El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-06-30
A Telegrapher's Story,

A Telegrapher's Story.
Telegraph operators are usually
reminiscent fellows, and the veterans
among them delight in telling their
experiences. OF course, some of their
but they generally possess at least one
unique feature-they are based on
something that happened over q
stretch of wire perhaps 100 or 200
miles in length. Occasionally one
reads of an extraordinary adventure of
an operator at a small and lonely rail-
way station out west, or of ;perilous
experiences in war times, and the I'M
preston has become quite common
of the Rocky mountains seldom have
other than the most commonplace,
routine experience, with nothing in
it of more than passing interest. AS
regards the operators for rail-
road companies that suppOsition in
wrong. Within twelve hours ride of
this city there are scores of railroad
telegraph Offices where an operator is
employed day and night to look after
On many of the roads in New England
the night stations are dozen or fif-
teen, miles apart, and some of them are
quarter or q half mile from the nearest
dwelling house. At these places q
night operator is on duty from Z in the
evening till I the next morning. A
New York Sun reporter CHANGED to
meet recently a veteran "key twister"
who was for several years in the en-
ploy of railroad through Maine and
New Hampshire and up into the White
mountains. This operator sometimes
found himself in q pretty tight box
and his account of the experience il
lustr ates the close shave that railroad
telegraphers have now and then.
Station Il, where I worked"
he said, sis night station on q single
track railroad in New Hampshire. G
-, the nearest night telegraph sta
ton north of it, was eight rmiles away,
and N, the nearest one south, was
twelve. My duty in summer was sole.
ly that of operator; in the winter l
looked after the fires in waiting.rooms.
There was seldom much operating to
do at night, and it was also easy to
keep awake until 1 O'Clock when 1 u.s.
ually ate lunch. Even at that hour
the time didn't pass very slowly in
summer, but on cold and stormy nights
in winter, when 1 had to stay constant
ly in doors, the greatest effort was
needed to keep from failing asleep.
After 9 O'Clock all the trains that pass
GU WCTO uGo: 6bo ChCIO "OTO hdlI d
dozen southbound and as many more
Inbound in the course of the night.
It was part of my duty to note the
time that each Oh, the trains passed my
station and reported it at once to
headquarters at A------, the same
rule Supplying to all operators on the
line. That was one of the customs
which made it angerous for an oper-
ator.to fall asleep, If only for four or five
minutes. Another thing that annoyed
dim and often made him swear was the
roll call. This consisted in the train
dispatcher at A-----office fifty miles
south of H----) calling each office on
the line every half hour. beginning
with the one nearest his own. Inc
station that failed to answer roll call
had black mark placed against 1T at
A, with record of the time when
the call was given. At first the roll
call made all The boys look sharp and
toe the line, but they soon found way
to cheat it.
The main wire running through H
was considerably more than 100 miles
long: and on wire of that length 1t Is
quite impossible for an operator AZ It's
terminus to tell by the sound which OF
Two or more offices not more than
twenty five miles apart is doing the
telegraphing unless the sending oper-
ator signs his station call. Knowing
this, several of the ''owls'' on the line
arrange to take turns with each other
in answering the roll. For example,
the operator at H would answer my
calls between the hours OF one and
three, and would attend to his from )
to S. What cracking good way this
was to battle the train dispatcher, we
thought, and the exchange of duty be-
tween us WAS keLv up for J long time;
in fact, almost too long, so far as my
own case was concerned. l refer to an
incident that took place during the
winter of 1885, which for q few hours
nearly froze the marrow in my bones.
II happened like this:
Through freight NO. PAL, north
bound, was due at my station at 1:35
and was scheduled to meet south bound
freight No. 2S4 atP--s fifteen miles
further up the roa'. No. PAL was scar
cely ever behind timd and the two