Communication lines along right of way (i.e. formerly telegraph lines.)

[Doublestack]

I'm curious, over the years, what were the comm. lines along the RR used for (i.e. I guess they were originally telegraph).   What did that morph to over the years?   Are any still in use?

[Modelcar]

....And many of those cross arms had many lines strung on them.

[Railway Man]

I'm curious, over the years, what were the comm. lines along the RR used for (i.e. I guess they were originally telegraph).   What did that morph to over the years?   Are any still in use?

Railroad pole lines included both their own communication lines as well as lines leased to other companies such as Western Union.  The leased lines on poles vanished long ago.  After a gap of a few decades of which there was little of this nature, their modern-day replacement appeared, the lease of right-of-ways for buried fiber-optics cables.  Railroad communication lines have largely been eliminated from the pole lines (but some lasted to circa 1970).  Pole lines still in existence carry primarily electrical power for the wayside signal system, and in many cases signal circuits.  Code lines, which deliver instructions to CTC control points, are almost 100% gone from the pole lines, replaced by through-the-rail codes or data link radios, or both.

RWM

[rixflix]

When I was trespassing and a Reading fan kid in the 50's and 60"s, the wires still hummed and we were afraid of them. We hopped a few freights around town but never messed with the RR's property. As the leader of the gang, I never permitted interference with the road's operations. Imagine  what today's copper thieves could do with those 20 to 30 lines between each leaning pole with 4 to 6 crossarms each.

Sadly, I watched a CSX MOW outfit taking down the poles betwen Baltimore and DC a decade ago. Morse's original route!

eixflix

[Railway Man]

Usually the only copper is the power line, which usually carries 2700 volts or more.  The signal circuits are usually copper-clad iron, or just plain iron.

RWM

[piouslion1]

Being from a family that has gotten into a few of the more interesting hobbies: those lines along the side of a railroad were a primary source for insulator collectors to get some of their treasures. According to my cousin, the daughter of an old hand from Southern Bell (Now AT&T) these were often discarded along the side of the roadbed by the railroad when the lines were removed, at least at the early stages of the hobby.

Courtesy of this same cousin my wife and I have about a half dozen of them from the Old Savannah and Atlanta RR that ran through the town (Newington GA) that our mothers grew up in. In short, it was not initially the copper that was valuable but the glass.  

PL

 

[Anonymous]

Being from a family that has gotten into a few of the more interesting hobbies: those lines along the side of a railroad were a primary source for insulator collectors to get some of their treasures. According to my cousin, the daughter of an old hand from Southern Bell (Now AT&T) these were often discarded along the side of the roadbed by the railroad when the lines were removed, at least at the early stages of the hobby.

Courtesy of this same cousin my wife and I have about a half dozen of them from the Old Savannah and Atlanta RR that ran through the town (Newington GA) that our mothers grew up in. In short, it was not initially the copper that was valuable but the glass.  

PL

 

I got six, 3 clear and 3 green "Hemingray 42" insulators in pristine condition from cross-arms discarded by the CN along the former IC main east of Ft. Dodge.  I also got six clear "Armstrong 67" from the old NP's St. Paul - Duluth line in a ditch in White Bear Lake, MN (quite the surprise for just a lunch time excursion from the office). 

[al-in-chgo]

Being from a family that has gotten into a few of the more interesting hobbies: those lines along the side of a railroad were a primary source for insulator collectors to get some of their treasures. According to my cousin, the daughter of an old hand from Southern Bell (Now AT&T) these were often discarded along the side of the roadbed by the railroad when the lines were removed, at least at the early stages of the hobby.

Courtesy of this same cousin my wife and I have about a half dozen of them from the Old Savannah and Atlanta RR that ran through the town (Newington GA) that our mothers grew up in. In short, it was not initially the copper that was valuable but the glass.  

PL

 

I got six, 3 clear and 3 green "Hemingray 42" insulators in pristine condition from cross-arms discarded by the CN along the former IC main east of Ft. Dodge.  I also got six clear "Armstrong 67" from the old NP's St. Paul - Duluth line in a ditch in White Bear Lake, MN (quite the surprise for just a lunch time excursion from the office). 

I would love to have just one blue or green insulator in good condition as a paperweight, but have not yet developed the intestinal fortitude to scout around eBay.

 

[Anonymous]

Being from a family that has gotten into a few of the more interesting hobbies: those lines along the side of a railroad were a primary source for insulator collectors to get some of their treasures. According to my cousin, the daughter of an old hand from Southern Bell (Now AT&T) these were often discarded along the side of the roadbed by the railroad when the lines were removed, at least at the early stages of the hobby.

