IN 1917, TRAINS ON THE MOVE HAD NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING with each other, with stations, or with dispatchers. There were no cellular phones on board, no radios, and no telegraph keys. Instead, trains travelled according to standing orders issued before a journey began. Those orders specified when they were to arrive at and leave each station and when they were to meet trains coming the other way. A train might be late for any number of reasons, but it must never leave a station before schedule. A train leaving Moncton for Truro might be told it was to meet a train coming from the other direction at Sackville. That other train would be given precisely the same meeting place. If one of those trains was delayed, the other had to wait.
Since the trains could not communicate, their progress was monitored. Each time they stopped at or passed a station, the station agent would note the time of arrival and departure and pass that information by railway telegraph to the dispatcher for that line. The dispatcher would watch those messages and decide if new orders were required. He might for example note that, while the train from Moncton was on time, the train from Truro was behind schedule. It would make sense to move the meeting place from Sackville to Amherst, closer to Truro.
If he did make that decision, he sent the new orders to the stations concerned—first to Amherst, where the late train would now have to stop, and then to Sackville, where the train on time could move ahead. The agents at those stations would flip a lever that raised a signal ordering the trains to stop. Then they would hand the new orders to the conductors running those trains and to the engineers driving them. This system involved some careful checks to prevent errors. New orders were not sent until the agent acknowledged he was ready to receive. Only his telegraphed “I” for “Aye” or his “G” for “Go ahead” would clear the way. Only when new orders were repeated and the signal was set did the dispatcher note that those orders were in effect. All trains were also classified as “superior” and “inferior” depending on the direction. “Inferior” trains took the siding. “Superior” trains used the main line.
The telegraph code used on the railway was American Land Line. It is similar to Morse code and to the Continental system used by the commercial telegraph companies, but has its own variations. Ten letters—C, F, J, O, P, Q, R, X, Y, and Z—are different from Morse because they are sent using pauses as well as dots and dashes. The dashes vary in length. C, for example, is dash dot dash dot in Morse code, dot dot PAUSE dot in Land Line. A short or normal dash means T. A long dash means L. It took station agents years to become proficient at sending and receiving. When they were comfortable, they listened to the sounds as if it were music—they could take forty words a minute, listening to the flow of the words, rather than the dots, dashes, and spaces of the letters.
Although train orders were coded with call signs such as “H” for Halifax, “G” for Truro, “A” for Rockingham, and “BO” for Moncton, they were heard not just by the station receiving them but by every station along that portion of the line. On the Intercolonial, for example, all messages from Halifax could be heard by every station between Halifax and Truro, all messages from Moncton could be heard by every station from Moncton to Truro, and all messages from New Glasgow could be heard by every station from Sydney to Truro. Halifax, Moncton, and New Glasgow each ran their part of the line. That made Truro the hub, since messages from all three regions could be heard in Truro. In addition, when a station in one region, say the Intercolonial’s headquarters at Moncton, wished to talk to a station in another region, say Halifax, the message had to be relayed or patched through Truro. (A telegraph link could be extended: at night, some Atlantic agents would send directly to Toronto.) When the telephone came into use, it was possible to bypass the telegraph; but that prevented stations in between from hearing a call. Since the efficient running of the line depended on information being shared, that made no sense.
Although handling messages, especially train orders, was a crucial part of a station agent’s job, he had other duties. He would answer inquiries, sell tickets, send and receive telegrams, and, in many smaller centres, bargain with merchants about freight rates. On the Intercolonial, an agent could set rates for shipments going as far as 100 miles. Small stations might have an agent who was not an operator. Some larger ones had an agent and an operator. In any station with a telegraph, staff kept an ear on it, in the way police officers listen to all calls on their radios. That was partly because they did not want to miss a call, partly because it was the way to keep informed. Station agents knew who was coming and going and who was planning a trip. They knew if there was trouble down the line, and they would hear immediately if something of enormous significance was going on. On 6 December 1917, the railway telegraph system was the key to the incredibly rapid spread of news about what happened in Halifax. As soon as station agents heard, they told others—their own bosses, local government, local media, even passers-by. That explains why towns along the railway learned first. It explains why the newspaper in Truro had better and far more accurate coverage than any place else.