[GreenKeys] What is to become of NADCOMM?

[Christian Fandt]

At 19:02 03-03-02 -0800, you wrote:
> > I don't recall what we'd said on this topic on Greenkeys, but I would
> > be interested in hearing if anyone has seen telegraph or Teletype or
> > telephone displays integrated into any working railroad museums or
> > tourist railroads.
>
>I don't recall either, but I do participate in just that sort of venture 
>here in the WNY area.  The Western New York Railway Historical Society 
>owns the former Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh (BR&P) RR station at 
>Orchard Park, NY, which is south of Buffalo.  I have been invited on a few 
>occasions to come out to their station and set up a working telegraph line 
>for their open house event.  We string a line between the station office 
>and the Society's "bobber" caboose parked on a nearby siding.  Visitors to 
>the site can write out a "telegram" to themselves and we send it by 
>telegraph to the other station, and they pick it up when they visit that 
>end of the line.

I'll have to run up to the Southtowns and checkout that museum sometime 
Doug. But would you possibly inform us "locals" when you'd be setup again?



>No, it's not a permanent display, but it is one effort to try to 
>acknowledge the role the telegraph (and by extension, the teletype) had 
>with the railroads.  It's always worth the effort to drag out and set up 
>all my telegraph gear (the Society doesn't have any of their own) and hear 
>and see people old enough to have been in RR stations when RR travel was 
>"the" mode when they hear the telegraph clatter away the look of enjoyment 
>on their faces -- "Ooooh, yes!  We always used to hear the telegraph in 
>the station!"
>
>See a photo of me at the key at "RK" at 
>http://www.pce.net/dalderdi/telegrph.htm
>
>I once visited the Pennsylvania Rail Museum near Lancaster, PA, and saw in 
>their reconstructed station inside the trainshed that they had full 
>telegraph gear set up in the operator's window of that station, which 
>looks wonderful.  I asked a docent about it and whether it was functional 
>and was given a rather gruff reply, "We have a tape we can run."  Oh, OK.

My family and I spent most of a day in that museum last June. Loved it. The 
reconstructed station is still in place along with a display of 30 or so 
telegraph sounders, line relays and keys. They had that tape you speak of 
playing that day. Indeed,  it wasn't so much fun just hearing a tape and 
not seeing the actual hardware operating.

In our AWA Electronic Communications Museum, we have areas displaying 
telegraph keys, relays, sounders and other land line items. Some of you may 
have seen it in the main building. The Western Union desk and wall clock 
were reputed to have come from my town, Jamestown, by our founding curator, 
Bruce Kelley. He had no documentation to prove it as it was given to him 
_many_ years ago, but it would be fascinating for myself and our local 
historical society to confirm that. That desk is a small unit with just 
enough size to hold a typewriter and provide a writing area and a side area 
holding a key. The sounder is perched on the front within its echo box 
along the customary Prince Albert tobacco tin can used to enhance the 
"clack" from the sounder it was leaning against. In the museum Annex 
building, we have Teletype gear such as an ASR-33 and I believe a 28. Been 
awhile since I've had a chance to get up there.


>73,
>
>Doug, KA2WFT
>Buffalo, NY
>
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Christian Fandt,         Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY  USA      cfandt@netsync.net
         Member of Antique Wireless Association
         URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/