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In the Dec. issue of TRAINS magzine, they had a brief artice about the "City of San Francisco" when it got caught up in a severe blizzard, in the Sierras, in 1952. The article made mention of the fact that crew members had to dig down to telegraph poles from atop 20 ft. of snow.
Also in TRAINS, a year or two ago, they had an article about, I believe, a train dispatch station on the Cajon Pass in the mid 1950's. A photograph showed the operator's desk with a telegraph receiver in the background. I believe the receiver was mainly used for back-up.
Being an amateur radio (ham) operator who will occasionally work a little CW (morse code), I could not help being interested. I sort of thought telegraph communication was defunct before the 1950s (?). Just how long did passenger trains still us the telegraph? Also, between the demise of the telegraph and use of VHF frequencies, today, what kind of communication was used?
Richard
George Harris Member # 2077
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"Telegraph" in tis instance may have been generic. By the mid 60's, at least most railroad companies in the southeast had their own private telephone system. In fact, for some this system went back to the teens. However, the pole line along the railroad still tended to be called telegraph poles, even though the wires strung on them carried telephone ciricuits and signal circuits. I do know that some railroads did continue to have functional telegraph lines up to near that time, if not later.
PullmanCo Member # 1138
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FWIW,
SPRINT is an acronym for "Southern Pacific INternal Telephone."
Someone at 1 Market Plaza had the good idea to sell excess capacity ... what ... by 1985, if memory serves?
Dining By Rail has the daily Passenger Traffic Department operations telegram for the Union Pacific on May 1, 1971. Remember, there were trains in transit up and down the system on A-Day. In fact, on UP only the City of Denver wasn't in motion for SOMEWHERE on A-Day; it had tied up in the morning both in Denver and Chicago.
Kiernan Member # 3828
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I'd bet there probably wasn't much Morse by the 1950s, but there was probably a lot of Teletype, assuming that the railroads actually used Teletype. Morse can be terribly slow and voice and Teletype can be much faster. Not many people can send and receive Morse at 60 words per minute.
Twenty years or so ago, there were still railroad Morse operators around, because they would occasionally turn up on the amateur radio bands. The Federal Communications Commission allowed landline Morse on the amateur bands as long as the stations identified in radio Morse. The two codes are different. For example, radio Morse operators consider ES to be an abbreviation for "and," but the landline Morse symbol for ampersand is ES with only part of a letter space between the E and S.
Ira Slotkin Member # 81
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And teletype was around at least until 73. My first job out of HS (67) was as a letterpress printers apprentice. Part of what I did was send and recieve (and then hand set) info on a teletype for inclusion in racing forms. Had that job on and off through summer of 73.
The old fellow on the other end in Chicago - Red was his name - was an old code operator and did know Morse code. He would periodically break into it with the beeper built into the system. I still knew a little of it then from Boy Scouts. Long gone now, although I do still know semaphore.
Ira
palmland Member # 4344
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I visited my grandparents each summer in Clarksville, TN. Since this involved an annual trip on the L&N, we became friends with the ticket agent, later he was the freight agent/operator. I remember him using the telegraph well into the 60's when I was in college. This was a secondary line (Bowling Green to Memphis) and was all train order/timetable operation. To me, nothing says railroading more than the clicking of the telegraph.
Tanner929 Member # 3720
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Palmland !
"I visited my grandparents each summer in Clarksville,"
WOW !
Did you actually "TAKE THE LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE."
come on people you all remember that classic Monkees tune. oh no no no !
