In the days when Morse wires were used on the D&RG before telephones for dispatching trains, certain work train outfit cars, certain business cars, and certain strategic fixed locations had what were called "wrecking boxes" that contained a Morse instrument, usually some form of Box relay with Key on base, a "wrecking clamp", and a few tens of feet of small gauge flexible wire, plus a blueprint of the polehead diagrams of the pole line district it was to be used in showing the insulator pin locations of the various wires on the line. This was to assist the user in finding the right wire to cut in on. Morse circuits used only a single iron wire, not two.
The Wrecking box was constructed so it could be "hung" on a telegraph pole near the ground by means of a chain and a partial circular cutout on a frame on the back. the front of the box opened down to form an operating desk.
The wrecking box was "cut in", literally, by climbing the pole (using lineman's "hooks" or any other method to get up to the top) and attaching the wrecking clamp to the desired wire, connecting the flexible small gauge wire downleads to the clamp's binding posts, and then connecting the other end of the downleads to the telegraph instrument in the box.
If the line was not damaged or down, this was all that was normally needed to "cut in" the instrument and telegraph. If the line was down, the wire could usually be worked against ground to distant office battery in one direction or the other by driving a short ground pin at the location, or connecting to a guy wire grounded in a ground anchor, or by tossing some bare wire into a creek, river or pond nearby.
The special "office call" "WK" was specified in the Employee timetable to be used by any location using these boxes for whatever reason, such as derailments, rock or snow slides, etc, where an immediate telegraphic connection was needed and no other open telegraph office was nearby.
The "wrecking clamp" was a device that consisted of two fairly heavy steel or iron bars, each about an inch square and six inches long, connected to each other by two iron rods, one at at each end. There were insulating bushings on one end of the rods, so that the two iron bars were electrically isolated from one-another. There was a curved slot cut in each square iron bar near one end so the clamp could be "hung" over a telegraph wire and secured tightly to it by turning down thumb screws to grip the telegraph wire, and prevent it from slipping out of the clamp.
Once the clamp was hung and tightly attached to the telegraph wire, the telegraph wire was then cut between the end bars of the clamp Using lineman's pliers or a hacksaw to cause the wrecking clamp to be inserted electrically in series with the telegraph wire. There were binding posts on each end bar to attach the small gauge flexible downleads to the instrument in the wrecking box down near the ground.
There was also a "circuit closer" on the one insulated bar of the clamp to bypass the insulation and "cut the clamp through" when the downlead wires were disconnected.
When the need for the temporary connection was concluded, the downleads and wrecking box were disconnected and taken away, but the wrecking clamp itself had to be left in the wire to keep it together until a lineman could be sent to pull the slack in the wire with block & tackle and put in a Western Union splice or usually two splices and remove the clamp. The clamp was then (hopefully) returned to the wrecking box that it came from.
Any employee other than an actual telegrapher that telegraphed using these boxes was promptly timeslipped by the next available telegrapher on the telegraphers "extra board" due to strict Union contracts,but the Company paid it to expedite communications. If the temporary "office" was to remain open for more than a few hours, a regular telegrapher from the extra board was sent to the scene to do the telegraph duty until it was concluded.
Use of these wrecking boxes declined quickly as the telephone was installed for the Dispatchers. Where telephone was used, portable telephones with the extendable line pole and hooks were used extensively by section crews and other personnel during derailments, or other occurrences that required communicating with the dispatcher. These were attached to both wires of the telephone pair
at any convenient location.
The telephones themselves were self contained local battery "push to talk" types.
Some locations used portable telephones as "telegraphones" and were hooked to certain telegraph wires that had additional equipment in the telegraph offices to allow talking by telephone over the working telegraph wire. In this case, only the telegraph wire was connected to using the line pole, and the other phone connection was made to earth.
