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The operator at Town Line had three methods of voice
communications with train dispatchers, adjacent signal operators and the
train crews themselves. These methods were:
Wireline
Telephone. There is no particularly good description for
this method, other than the fact that it was a system of open-line
intercom's between the dispatchers, stations, signal towers and road-side
telephone booths along the right of way. Timetables of the day
listed this system as merely "telephones", even though they were
not public telephones as we know them today. (In 1935, they
were known as "lines" or "grade lines").
The operator at Town Line was able to talk on several
different lines. There was a speaker mounted on the wall in front of
the operator, and a telephone mouthpiece attached to a accordion-like
metal device which allowed the operator to pull it up towards his mouth
when talking. When not in use, it was pushed back on the desk.
In addition to the speaker and microphone, two other devices were crucial
to this system. One device was the plug box. This box
contained female telephone jacks (about 12 if I remember correctly), in
two rows of six. Some jacks were unusable and some were in standby
and not normally used unless other lines went down. The second
device was the automatic ringer. This was a momentary switch (like a
pushbutton, but a lever) which caused alerting bells to ring. The
operator at Town Line had four main "lines" that he used
regularly:
Jackson
Dispatcher Line. The Jackson dispatcher line was an open
line which started at Town Line and went west as far as Jackson.
This was the line that the operator kept plugged in and live on the
speaker. In 1963, stations on this line included the Jackson East
Dispatcher, Town Line, Wayne Yard Office, Wayne Junction, Willow Run (yard
office), Ann Arbor depot operator, and the operator at "XN"
which was at the Jackson depot. If my memory serves me correctly,
this line also included the Jackson to Saginaw branch. We could year the
operator at "MA" (Lansing Michigan Avenue) and Owosso on the
line. The Detroit Yard dispatcher could also come on this line to
speak with Jackson, but this was rare. Most of these issues were
handled by Town Line.
The dispatcher's line could be very interesting and
noisy. Sometimes there was a buzz or hum noise, particularly when it
was raining. There was also constant morse-code on the line from
train detectors. As an example, when a train was going eastbound by
Willow Run (an unmanned location), the Willow Run encoder would place
morse code on the line to indicate to the dispatcher that a train was
present. The code, which was the one or two letter morse designator
for the unmanned station, would play over and over on the open line until the train
had passed. There were other detector/morse enunciators along the
line in Ann Arbor, Dexter, Chelsea and Grass Lake among other locations.
Sometimes these detectors would annunciate trains in only one
direction. Sometimes in either direction. On many occasions,
multiple detectors would annunciate trains at the same time.
Experienced dispatchers and operators could separate the tone of the morse
code to define each detector.
Another common sound on the dispatchers channel was the
dial encoder signals that the dispatcher used for calling a station.
Sometimes, operators would leave the dispatcher's channel to go to the
block or message channel. Sometimes, they would just turn down the
speaker while they were on the Bell phone. Occasionally, the
operator might fall asleep. To get the operator's
attention, the dispatcher would encode a decoder at the tower which would
turn on a ringing alarm. On the channel, these pulses sounded as if someone
was dialing a rotary style telephone. The decoder in the tower would
rotate with the pulses and if the code was the same as the one in the
tower, the bell would go off. This was a signal to the operator that
he or she was wanted by the dispatcher. At Town Line, both the
Detroit Yard Dispatcher and the Jackson East Dispatcher could
"dial" and ring the operator on their respective channels.
Michigan
Division Block Line. Parellel to the Jackson East
Dispatcher Line was the Michigan Division Block Line. The block line
was used to communicate between towers and stations, from Town Line to XN
(Jackson). As an example, the operator at Town Line would want to
tell Wayne Junction that a westbound train had just left (meaning it would
arrive at Wayne Jct. in about 15 minutes). The Town Line operator
would pull his plug out of the Jackson dispatcher line, and plug it into
the block line. Operators usually didn't monitor the block line, so
the initiating operator would use his ringer button/lever to call Wayne
Jct. If Wayne Jct.'s station letter was "S", the operator
at Town Line would push three, short bursts of the ringer. Everyone
along the line listened to these rings and Wayne Jct. would plug into the
block line if called to carry on a conversation. Other operators
could listen in on the conversation. Sometimes, the Town Line
operator just gave a quick, short burst of the ringer without expecting an
answer. This was a tip off to Wayne Junction that the westbound was
on the way.
Most stations and towers had electric ringer button/levers
which transmitted a distinct ringer burst when pressed and released.
But along the main line, telephone booths were strategically placed for
the use by train crews and equipment maintenance operators. These booths
contained early 1900's era telephones, which indeed looked like a phone
which might have been on the kitchen wall in an 1890's farm house.
Let us say, for instance, that a track tamping crew wanted to use the
eastbound main at Inkster. The foreman would come on the block line
at Inkster and ring the tower at Wayne Jct. Because these phones
were unpowered, the foreman would need to turn a crank on the side of the
phone. This crank would generate electricity over the block line
which would also ring the ringer in stations and towers along the
line. The faster the crank was turned, the louder the bell
rang. You could always tell when a bell was hand-cranked - it was
never the "staccato" ring of the automatic ringer in a tower.