George Harris Member # 2077
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I remember it, both the song, the railroad, and the last train. Even rode it part way, Memphis to Milan, Tennessee in 1963. The day train was nicknamed the Little Pan or the Baby Pan. It was the Memphis section of the Pan American which joined the Big Pan at Bowling Green. Up until sometime in the 50's it carried through sleepers from New York and a dining car, but by 1963 it was down to two coaches, at least one through to Cincinatti, not very full when I rode it and about three head end cars. It was killed off about 1965. There was also a night train, which was the last train running. It was the Memphis section of the Humming Bird, and still had a Cincinatti sleeper into the mid 60's, By its end, it was down to one coach only. Last ran in something like 1967, I think. Today, this is no longer a through line. It was first broken when the Tennessee River bridge east of Paris, Tenn. was moved to Bridgeport, Alabama in about 1980. The part from McKenzie, Tenn to Memphis has been stitched together with the former NC&St.L Union City branch to form a Nashville to Memphis line and the former NC main from Bruceton to Memphis via Jackson, Tenn has been abandoned. This line had signals, but when the trains were moved to the L&N route the signals were not, so the line is signaled from Nashville to Bruceton and the rest is operated by Manual Block.
George
palmland Member # 4344
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Mr. Harris you are so right. On our annual trek we usually took the B&O to Cincinnati and connected to the Pan where we had a room in the New York sleeper for the trip to Clarksville. I remember as a young boy the Porter telling us the sleeper was coming off in September - that was the summer of 1954. After that we changed from the New York-Nashville into the coach at Bowling Green. The diner (added to the train at Guthrie, KY) continued for several years after the sleeper came off.
But the good news is RJ Corman has revived the line and restored sevice to Cumberland City. Even had a ride a couple years ago across the great trestle in Clarksville over the Cumberland River.
Since Clarksville is only 15 miles or so from Guthrie (where the Memphis line crosses the mainline of the Henderson Sub), I have hopes someday the Dixieland route from Chicago to Florida will be restored, with a stop in Guthrie.
And yes, the monkees were in the Nashville area when they heard about the Memphis Pan coming off and created the song.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Palmland: Since you are familiar with area: The Tennessee River bridge on the Memphis line in teh 50's and 60's was actually in its second location. Originall this was the Illinois Central bridge across the Tenn. River east of Paducah Ky. When Kentucky Dam was built, the IC line was placed across the dam, with only a short bridge across the navigation lock. The IC bridge was then floated up river and installed to be the new above lake level L&N bridge. Presumably the pre existing L&N bridge was scrapped. As traffic was diverted off the Memphis Line after L&N absorbed NC&St.L and L&N was in its shrink trackage mentality, they decided to move the bridge to replace the load restricted bridge on the Nashville - Chattanooga line, so the memphis line bridge was taken out of service and floated up river to Bridgeport. Originally the Memphis line abandonment was only the bridge itself. I have an employee timetable showing ends of track only 0.3 miles apart. I do not know what the gap is now, but it is quite a bit longer.
George
notelvis Member # 3071
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Hi Palmland & George,
I spent a couple of years in that area while stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY. While the Clarksville station still stood and has spawned a stock model, I particularly liked the old L&N station in Hopkinsville, KY and certainly would have enjoyed seeing a revived Chicago-Florida passenger train through Evansville, Hoptown, Guthrie, and Nashville.
At that time I also picked up a fascination for the west end of the old Tennessee Central Railroad r-o-w which was abandoned through Clarksville and up to Ft. Campbell. Two segments that remained at the time were the portion from Ft. Campbell 10 miles up to Hopkinsville (giving the 101st Division rail access) and a segment west from Hopkinsville to link the shortline Cadiz Railroad to the rest of the world. The Cadiz is long gone now but I presume the link to Ft. Campbell remains.
palmland Member # 4344
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David You are correct that the line to the Fort is still used - last I heard military trains still occasionally go there via Hopkinsville. For our model RR, I did a scratch built job of the station in Clarksville, which has been restored. We gave back to the station the original arrivals and departures board as well as the semaphore style train order board the last agent, P.O. Bledsoe, gave to us when he closed it in the early 70's.
George-that is great info about the bridge, I had no idea. Mr. Bledsoe used to tell us stories about his early days on the line as an operator at Big Sandy, near the lake, when he lived above the station that operated solely on kerosene and coal.
As I have posted before, one of my summer trips to Clarksville involved the Memphis Pan and famous wreck of the Dixieland at Guthrie.
