Re: (erielack) Interesting DL&W "Telegrams"

[Gordon Davids <g.davids_@_verizon.net>]

I noticed that the operator at Bangor sent the telegram to the relay 
office at Portland at 9.00 a.m., and the reply from New York came via 
Portland at 1.00 p.m.  Bangor didn't have a direct wire to New York, and 
this message probably passed through one or two more relay offices on 
the way over and back.  The relay operators would pick up messages from 
the message wire, separate from the train dispatcher's wire, and hold 
them until they had a bunch to pass to another office.  Portland 
probably sent this with a few more to a relay operator in Hoboken, who 
then sorted out the reservation messages and passed them as a bundle to 
New York, maybe every hour or half hour.

The "Sent by" and "Received by" blocks on the telegram were the 
telegraphers' "sines," or their individual ID's on the wire.  The first 
one was sent from Bangor by RAD and received at Portland by OP.  OP is a 
common abbreviation for "operator," so it is possible that they used a 
generic sine for the "op" at Portland.  The reply came back the same 
way, but was received at Bangor by VA, who was probably Agent V. Arnts.

Gordon


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