Messages to "CF"

[benjamintickell53]

The Little Rock relay office, telegraph call “CF,” kept copies of all messages transmitted during a 24 hour period. These daily messages were bundled in brown manila paper, neatly tied with twine, and stacked in a storage room on the third floor of Little Rock Union Depot. Bundles extended floor to ceiling, in specially constructed slots on three sides of this room. A few of these daily bundles came into my possession years ago, and they provide a detailed behind the scenes view of Arkansas Division passenger railroading at the time.

And, about that telegraph call “CF” — its hard to get CF out of Little Rock, but that call actually goes back to the earliest days of pre-MP railroading in Little Rock, CF denoting Cairo & Fulton. As far as I know, that telegraph call survived for almost a century, until the relay office in LRUD was deactivated, when Missouri Pacific moved all operations out of the building to the (now nearly deserted) general office building in North Little Rock.

Bill Pollard

PS – Did anyone else happens to “save” any of these bundles, particularly for dates covering the last runs of railway post office service (October 14, 1967) or last runs of Pullman cars (December 31, 1968)?

[kenris]

Well, there goes another night reading timetables in bed!

Great information.

[clemmie_doris12]

Early in my RR career, when we were still using train orders, we got our orders out of Kansas City from the “CY” office at Neff Yard. This office was located on the 2nd floor of the General Manager’s building which was where the dispatchers were located. Would “CY” be an old telegraph call such as the “CF” that was mentioned here?

[benjamintickell53]

CY is almost certainly a telegraph call, but I cannot identify its origin from the one or two dispatcher sheets that I have from that territory. UD was KC Union Station, CD was East Yard, RK was Rock Creek Junction. Most likely CY was a relay office or the dispatcher office, or ??? A better source for these telegraph calls would be one of the earlier books that MP put out listing stations, agents, stock pens, turntables, etc. As I recall, even the non-station telegraph calls (i.e.-general office, etc.) were listed.

Bill Pollard

[clemmie_doris12]

Neff Yard was built upon what was originally East Yard. It’s completion date was roughly 1958. I wonder if “CY” was a logical choice for the new yard? “Y” is certainly well toward the end of the alphabet.

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