The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1908-01-03
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Railways consjderlngs Operation. o.
sssssgsg.szssSss linss ~ Telephone.

That recently enacted laws af1ecting
the hours f labor for railway en-
Eployes mays*resdlt In the substitution
OF the telephone for the telegraph in
railway operation is asserted editorial
" In Tho Railway Age. Such laws.
tho writer tells US, have within the
year been enacted by congress and by
the legislatures of eight states. For
telegraphers Wisconsin limits the con-
secutive hours of service to eight,
West Virginia to from 8 to II and the
federal law to nine for day and night
stations and to maximum of Is (for
not more than three days per week.
for day stations. Says The Age:
1.-THE necessity of providing addi-
tional operators, which is now or soon
to be imposed by reason of these statu-
tory limitations as to permissible
hours Of labor for telegraphers, pre-
sents a serious problem for railway
officials in charge Of operation, and in
seeking a solution the telephone will
undoubtedly receive very serious con-
sideration. Several systems, including
the New York Central, the Pennsyl-
vania and the Union Pacific, have es-
tablished schools of telegraphy in or
der to educate operators Other roads
have had recourse to the telephone as
an auxiliary, and the Pennsylvania
and New York Central as we'll have
made experimental installations. The
practicability Of utilizing telephony in
train dispatching has greatly increased
by the development of the tele-
graphone system, which, by providing
selective devices in connection with
the telephones and the Morse instru.
ments, permits the use of one circuit
for the simultaneous communication of
Geographic and telephone messages.
The Southern Pacific system has now
on the Sacramento division rs station
telegraphones; these are at points
from 30 to 40 miles apart, and from
the stations so equipped communica-
ton may be had with intermediate sta
tions by telephone. Also train crews
may communicate with the operators
at telegraphone stations by connecting
telephone instruments carried in the
baggage car or cabOose with the tele-
graph wire by means of a fish-pole
device, such as used on many inter-
urban electric roads. The advantages
in permitting the employment at in
termediate stations of station agents
who are not telegraph operators are
apparent, and the system, which has
been in operation for about Is months,
has been found to work satisfactorily
in every way. One disadvantage some
times urged against telephony as a
means of directing train operation,
namely, that a very large portion of
sounds heard over a telephone are
unintelligible, except in connection
with the context, is found in practice
to be of no importance, since train
orders are stereotyped in form and the
knowledge of the hearer as to the
general subject of the message causes
that association of ideas which is nec-
essary for ready comprehension of
what to one not familiar with the work
might be unintelligible sounds, and
experience has demonstrated that,
with the same rules as regards the
repetition and checking, train orders
may be transmitted by telephone with
the same degree of safety as by tele-
graph"