Re: My Grandfather was Henry Watkins Willis
| February 26, 2016 11:34AM |
Several weeks ago, Rod Jensen posted a couple of color photographs regarding Henry Willis, in answer to a posting by his granddaughter. (go to the links below):
[ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com]
[ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com]
In both photos, conductor Henry Willis is the lanky gray haired gentleman on the left. At the time I really didn't give much thought as to what was going on in the photos. But I did wonder what would be so interesting that the passenger/photographer would take pictures. There appeared to be a problem of some sort. I was looking at them again yesterday, and another possibility dawned on me. I sent the photo links in a PM to Ed Trump (the NGDF communications expert, I guess you could say) with the suggestion that the crew had in fact set up and was using a telegraphone.
A telegraphone is a device that makes it possible to communicate by voice over what is normally strictly a telegraph line. During the life of the Santa Fe Branch, communication was the most basic you could have, a solitary iron telegraph line. The dispatcher in Alamosa could, of course, contact Santa Fe and probably Espanola as well, by making a long distance call using the phone company, but that would cost money and would only have been used in an emergency. Ordinary dispatching was done strictly by telegraph. So if a train crew, few of whom would have been good at using Morse code, need to get in touch with the dispatcher or the closest open station, using a telegraphone is how they did it. Dispatching by telegraph was not actually that unusual for branch lines. I grew up in North Dakota along the Northern Pacific Railway mainline (a Class 1 railroad in every way), and while dispatching on the mainline was done by company phone, dispatching on the branch lines, of which there were many, was done by telegraph well into the 1960's.
Below is Ed Trump's response to my query.
"Hi Jim...
Yes, that is exactly what the crew is doing...First photo shows them putting on the "ground" clamp, probably on the rail,
Second photo shows them using a Telegraphone portable box to "talk" to some station along the line.
The single iron telegraph wire that paralleled the Chili line from Antonito to Santa-Fe obviously was equipped for telegraphone use....Likely Santa Fe, Espanola, Embudo, Tres Piedras, and Antonito were the telegraphone equipped stations.
The station installations had extra equipment that let the telegraph circuit operate normally, while also allowing people to talk over the primitive single\wire-earth return circuit between similarly equipped stations.
The station installations essentially consisted of a capacitor that bypassed the voice circuit around the telegraph relay, and another capacitor that provided a "bridging" connection between the line wire and earth for the rudimentary telephone set. "Talk battery" was provided by dry cells at the telephone set.
Signaling for the telegraphone systems consisted of a "Howler" bridged across from the line to earth, that responded to a DC Buzzer-interrupter circuit in the telephones. When one station wanted to call another, a button on the telegraphone set was pressed to operate this buzzer, and the interrupted "buzz" tone was fed down the line which in turn operated the "Howlers" at all stations connected, including portable sets. ...Coded buzzer "long and short" signals served to indicate which station was being called.
Out in rural areas where there were no power lines or other wire pole lines nearby, the telegraphones worked pretty well over medium distances such as the stations were on the Chili line.
The portable sets carried on the trains were equipped with a line pole that had a flexible wire lead and a hook at the end that was used to hook over the telegraph wire adjacent to the tracks at any location. A grounding rod and clamp was provided for making the earth connection, usually to the rail."
Ed
"The rest of the story", I guess you could say, regarding what was happening in the photos. Per the post by Jimmy Blouch several years ago, which I included in one of my posts, No. 426 left Taos Jct. at 2:31 PM, but train orders would probably would have give the rotary right over 426 as far as Tres Piedras. At 2:55 PM, the roadmaster on board the rotary, checked in with the dispatcher from No Agua (7 miles north of Tres Piedras), no doubt using a telegraphone himself. Since, in 1941, Tres Piedras was no longer a manned station, the train crew on 426 would have had to use a telegraphone to contact the dispatcher. Undoubtedly, they wanted to know where the rotary was and, I am sure in part, to let the passengers know the odds of their making their eastward connections at Antonito and Alamosa. As it turned out, 426 arrived in Antonito only 15 minutes late.
Back in 2010 Ed Trump posted on NGDF an even more detailed explanation on the use of a telegraphone.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2016 11:36AM by Jim McKee.
[ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com]
[ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com]
In both photos, conductor Henry Willis is the lanky gray haired gentleman on the left. At the time I really didn't give much thought as to what was going on in the photos. But I did wonder what would be so interesting that the passenger/photographer would take pictures. There appeared to be a problem of some sort. I was looking at them again yesterday, and another possibility dawned on me. I sent the photo links in a PM to Ed Trump (the NGDF communications expert, I guess you could say) with the suggestion that the crew had in fact set up and was using a telegraphone.
A telegraphone is a device that makes it possible to communicate by voice over what is normally strictly a telegraph line. During the life of the Santa Fe Branch, communication was the most basic you could have, a solitary iron telegraph line. The dispatcher in Alamosa could, of course, contact Santa Fe and probably Espanola as well, by making a long distance call using the phone company, but that would cost money and would only have been used in an emergency. Ordinary dispatching was done strictly by telegraph. So if a train crew, few of whom would have been good at using Morse code, need to get in touch with the dispatcher or the closest open station, using a telegraphone is how they did it. Dispatching by telegraph was not actually that unusual for branch lines. I grew up in North Dakota along the Northern Pacific Railway mainline (a Class 1 railroad in every way), and while dispatching on the mainline was done by company phone, dispatching on the branch lines, of which there were many, was done by telegraph well into the 1960's.
Below is Ed Trump's response to my query.
"Hi Jim...
Yes, that is exactly what the crew is doing...First photo shows them putting on the "ground" clamp, probably on the rail,
Second photo shows them using a Telegraphone portable box to "talk" to some station along the line.
The single iron telegraph wire that paralleled the Chili line from Antonito to Santa-Fe obviously was equipped for telegraphone use....Likely Santa Fe, Espanola, Embudo, Tres Piedras, and Antonito were the telegraphone equipped stations.
The station installations had extra equipment that let the telegraph circuit operate normally, while also allowing people to talk over the primitive single\wire-earth return circuit between similarly equipped stations.
The station installations essentially consisted of a capacitor that bypassed the voice circuit around the telegraph relay, and another capacitor that provided a "bridging" connection between the line wire and earth for the rudimentary telephone set. "Talk battery" was provided by dry cells at the telephone set.
Signaling for the telegraphone systems consisted of a "Howler" bridged across from the line to earth, that responded to a DC Buzzer-interrupter circuit in the telephones. When one station wanted to call another, a button on the telegraphone set was pressed to operate this buzzer, and the interrupted "buzz" tone was fed down the line which in turn operated the "Howlers" at all stations connected, including portable sets. ...Coded buzzer "long and short" signals served to indicate which station was being called.
Out in rural areas where there were no power lines or other wire pole lines nearby, the telegraphones worked pretty well over medium distances such as the stations were on the Chili line.
The portable sets carried on the trains were equipped with a line pole that had a flexible wire lead and a hook at the end that was used to hook over the telegraph wire adjacent to the tracks at any location. A grounding rod and clamp was provided for making the earth connection, usually to the rail."
Ed
"The rest of the story", I guess you could say, regarding what was happening in the photos. Per the post by Jimmy Blouch several years ago, which I included in one of my posts, No. 426 left Taos Jct. at 2:31 PM, but train orders would probably would have give the rotary right over 426 as far as Tres Piedras. At 2:55 PM, the roadmaster on board the rotary, checked in with the dispatcher from No Agua (7 miles north of Tres Piedras), no doubt using a telegraphone himself. Since, in 1941, Tres Piedras was no longer a manned station, the train crew on 426 would have had to use a telegraphone to contact the dispatcher. Undoubtedly, they wanted to know where the rotary was and, I am sure in part, to let the passengers know the odds of their making their eastward connections at Antonito and Alamosa. As it turned out, 426 arrived in Antonito only 15 minutes late.
Back in 2010 Ed Trump posted on NGDF an even more detailed explanation on the use of a telegraphone.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2016 11:36AM by Jim McKee.
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488 stops for water at Los Pinos tank on closing day Oct. 1979. Photo courtesy Don Richter
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