Cliff,
The phone on the pantograph is really neat looking. That’s what everyone needs to do their dispatching. Here’s one that was still operational when the photo was taken.
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Thanks Bob! Though I’ve seen the phone in a museum display of a dispatcher’s office (at CA State RR Museum in Sacramento), I didn’t know it was specifically a “dispatcher’s telephone.” Thanks for that clarification.
FWIW, here’s practically the same unit as mine. Though after checking, this is National Electric, mine’s Western Electric.
My Grand Father worked for the Wester Union.
When I was little we had western union telegraph paper as our doodle paper.
i also use to know how to run that stuff, he was taken when I was young, i would’ve love to learn more from him.
“I always wanted to try to use a “Telegraph” system to communicate in our operations here, but few know Morse Code, let alone telegraph Morse. One employs short and long spaces between electrical “Dots” (Telegraph Morse), and Morse Code which employs “Dots and Dashes”.”
Thanks for that bit of info! I always wondered how they could transmit “dashes” on a telegraph. Never knew there were two different kinds of Morse.
I thought that was interesting as well. Also learned recently that the dots are called “dits” and the dashes “dahs”. These became easier with the creation of devices like the Vibroplex, which made a dit when pressing the paddle from one side, and a dah when pressing from the other.