CHAPTER XL
TELEPHONE TRAIN DISPATCHING[A]
It has been only within the past three few that the telephone has begun to replace the telegraph for handling train movements. The telegraph and the railroads have grown up together in this country since 1850, and in view of the excellent results that the telegraph has given in train dispatching and of the close alliance that has always naturally existed between the railway and the telegraph, it has been difficult for the telephone, which came much later, to enter the field.
Rapid Growth. The telephone has been in general use among the railroads for many years, but only on a few short lines has it been used for dispatching trains. In these cases the ordinary magneto circuit and instruments have been employed, differing in no respect from those used in commercial service at the present time. Code ringing was used and the number of stations on a circuit was limited by the same causes that limit the telephones on commercial party lines at present.
The present type of telephone dispatching systems, however, differs essentially from the systems used in commercial work, and is, in fact, a highly specialized party-line system, arranged for selective ringing and many stations. The first of the present type was installed by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in October, 1907, between Albany and Fonda, New York, a distance of 40 miles. This section of the road is on the main line and has four tracks controlled by block signals.
The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad was the second to install train-dispatching circuits. In December, 1907, a portion of the main line from Aurora to Mendota, Illinois, a distance of 46 miles, was equipped. This was followed in quick succession by various other circuits ranging, in general, in lengths over 100 miles. At the present time there are over 20 train-dispatching circuits on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad covering 125 miles of double track, 28 miles of multi-track, and 1,381 miles of single track, and connecting with 286 stations.
Other railroads entered this field in quick order after the initial installations, and at the present time nearly every large railroad system in the United States is equipped with several telephone train-dispatching circuits and all of these seem to be extending their systems.
In 1910, several railroads, including the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, had their total mileage equipped with telephone dispatching circuits. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad is equipping its whole system as rapidly as possible and already is the largest user of this equipment in this country. From latest information, over 55 railroads have entered this field, with the result that the telephone is now in use in railroad service on over 29,000 miles of line.
Causes of Its Introduction. The reasons leading to the introduction of the telephone into the dispatching field were of this nature: First, and most important, was the enactment of State and Federal Laws limiting to nine hours the working day of railroad employes transmitting or receiving orders pertaining to the movement of trains. The second, which is directly dependent upon the first, was the inability of the railroads to obtain the additional number of telegraph operators which were required under the provisions of the new laws. It was estimated that 15,000 additional operators would be required to maintain service in the same fashion after the new laws went into effect in 1907. The increased annual expense occasioned by the employment of these additional operators was roughly estimated at $10,000,000. A third reason is found in the decreased efficiency of the average railway and commercial telegraph operator. There is a very general complaint among the railroads today regarding this particular point, and many of them welcome the telephone, because, if for no other reason, it renders them independent of the telegrapher. What has occasioned this decrease in efficiency it is not easy to say, but there is a strong tendency to lay it, in part, to the attitude of the telegraphers' organization toward the student operator. It is a fact, too, that the limits which these organizations have placed on student operators were directly responsible for the lack of available men when they were needed.