Pole Talk

FTLComm - Tisdale - January 24, 2002

These three sentinels standing along the CN line in downtown Tisdale are among the few telegraph poles around. When the railroad companies built their network of railways across the Canadian prairies along side every line they constructed their very own communications system. To make the railroads run and serve their customers flung out across the endless reaches of the country both CNR and CPR has a complete telecommunications system that was in place long before the telephone came into use. Each community had a railway agent and the prerequisite for a job "down at the station" was to be able to key. Prospective agents would buy a telegraph key, an elaborate contraption that allowed the operator to whiz off a series of dots and dashes with a left and right motion on a fluttering key that could transmit Morse code over a single bare wire. We traditionally see pictures of a Morse code key as a horizontal button sort of thing on a little block of wood that an operator could tap on. Certainly at first, Morse code keys of that type were used ,but far more sophisticated and articulate left and right versions were what professionals bought for themselves to do the job. Once a person achieved a level of proficiency he could apply for a job with the railway but part of the employment process was a test to see that his Morse proficiency was acceptable for the rigours of the job. The telegraph system was the chat line for railway operators along a line. They talked to one another, passed on information and of course reported the movement of trains and requested cars or car pick up notices. Every railway station was hushed when the sounder began its rat-a-ta-tat and the agent would cock his head as he interpreted the message. When it was for him he acknowledged he was there and would scribble out the message on a note pad, when it was a message for someone he would go to his trusty Underwood typing machine and put in an official looking printed piece of paper and transcribe his notes from the note pad to the typed page for the customer who was about to get a telegram. In the 1950s both rail companies began running voice on that same network of lines and every so often there were "linemen" who road in sleek abbreviated motorcars would patrol the telegraph lines and sometimes add new lines. The telegraph lines were made of simple uninsulated steel wire and most lines had a whole collection of lines on double cross bars every sixty to eight feet (pole length). The most intense system and line was along CP's mainline as you would come into Regina on the old number one highway past poles which must have had five to six cross bars holding up tons of steel wire. Realising how valuable communications was CN and CP began combining their system in the late sixties as telex began to be the means of business communication allowing typed messages to be transferred from point to point at the speed of light, albeit related to the speed of type. News services like Reuters, Canadian Press and others had dedicated lines that they rented from CNCP to provide online news while weather and stock markets also utilized this "modern" form of communications. In the mid 80s telegraph's day was done, most of the railway stations were closed and the railways had other means of tracking their trains with radio systems in each locomotive. But CNCP had by then developed this vast telecommunications network now mostly moved from their along the railway lines to microwave repeaters. Ten years before SaskTel was offering the Internet to Saskatchewan people CNCP had their INET 2000 system running and I was a customer. With my little 300baud modem and my trusty Apple //e I could sit in my office in Regina (I was in grad school then) and chat or sent e-mail with my wife and sons in Watson Lake Yukon as they sat at the Apple ][+ (clone) with its 300baud modem. I think that service cost us $29 a month at the time. Though no browsers were available we did have access to CompuServe and other developing online systems. The Internet was already in place and function for academics but for the rest of us this was the only online system at the time. Just to bring you up to date, that extensive telecommunications system that used to be the telegraph poles along the railway tracks and owned by the railroads, that evolved into a modern data network is alive and well today, owned and operated by Sprint Canada. The other day driving along the CN main line between Leross and Kelliher I noticed the poles in the ditch, the old telegraph poles have been taken down and are lying derelict in the ditch. When rural telephone companies first began on the prairies they put in little cedar poles along the road allowances carrying telephone lines (single strand steel wires) to farms and villages using a primitive manually switched system. Then in the 1950 to get electrical power to the vast open country of Saskatchewan SaskPower was established and rural electrification took place. Farmers paid heavily for a line to be run to their farm yard and though the CCF was proud of the accomplishment the real cost of the project was born by the people who lived out their on the farms. Today the telegraph lines have disappeared, all telephone lines are underground and in some parts of the province even the electrical power lines are buried but SaskPower gave up on that project saying it was to expensive. Timothy W. Shire