Courtesy of this same cousin my wife and I have about a half dozen of them from the Old Savannah and Atlanta RR that ran through the town (Newington GA) that our mothers grew up in. In short, it was not initially the copper that was valuable but the glass.  

PL

 

I got six, 3 clear and 3 green "Hemingray 42" insulators in pristine condition from cross-arms discarded by the CN along the former IC main east of Ft. Dodge.  I also got six clear "Armstrong 67" from the old NP's St. Paul - Duluth line in a ditch in White Bear Lake, MN (quite the surprise for just a lunch time excursion from the office). 

I would love to have just one blue or green insulator in good condition as a paperweight, but have not yet developed the intestinal fortitude to scout around eBay.

 

Al - check your PM's...

[morseman]

telegraph lines across canada were used for the CBC radio broadcasts.  We had the CBC Trans- Canada network and the CBC Dominion network.      Also teletype circuits for individual companies.                      If I can remember correctly there would be 45 teletype circuits on the high pass of a pair of wires and a radio b'cast, or a phone line on the low pass.  Or instead of the 45 teletype circuits you could have three telephone lines.       Also on the low pass you would also have the railroad morse lines.      

 Could someone refresh my memory of these configurations?

[Anonymous]

Didn't the long-distance carrier "Sprint" get started by someone coming-up with the idea that Southern Pacific had plenty of extra bandwidth on their communications lines?  I heard that when I worked for MCI - Southern Pacific Railroad something...

[tree68]

Didn't the long-distance carrier "Sprint" get started by someone coming-up with the idea that Southern Pacific had plenty of extra bandwidth on their communications lines?  I heard that when I worked for MCI - Southern Pacific Railroad something...

That's the story I've heard - although it wasn't copper (or other wire), it was fiber optics, buried alongside the tracks.  I think it was Southern Pacific Railroad Internet.

Burying fiber on rights-of-way has gotten very popular, especially on the Interstates, which usually have plenty of open real estate alongside.

[al-in-chgo]

Didn't the long-distance carrier "Sprint" get started by someone coming-up with the idea that Southern Pacific had plenty of extra bandwidth on their communications lines?  I heard that when I worked for MCI - Southern Pacific Railroad something...

I thought it was S P Rapid Interline Telcommunication or something like that. Will try google.

Here's from Wikipedia; their versions don't sound utterly convincing either: 

[edit] History

[edit] Origin of name

The origin of the name Sprint is unsettled, with a number of extant explanations. Most of these maintain that the name derives from the name of the Southern Pacific Railroad and its own internal communications system (called the "Southern Pacific Railroad Information NeTwork")^[clarify], but there is some disagreement about the exact words comprising the acronym "SPRINT". Another explanation is reported to be "Southern Pacific Railroad Integrated Network Transmission"

One unverified version is that in the late 1970s a contest was launched by C. Gus Grant, then President of SPCC. It was won by a secretary, Susan Guehrig, who suggested "Sprint". Others maintain that the acronym was already in use prior to that within SP.

 

[gabe]

Now communication along right of ways--and former rights of way--help perpetuate mamouth class action litigation.  Defense lawyers and mediators have put their house servants through college on the corresponding profit. 

Gabe

[THE.RR]

That's the story I've heard - although it wasn't copper (or other wire), it was fiber optics, buried alongside the tracks.  I think it was Southern Pacific Railroad Internet.

Not fibre optics, but microwave.  That was the big thing at the time, dishes that beamed microwaves a hundred or so feet above ground from repeater to repeater.  SP had set up a net work to relay their car location information etc from yard to yard and to HQ.  They leased the excess capacity in bulk to other industries that needed to send information cross country.  With the deregulation lo long distance phone calls that excess was sub leased to retail packagers. 

I guess it was one of the few profit cneters for the SP for a while, but when it became an operation headache they sold the whole section off.

Phil

[Railway Man]

The name "Sprint" is not an acronym for anything.  It sounded like "SP something ..." that people at SP liked, but that's all.  It means nothing.

The sale of Sprint was driven by finance needs.  SP had two business lines that both required very large cash investment into infrastructure, a railroad and a telecom.  They couldn't invest in both.  Their choice was to let one wither and one succeed, split the cash between both which would likely result in both withering, or sell one.  They chose to sell the telecom and keep the railroad.

