Dots and Dashes: My Forty Years on the Railroad

GeoCities.us » Route66 » Crossroads

DOTS AND DASHES
My Forty Years on the Railroad
by John Russell, as told to his grandson Kenny

I copied train orders by Morse code for the railroad from 1935 until 1975, as an operator and then as a depot agent, in more little Kansas towns than I can name without Cleo's help. That was forty years of sitting by a bay window with a sounder clicking at my elbow and the train order board outside, and most of the depots I worked in are gone now. Some of the towns are nearly gone too.

My grandson Kenny says people would read about it, and I said who, and he said you'd be surprised. So on Sundays after dinner I talk and he types. If you worked for a railroad yourself, I hope you'll forgive an old op for the things he gets wrong, and write and tell me about it. If you didn't, I hope you'll learn what it was like before radios and computers, when a whole railroad ran on paper, a pencil, and the click of a sounder.

John Russell
Newton, Kansas

A note from Kenny: Grandpa talks, I type, Grandma brings pie and corrects his dates. We started in August. I try to put up a new chapter every few weeks, but school comes first (Grandpa's rule). I'll be at KU in Lawrence starting in January, but I'll still be home some weekends, and Grandpa says he'll save up stories for me. He tells them better every time anyway.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Dots on the Kitchen Table (1933)
Learning the railroad Morse code from the agent in my hometown. Posted August 24, 1997

Chapter 2. My First Depot (1935)
Hiring out, the extra board, and how train orders worked. Posted September 28, 1997

Chapter 3. The Winter of '49
A blizzard, a stalled passenger train, and a depot full of strangers. Posted November 16, 1997

Chapter 4. Troop Trains (coming soon)

Chapter 5. The Diesels Come (coming soon)

Chapter 6. Upstairs at the Depot (coming soon)

Chapter 7. The Last Train Order (coming soon)

Chapter 8. Closing the Depots (coming soon)

RAILROAD TALK

A few words you'll run into in the chapters.

Op
A telegraph operator. Also a brass pounder, or a lightning slinger if you were feeling fancy.
Trick
A shift. First trick was days, second trick was evenings, third trick was the long one, all night.
Train order
A written order from the dispatcher that told a train what to do: where to meet another train, where to wait, how fast to run.
Flimsy
The thin tissue paper we copied orders on, several copies at a time with carbon.
The board
The train order signal on the mast outside the bay window. When it was against a train, that train stopped or took orders on the fly.
OS
To report a train by your station to the dispatcher, with the time.
Fist
The way a man sends. No two are the same. You knew who was on the wire by his fist the way you know your mother's voice.
Bug
A semi-automatic key that made the dots for you. Some men swore by them and some swore at them.
Extra board
The list of men with no regular job, who got sent wherever somebody was sick, on vacation or gone.
Crummy
The caboose.
73 and 30
Best regards, and the end.

Read and sign the guestbook
Grandpa reads every entry, and he especially wants to hear from old railroaders.

You are visitor number

since August 1997

Write to Grandpa in care of Kenny: [email protected]
I print out every letter and bring it to him on Sunday.

Last updated Sunday, November 16, 1997

73 30