Norfolk Division Telegraph Calls -- List rev 9-11-2024 - RURAL RETREAT

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Your Grand Dukeness of the Root Vegetable,
My grandfather was Boston C. Huddle.  He worked the depot as the freight clerk.  I have traded emails with Mr. Frank Akers and had the pleasure of speaking with him at the depot dedication in 2017.  I think I had a conversation with you as well that day if you were the telegraph operator on duty?  While at the dedication, I purchased a couple of commemorative bricks to be installed in the walkways around the depot.  It's time for another pilgrimage to check them out.  Time seems to slip away much quicker as we age.
During my conversation with Mr. Akers at the depot he said that he remembered my grandfather.  Personally, I have very vague memories of my grandfather as he passed away less than two years after I was born.
I want to thank you for sharing the information in your email.  I enjoy learning the minutiae of the day-to-day operations and the "why" behind the way things are done.  And also thank you for sharing the lists of office calls.
I look forward to the flyer announcing the Autumn Sale of fermented turnip spirits.  We needn't worry about any taxes resulting from an inter-state sale.  Outrunning revenuers is a southern tradition.
Thanks again.  And please keep in touch.
Rick Huddle
Delaware, OH

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Subject: Re: Norfolk Division Telegraph Calls -- List rev 9-11-2024 - RURAL RETREAT

Comrade Huddlevski -

Thank yuou for your fine comments about the Turnip Vineyard and the fruit of our vines. Watch for our Autumn Sale of our fermented, bottled turnip spirits.


The telegraph call for Rural Retreat was AY. A and Y are two letters from the name Mount AirY, which was the name of the town when the railroad was constructed through there in the 1850s. It is supposed to be the highest pount between the New River at Radford, and Bristol. If you zoom in on Google Maps, you can see how streams rise on the high ground just west of the depot, and flow west.

The Rural Retreat depot has been restored to a grand place, through the efforts of its son, Mr. Frank Akers. Frank's Grandfather, J. Lacey Akers, was also the Agent/Telegraph operator there for years. As I recall, J. Lacey hired sometime around 1906.

Telegraph calls were generally keyed to several letters in the name of the station. Because railroads are old, telegraph calls often reflect name for the towns earlier than the names presently in use. As in the case of AY for Rural Retreat.

Indulge me a tale, if ye wilst...  Situated on one of the territories upon which I once worked, was a little town named Essington. (It happened to be in Pennsylvania, just a few miles north of Chester, on the old Reading RR branch from Philadelphia to Chester.) The telegraph call for Essington was RO. Now how in the world do you get RO out of the word Essington ? I stumbled across the answer one day while reading a book on county history. Essington had, in Colonial days, been called LazaRettO. A Lazaretto was a designated point at which inbound sailing ships stopped to quarantine, and there had been a government hospital and quarantine doctor at that point. (The word lazaretto is taken from the name of Lazarus, the leper who was healed. That name is Lazarro in the classical languages, so the meaning of the word lazaretto is quite apparent.) When the railroad was built through the area, the station was named Lazaretto and the call RO had been assigned.

The Chief Train Dispatcher of any Division had the decision on the assignment of office calls. The important factor, though, was that there not be duplication of office calls on a Division, or on a dispatching district. As Divisions were enlarged, or as dispatching territories were combined, office calls sometimes changed.

Rural Retreat is on the Radford Division, so I shall attach, for your amusement, my little list of Radford Division office calls. And, since you are a good customer, we shall throw in the Shenandoah Division List as well. My Virginian lists are still in Excel spreadsheets, and when I get those transferred to PDF's, I shall send them along, too.

Please tell us who your Grandfather was. Some of us who hover around Mile Post 80 (in age) probably knew him. And you will want to look up the Rural Retreat depot restoration on-line, and send them a big check to help keep the place painted !

Thank you for your patronage of our turnip vineyard. :-)

-- abram von turnipmann,
deputy assistant grand duke of rutabagas &c
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