Railroad Pole Line in Decay

January 30, 1999

This shot taken along the old Pennsylvania Railroad just outside Logansport, Indiana known as Logansport Yard "A."

A part of the railroad scene that is fast disappearing are the railroads pole lines. Basically called the pole line, the pole line had four basic functions or electrical applications - telegraph, telephone, controlling (signaling), and power.

Telegraph - The telegraph was the first electrical application used along the railroad for both railroads own use and for public or leased lines like the Western Union. Although the telegraph was built along railroads ROW in the early years of the telegraph for easy access. In 1851 the New York and Erie Railroad would be the first railroad in the U.S. to use the telegraph to coordinate the movements of its trains. The telegraph was last used for railroad use by the mid 1980s.

Telephone - Railroads first started to use the telephone in 1879, but wouldn't become common use until the early 1900s. In later years the telephone was used for wayside communications between train crews and dispatchers at switches, control points, etc. Also used between railroad stations and basic dispatcher use.

Controlling (Signaling) - This is also sometimes called the code line. This was basically used for signal control circuits which includes the CTC which used many wires and ABS which required less wires.

Power - Power was needed to run the various signal apparatuses, switch machines, and wayside detectors.

Usually the busier the railroad was the more lines were used along the railroad. A small branch line railroad might only need a few wires for telegraph or telephone use, while a main trunk line railroad would have up to 60-80 wires with all the electrical applications.

Today all this old open wire technology is being replaced by fiber optics, microwave, radio, satellite, and computers. If a pole line is still being used along a railroad today, only the controlling (signaling) and power lines would be the only electrical applications used. In 5-10 years railroad pole lines will only be seen in books or pictures.

Scanned from a 35mm negative using a Pentax PZ-10 camera, Pentax FA 28-80mm f/3.5-4.7 lens.