The Savannah morning news., 1901-07-20
TELEPHONE IN RAILROAD SERVICE
Advantages of Its Use as Set Forth
by n Railroad superintendent.
From the New York p

FROM IIlt new 1 OIk IOSl.
In a paper on THE Telephone In
Railroad Service" read by F.. P. VAL
entine before the recent Buffalo meet
ing of the Association of Railway Tele-
graph Superintendent, the remarkable
development of the telephone in the OPP
Grafton of railroads was clearly set
forth. II is estimated that to-day. in
the United States. there are some 200
private branch exchanges operated by
the various railroad companies, con-
Meeting over 5000 stations. Among the
calls which are most numerous are
those reserving places on trains, and
information as to arrival and departure
of trains. From a telephone point of
view, ii is declared that the Fall River
line is the busiest in the country. As
an illustration of what the public has
to suffer from insufficient telephone ia
cilities. it is declared that even with a
branch exchange. having five trunk
lines open to the public, with a tele-
phone in the ticket office, with one man
giving his entire time to the reserva-
ton of stateroOms, and with the
switchboard operators relieving him OF
many calls by giving general informa-
ton when reservations were not need
ed, the lines were still reported busy l.
600 times in one day. 70 remedy this
II was found necessary for the line to
| sometimes two clerks were called in
TO help the clerk with his reservations.
| This, Mr.. Valentine thought. was evil
| dence of the great value of the tele-
phone and showed how much labor was
saved for the public even If they were
obliged to wait sometimes when others
were on the same business.
Mr. Valentine showed how useful the
telephone was in freight offices by stat
Inc in nf largest freight
yards in the country there is a COM
pleteIy equipped branch exchange in
which three clerks are constantly en-
ployed TO give information as to rates,
shipment or delivery. Many receivers
of freight are notified by telephone at
once of the arrival of goods, thus Sc
curing prompt removal of the freight
and relieving congestion I'm the freight
houses. The telephone is useful, too,
where there is competition between
roads, for the agent can, by stepping
TO a telephone, communicate with
headquarters and get his instructions,
which frequently save freight from go
ing to a competing road. On the con-
trary, insufficient telephone equip
ment may result in shippers communi-
eating with a road that is well equip
ped in that respect, and the road which
might have got the business may lose
~ ~ NNANPhOh' NViiR6hJ AONlhS AAAAs
one railroad Office telephone was con-
stantly reported busy kept a record
with that OF a line which had plenty Of
telephone service, and found that the
former road had lost enough business
to its competitor I'm one day to pay for
the rental of a complete branch equip
ment for a year
Other advantages pointed out by Mr..
Valentine were the use of the telephone
in the switch towers and cabins so that
all concerned in the handling Of trains
could be always within touch of each
other, and the saving of time in switch
ing had obviated delays TO trains on
the main lines, and the connection OF
all block signal stations by telephone
as well as telegraph so that in case
of a wreck the division superintendent
can keep I'm constant communication
with the towers, and arrange for the
pafsage of trains that otherwise might
be stalled for some time under the old
method of communication. In conclu-
sion he said that the next few years
would see some developments i'm the
application of telephony to railroad
service that would surprise some Of
those whose conservatism had led to
the long delay in the appreciation of
what seemed destined to become the
chief means of communication Of the
future.