RWM

[csmith9474]

The name "Sprint" is not an acronym for anything.  It sounded like "SP something ..." that people at SP liked, but that's all.  It means nothing.

The sale of Sprint was driven by finance needs.  SP had two business lines that both required very large cash investment into infrastructure, a railroad and a telecom.  They couldn't invest in both.  Their choice was to let one wither and one succeed, split the cash between both which would likely result in both withering, or sell one.  They chose to sell the telecom and keep the railroad.

RWM

Wasn't it Anschutz (sp?) that tried to diversify the Espee's infrastructure to include pipelines and a couple of other things? I recall a couple of different things under the SP name that weren't railroad related.

As far as the Sprint thing, I heard different rounds about it being some kind of cool acronym, but was finally determined to mean nothing. Every time I see a Wikipedia reference, I tend to cringe a little. I am not saying the poster above does this, but I can't believe the number of folks that take Wikipedia at face value.

[tree68]

Interesting about Sprint.  I think I heard the SP story before Wikipedia hit the streets, which makes it an urban legend with some age.

Of course, that means I can't use it for a "did you know" tidbit any more....

[Railway Man]

Wasn't it Anschutz (sp?) that tried to diversify the Espee's infrastructure to include pipelines and a couple of other things? I recall a couple of different things under the SP name that weren't railroad related.

As far as the Sprint thing, I heard different rounds about it being some kind of cool acronym, but was finally determined to mean nothing. Every time I see a Wikipedia reference, I tend to cringe a little. I am not saying the poster above does this, but I can't believe the number of folks that take Wikipedia at face value.

The diversification of SP began over 100 years ago into land development and irrigation, but mostly it consisted of land leases.  In the 1920s it began diversifying into businesses that were loosely allied to SP, such as SP Pipeline and Pacific Motor Transport, some were totally unrelated such as Bankers Finance and Sprint.  The unrelated business diversification began in the late 1960s as it became apparent that the bloom was off SP's core traffic base of perishables, lumber, autos, and copper -- and in the case of perishables, in free-fall.  SP still threw off cash, but there was considerable hesitation on the part of management to reinvest it into the the railroad or similar regulated transportation businesses like trucking and pipelines.

First under Santa Fe and continued by Anschutz, the railroad retreated rapidly from its diversification.  Some of these businesses such as Bankers Finance were dogs.  Some were quite valuable, such as SP Pipelines (it was sold to Kinder-Morgan) and an enormous amount of land with valuable mineral and water rights.  The cupboards and closets were thoroughly cleaned out of the non-railroad assets, and quite a few of the railroad assets such as trackage in the Los Angeles Basin and sale-leaseback of locomotives and freight cars, by the mid-1990s.

RWM

[csmith9474]

Wasn't it Anschutz (sp?) that tried to diversify the Espee's infrastructure to include pipelines and a couple of other things? I recall a couple of different things under the SP name that weren't railroad related.

As far as the Sprint thing, I heard different rounds about it being some kind of cool acronym, but was finally determined to mean nothing. Every time I see a Wikipedia reference, I tend to cringe a little. I am not saying the poster above does this, but I can't believe the number of folks that take Wikipedia at face value.

The diversification of SP began over 100 years ago into land development and irrigation, but mostly it consisted of land leases.  In the 1920s it began diversifying into businesses that were loosely allied to SP, such as SP Pipeline and Pacific Motor Transport, some were totally unrelated such as Bankers Finance and Sprint.  The unrelated business diversification began in the late 1960s as it became apparent that the bloom was off SP's core traffic base of perishables, lumber, autos, and copper -- and in the case of perishables, in free-fall.  SP still threw off cash, but there was considerable hesitation on the part of management to reinvest it into the the railroad or similar regulated transportation businesses like trucking and pipelines.

First under Santa Fe and continued by Anschutz, the railroad retreated rapidly from its diversification.  Some of these businesses such as Bankers Finance were dogs.  Some were quite valuable, such as SP Pipelines (it was sold to Kinder-Morgan) and an enormous amount of land with valuable mineral and water rights.  The cupboards and closets were thoroughly cleaned out of the non-railroad assets, and quite a few of the railroad assets such as trackage in the Los Angeles Basin and sale-leaseback of locomotives and freight cars, by the mid-1990s.

RWM

Thanks for the calrification. I had some literature from the SP (during the RGI days) that advertised the different things the SP was in to (can't find that brochure to save my life). I guess it makes sense that Anschutz was trying to do away with that, as I recall someone telling me that he was really pushing to make the SP an almost exclusively mainline railroad.