The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-01-20
RAILROAD NEWS.
Use Of Telephone Has Serious
Drawbacks Says Official.
Train Dispatchers Find Disad-
yantages in Them.
DON'T ANSWER BELLS.
Can't Distinguish Important
and Unimportant.
Other Items of General Inter-
est in Traffic World.
DON'T ANSWER BELLS.

Some OF the objections to the use of
the phone are voiced in a letter printed
in a recent number of the Train Dis
patchers' Bulletin, from a dispatcher.
The letter in part is as follows:
When the phones were first put in
the operators answered the bells
promptly, as they did the telegraphic
calls when they first learned to work
on telegraphIc circuit, but now 1t
takes as long to get the operators as
it did by biography; largely because
the station men have to do work out
side. When an operators bell rings he
has no way of knowing whether it is
for orders or for some unimportant
message. With the Geographic call it
could be distinguished readily by the
distinctive signal
THE telegraph has another adyan-
tage: When an operator starts to re-
peat an order by telephone and has it
wrong the dispatcher has no way to
break him. but he keeps right on re-
peating it until he has finished, and
then the dispatcher has to send the
order again, which could be avoided
with the telegraph.
when dispatcher puts in a call by
the selector and before the desired Of
flee answers another office gets busy,
and when the man called finds the line
in use he hangs up his receiver and
goes about his work; on the telegraph
circuit he could do this and still listen
to the SOunder.
After a dispatcher has called an Of
flee, and before finishing with the
operator he is necessarily interrupted
by another office, he cannot simply tell
the first office to wait a minute, as by
telegraph, but he loses him altogether
and has to go through the calling OPP
GRAFTON again, as the operator cannot
be expected to sit there when he has
other work to do.
81 believe the telephone has given
cause for the ever-1ncreaSing questions
on a dispatcher's circuit The writer
sent in an order running a local pas
senger train one hour late and sent it
five times to nine offices, which. when
repeated, would total fourteen times it
was transmitted on the telephone cir
cult While the last operator was get
ting complete" to the order, another
office broke in and asked how the train
was Station operators seem to grow
so they know nothing about what is
being done on the line. When a train
or engineman asks how another train
is, or some ordinary question, the
operator does not know and the dis
patcher is broken in on for the in
formation An. assistant trainmaster
saws that he never receives any answer
to a question asked of an operator
other than I don't know. I'll ask the
Dispatcher
with a set of rules which protect the
dispatcher from interference by others
on the line. But the trouble creeps in
and finally the superintendent or train
master finds that he can talk directly
to some round house foreman or road
master and thinks the business Of suf-
ficient Importance to interrupt the dis
patcher's circuit and this grows con-
t gious Next day the round house
foreman remembers how plainly he
heard a man 200 miles away, and uses
the same method to reach some one
else. They will and do get IN on the
dispatcher's circuit.
at is true that orders can be re-
peated faster on a telephone, and it is
not so much work to call on the tele-
phone. but messages cannot be sent so
fast as by telegraph. If message IS
transmitted fast enough to convey the
same sense in sentences, the operator
cannot COPY it, and the circuit remains
idle between sentences, which allows
others to get in and interrupt the SER
vice.
1.-THE efficiency of the telephone has
decreased at least 20 per cent, due to
the fact that the operators have grown
back into the rut they were in with the
telegraph. The telephone is superior to
the telegraph where an operator goes
to sleep on duty, but they are learning
to cut out the bell when they wish to
rest undi5turbed.
"The writer is well acquainted with
two systems of telephones, and has
worked both systems, but would well
come the telegraph again and would
feel less tired than with the telephone.
with the telegraph dispatcher
could get up, step to the window or
the water cooler and still listen to his
work Now, with the telephone, you
are practically tied as with halter
to the desk for eight to nine hours