(erielack) [REPOST] The EL and Microwave Communications

["Paul R. Tupaczewski" <paultup_@_comcast.net>]

From: JG at graytrainpix [mailto:graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2017 5:16 AM
To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net; Paul R. Tupaczewski <paultup@comcast.net>
Subject: The EL and Microwave Communications

 

Here's some nostalgia from the "progressive" days of railroading in the 50's and 60's.  Do you remember microwave communication towers along the tracks of the western rail systems, and the Southern Railway's ads boasting about its modern microwave communications network?  I did a little bit of web browsing on this, and I see that a number of railroads had some microwave lines in service by the late 1960s.  These included the NP, Santa Fe and RI, and probably the UP.  The SP was an early user of microwave, and its network became the foundation for the SPRINT telephone company.  In a nutshell, the SP started selling excess communications capacity to the public during the early 70's for long-distance call service (mostly for commercial users, not home users).  By 1978 it called this service "SPRINT", for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony.  In 1983,  the SP sold SPRINT to GTE.  GTE then marketed SPRINT to the general public as a long-distance alternative to Bell/AT&T.

I'm not a communications expert, but I believe that the intent of microwave networks was to replace the many miles of line-side copper wires along their classic telephone poles (and their collectable glass insulators).  For the most part, microwave was not used for train radio communications (this is in the "good old days" pre-1980, and doesn't necessarily apply today).  The railroads mostly maintained their 160/161 VHF radios for train communications.  But in situations where there were remote VHF radio bases allowing dispatcher-train communications (there were a number of these on the EL), the connection between the dispatcher's office and the lineside radio base might have been via microwave towers.  

This may have been true for the Southern or NP or ATSF, but not on the EL -- for the most part, the EL retained its copper communication lines.   But I remember that there was at least one small microwave communication set-up on the EL, and in a somewhat unexpected place.  I.e., along the Greenwood Lake Branch (by then, officially the "Greenwood Lake-Boonton Line").   IIRC, there was a microwave tower in North Newark that communicated with Hoboken.  I'm not sure how many towers were involved, and what was the line-of-sight between them.  I thought (but stand ready for correction) that the radio tower on Hoboken terminal had microwave dishes that were a part of this.  (I believe that the Hoboken Terminal communications tower went way back to the 30's when the DL&W started experimenting with train radio communication -- again, ready for correction).  

My memory is really hazy here, but I thought that the Greenwood Lake microwave link was a patch because of an incident that damaged the copper lines somewhere between WR Tower in Arlington (North Kearny, NJ) and the Bergen Tunnels.  For what ever reason, it was cheaper to put up some towers and buy some microwave equipment than it was to replace the old lines.  West of North Newark, the copper line was back in place.   I forget how the communication lines at WR Tower worked -- perhaps there was a remnant copper link between WR and the tower across the Passaic River bridge in North Newark.  

If anyone can clarify my hazy memories here, that would be great.   And does anyone know of any other microwave installations elsewhere on the EL?  This is just a little footnote to EL history, but at this point, we need to save every footnote that we can!   Jim Gerofsky 

 



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