Telegraphs and Railroads

The telegraph and the railroad were natural partners in commerce. The telegraph needed the right of way that the railroads provided, and the railroads needed the telegraph to coordinate the arrival and departure of trains. These synergies were not immediately recognized. Only in 1851 did railways start to use telegraphy. Prior to that, telegraph wires strung along the tracks were seen as a nuisance, occasionally sagging, and causing accidents and even fatalities.

The greatest savings of the telegraph were from the continued use of single-tracked railroad lines. Prior to 1851, the U.S. system was single-tracked, and trains ran on a time-interval system. Two types of accidents could occur. Trains running in opposite directions could run into one another, as could trains running in the same direction. The potential for accidents required that railroad managers be incredibly careful in dispatching trains. One way to reduce the number of accidents would have been to double-track the system. A second, better, way was to use the telegraph.

Double-tracking was a good alternative, but not perfect. Double-tracked lines would eliminate head-on collisions, but not same direction ones. This would still need to be done using a timing system, i.e. requiring a time interval between departing trains. Accidents were still possible using this system.

By using the telegraph, station managers knew exactly what trains were on the tracks under their supervision. Double-tracking the U.S. rail system in 1893 has been estimated to cost $957 million. Western Union’s book capitalization was $123 million in 1893, making this seem like a good investment. Of course, the railroads could have used a system like Chappe’s visual telegraph to coordinate traffic, but such a system would have been less reliable and would not have been able to handle the same volume of traffic.

The Brooksville Train Depot Station Number was S-843. The S denotes the division number starting at Palatka. The 843 is the mileage from Richmond, Virginia. The Audit number for the 1885 Train Depot was 4673.

Brooksville had two telegraph lines. The telegraph station call was “BR”; and line number 17 was for the train dispatcher, and line number 16 was the message wire.