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Re: (erielack) [REPOST] The EL and Microwave Communications
Jim
I can't comment on your Microwave post, but as a member and contributor
here I wanted to publicly say congratulations on your two page spread photo
in the current Trains Magazine.
Bob Bahrs
On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 8:05 AM, Paul R. Tupaczewski <paultup_@_comcast.net>
wrote:
>
> 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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