Living Through the Advent of the Information Age

[NW Mailing List]

From: "James Foley" <james.foley at att.net>
To: pravoslavna at comcast.net
Cc: "f scheer" <f_scheer at yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 12:55:17 PM
Subject: Re: Living Through the Advent of the Information Age

 
Abram, Frank
I went to Pot Yd in 65 and remember the transition well since we had all of the teletype circuits for each of the tenant lines. Through each of them we could access the entire North American Continent (USA-CAN-MEX) RR's that had teletype joint connections  using the inter-carrier CDC's 
PRR was using the old Freiden Card system, which when punched were inserted inside the folded waybill and went with the train. They were a salmon color as I recall. When cards were inserted into a teletype reader they would punch out the One Line data for consisting. When inserted into anothre reader they would punch ou the 1-2-3 line data for car records etc 
Wondering if either of you have a copy of the PRR or PC "CDC" (Call Directing Code) book the PRR telegraph and yard offices used which also had all of the codes for Psgr Ops ?? I remember seeing teletypes of tain consist around Xmas time for the mail and express trains that came off of the NH via Hell Gate going to the RF&P and Sou Ry and the solid REA express trains out of PXT - REA Term at Sunny SIde Yards
Jim Foley   


To: James Foley <james.foley at att.net> 
Cc: f scheer <f_scheer at yahoo.com> 
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: Living Through the Advent of the Information Age


 
Good memory! 

They had just started using the punch card system at Roanoke when I did my last braking and conducting there in early 1979. (Don't recall seeing them anywhere except Roanoke.)  Every trainman who walked thru the Shaffers Crossing Hump Yard Office picked up a handful of those things.  They were perfect for making switch lists and cut list on.  They were especially handy because you could put them under the strap on the back of your gloves, and that way didn't have to be continually fishing in your pocket for the dern thing.

I recently ran across a few of them in one of my old Conductor's Train Books.

I'll put out a feeler for a list of the CDC's.

-- adb 


November 25, 2012

Thanks for the memories, Jim and Abram:

Punched cards and teletype were gone from the N&W by the time I was at Roanoke in 1974.  G Cabin at Gordonsville used to have teletype so that it could piece together train consists with pick-ups/set-offs at Lindsay of loads or empties set out from the Virginia Air Line.  It was coal moving up from Strathmore destined to Potomac Yard (PY) and picked up by 892 operating between Charlottesville and PY.  Empties were set out by 893 and returned to Strathmore from Lindsay.  This had ended a few years before I started during the summer of 1971 and so the teletype machines were removed from G Cabin and Strathmore.  R Cabin never had teletype, because the Fulton Yard Office handled all of the inbound and outbound freight consists.  So, the only operator-manned offices on the Richmond Division with teletype by 1971 were Q Office (Richmond Division headquarters) and DO Office at Main Street station.  DO only handled passenger train consists while Q
 handled all the messages to and from the General Manager's office.

Jim, in addition to teletype, there was a phone network for railroads.  I recall that the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) operator at PY could patch a call through other railroad PBXs to just about any railroad dial phone in the country,  As a lark, I did this one time from G Cabin to call Virginia Tower on Penn Central in Washington, DC, to chat with Mark Kaplan.

From extension 257, PY (AF Tower),

Frank
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20121125/acceeff3/attachment.htm>