Over its 90 year history, the Narrow Gauge San Juan Extension of the D&RGW railroad controlled its business through the use of the telegraph and telephone. Few fundamentals in its operating practices changed from the first excursion over the line in 1880 until abandonment in 1969. The 19th century "double order" system of controlling train movements was still in use on the Alamosa-Durango line. While the state-of-the-art D&RGW mainline was using centralized traffic control and computers, the old Morse telegraph was still in existence, however rarely used, when the D&RGW was granted permission to abandon the line.
Reliable communications are still vitally important to both modern railroads and the ghosts of the D&RGW. Today computers and satellites allow railroads to control thousands of miles of track from a single office. Wired communications have been replaced with two-way radios and mountain top repeaters on today's Narrow Gauge tourist lines.
In Part II John Norwood will describe his experience as a telegrapher and dispatcher on the DRGW Narrow Gauge.
Bibliography
1. "Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Recollections", by John B. Norwood. Heimburger House Publishing Company, 1986.
2. "The Twentieth Century Manual of Railway Commercial and Wireless Telegraphy", by Fred L. Meyer. Rand McNally & Company Publishers, 1914.
3. "History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric Telegraph", by George B. Prescott. Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1866.
4. "Telephone Train Dispatching", by I.C.S Staff and Chas. Stanley Rhoads. International Textbook Company, 1913.