Detroit
Yard Dispatcher Line. Town Line was the go-between
between the Detroit Yard and the Jackson East dispatcher. To carry
out this role, the operator was constantly switching between dispatcher
lines. Jackson East dispatching was a very professional, no-nonsense
operation. But the Detroit Yard dispatcher was just the
opposite. This line was very hectic and the dispatcher was always
trying to manage many trains with minimal resources. His job was
very much like an air traffic controller at a busy national airport.
The Detroit dispatcher also knew most of his tower operators and levermen
personally, as they were often promoted out of the same pool of people.
The Jackson dispatchers were promoted out of a pool of operators north and
west of Jackson, so they did not know the operators at Town Line as well.
Where trains were strictly controlled by train order and
ABS on the west side of Town Line, they were controlled by verbal order
(and sometimes ABS) on the Detroit Yard side. Other towers on the
Detroit Yard Dispatcher line in the early 1960's were Town Line, West
Detroit, Bay City Junction, 20th Street, 15th Street, Rouge Bridge, YD,
Schaefer and North Yard tower. Yardmaster's at Junction Yard,
Livernois, North Yard and the Michigan Central Station Master also
"chimed in" on this line.
Detroit
Yard Grade Line. This line was identical to the block line to
the west, except it was for towers in the Detroit Yard. When Town
Line wanted to send an eastbound train down the New Wye to Schaefer and
YD, he would ring up Schaefer Tower on the yard line to make the proper
arrangements.
Patch Panel. To
the left of the operator was a green metal cabinet which extended from the
top of the desk almost to the ceiling. The panel was filled with
several dozen female phone jacks, similar to the jacks on the operator's
plug box. Normally, nothing was plugged into these jacks. But
if a line went down east or west of Town Line tower, these jacks would be
used to help the Signal Maintainers locate the downed wire or bypass
it. Typically, the operator would receive a Bell phone call from the
Signal Maintainer and he would have the operator insert a plug into a
particular numbered jack. Once inserted, the maintainer could use
his resistance measurement equipment to determine the location of the line
break. The maintainer would then have the operator plug in
double-ended patch cords between jacks to bypass the broken wire.
Sometimes, lines would need to be temporarily combined. As an
example, a line break or unexpected "ground" on the Jackson East
dispatchers line between Wayne Jct. and Town Line might mean that the
dispatchers line might need to be temporarily patched into the block line
until the wire was repaired. Sometimes wires could not be repaired
for several days. Patch Panels were mysteries but you knew not to
touch them unless directed by a Signal Maintainer.
Two Way Radio.
In the early 1960's, there were only a couple of radio frequencies which
were used in the Detroit metropolitan area. The primary road channel
(160.80 Mhz) NYC Channel 1 was the channel used to talk to road trains
through metro Detroit. This was the only radio channel available to
the operator at Town Line. A yard channel was also used between yard
locomotives and yardmasters but was not available to the Town Line
operator. It should be noted that in the early 1960's, there were no
small portable radios. The only portable radios were large pack-set
radios with telephone handsets and battery packs. These units
weighed 10 pounds and were impractical for switching communications now
used between conductors, brakemen and engineers. Hand signals were
universally used instead.
Town Line has a gray-steel radio control box on the desk
to the left of the operator (under the Patch Panel). This control
box had a black handset with a coiled cord. The operator could
listen to the radio channel over the speaker or over the ear piece on the
handset. The operator needed to put the handset to his ear and mouth
(like a telephone) and he then pushed a transmit button on the handset to
talk. The control box was not a radio, but actually controlled a
base station which I assume was on top of the Michigan Central depot
downtown. This main, centrally located radio was shared with others
including the Detroit Yard dispatcher and the Yardmasters at Livernois and
Junction Yards. The control box had a bright yellow light which
would come on whenever any of the connected control boxes transmitted to a
train. Though the majority of radio traffic was to the east, Town
Line could also monitor trains, towers and dispatchers to the west who
used the same channel.
A typical radio transmission from Town Line to a train
would begin something like this: "Operator Town Line to the
head end of LS-3". Around 1964, a change in operating policy
required radio operators to give the name of the railroad every time they
initiated a conversation. As an example, a transmission now began
like this: "New York Central Operator Town Line to the head end
of LS-3". This seemed like a great deal of extra work, when the
New York Central was the only user of the frequency at the time.
Private/Public
Telephone System (Bell Phone). Town Line had a simple,
black, single line dial "Bell" style telephone near the
operator's left hand. This phone was connected to the NYC Detroit
telephone switch board. Though you could dial within the NYC Detroit
area by dialing a five-digit phone number, you needed to have the operator
give you an "outside" line if you wished to call outside in the
normal Bell telephone network or if you wished to talk between NYC
divisions in another town.
Detroit telephone operators were pretty good about giving
outside lines to Town Line operators without question, but occasionally
there would be a "crack down" or an operator who was having a
"bad day" and the NYC operator would give the tower operator the
"fifth degree" before making the connection.
I remember one Town Line operator who's mother lived in
Toledo. He would keep on the "good side" of the NYC operators in Detroit so that they
would give him a connection to the NYC operator in Toledo who would give
him a local dial tone so he could call home.
If you had the approvals, you could call throughout the
NYC phone system - even to Grand Central station in New York City.
But it had to be on company business and it had to be important.
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