Since we had relatives that worked on both the L&N and TC, my brother and I make regular visits back - another planned for this summer. Who would have thought that in 2006 there would be passenger service on the TC and not the L&N!
I understand freight service is being restored on the TC from Cookeville to Monterey and the State is buying right of way to eventually reconnect to the NS in the Harriman/Knoxville are. On the west end, the Nashville and Eastern (called the Nashville and Western there) are restoring the line to Ashland City. Too bad it was torn up into Clarksville and beyond.
Thanks guys for sharing your stories.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Palmland: I started to reference the bridge location as "east of Big Sandy" but then I thought that very few people other than West Tennessee natives would have any idea where it was. Most rural areas and really small towns in Tennessee and a lot of other places did not get electricity until the REA Coops began in teh mid to late 30's.
The basic speed limits on the L&N Memphis line were 55 mph for passenger trains and 40 mph for freight trains. For the signaled main stem, they were 70P/50F, with of course lower limits on a lot of the curves.
I graduated from Tenn Tech in Cookeville in 1968, so I was there when Tennessee Central was in its death throes. A very interesting piece of railroad. They even did a few passenger specials in their last days. Unfortunately I did not ride any of them. Long story, bad decisions on my part.
There have been studies by or for Tennessee DOT on development of a cross state freigth line, which would involve reconnection and upgrading of the ex TC.
Following the development of the commuter service Nasville to Lebanon has been quite interesting. Go to www.musiccitystar.org and look around. Aside from a couple of years of reports on the development of the system, there are track charts for the line and other good information. They took a 25 mph branchline held together with string and chewing gum and made a 60 mph signaled line out of it, and they did it about a cheaply as it could be possible to do it without taking irrational short cuts. Can anybody tell me how it is doing? It seems to have all but droped out of the news. Does this mean no news is good news?
George
palmland Member # 4344
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Thanks for the add'l info George. It always seemed to me we were going faster than 55mph. But then I guess our perspectives are a little different when we are 10 years old, especially when the flagman lets you stand in the rear vestibule as the train whips along at track speed.
We plan to make TC stops on our visit this summer, so will let you know of any TC news and the Star as well. I worked with a fellow from Cookeville- David Orr. Good guy but his favorite was the NC&STL.
It was somewhere around Big Sandy when we went into a siding on a 1957 trip. We were in a 'Pine' series pullman on a return to Clarksville from a Memphis visit and a freight pulled a drawbar. Sat there for a while talking with the crew, again on the vestibule, with all the good summer sounds and heat lightning off in the distance. Eventually we excuted a saw by meet and made it to Clarksville around midnight.
By the way, I have the door name plate from one of L&N's NY sleepers - Barren River. But I guess we had best get back to Amtrak stories!
notelvis Member # 3071
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George,
I am guessing that you are aware of the Tennessee Central Museum in Nashville which runs fairly regular weekend excursions out of Nashville on the Nashville and Eastern (ex. TC). Palmland is, I believe, based on his earlier statement to the effect that 'who would have imagined 40 years ago that today one can ride passenger trains on the Tennessee Central but not the L&N.' Of course Palmland may have been referencing the Nashville Star commuter trains. (I plan to give one of those a Monday morning try in late February as I'll be in Nashville to see the Kentucky-Vanderbilt basketball game the day before.)
But back to the excursions - Many go out to Watertown and back but several passenger excursions behind 3 or 4 E units operate all the way to Cookeville (from Nashville) each year. I was able to ride one of the early Cookeville trips in October of either 1999 or 2000 and it was a great trip. Particularly since I ordered my ticket 6 or 7 months in advance and was able to land one of the front row seats in their one dome car!
George Harris Member # 2077
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quote:Originally posted by palmland: Thanks for the add'l info George. It always seemed to me we were going faster than 55mph. But then I guess our perspectives are a little different when we are 10 years old, especially when the flagman lets you stand in the rear vestibule as the train whips along at track speed.
Could well be that you were. At that time (mid 50's) it was unwritten policy that making schedule could outweight the need to stick to the speed limtis. Not just L&N, but a lot of others as well.
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