the
> name and the guy on the
> other side of the table would tell the kid his or
> her name...They loved it...
>
> They have a Telegraph Club named for Don Watrous who
> was the day OP at El
> Reno yard when I was there...Don tried to teach me a
> little telegraphy, and I got
> so I could send a little bit that he could read, but
> never could receive...
>
> I was glad there are some who are keeping the craft
> alive.
>
> Pete
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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