Does This Solve the Mystery of "MJ" Troutville ?

[NW Mailing List]

Abe

You could have the answer.  But remember your Virginia history. There 
was a Mount Joy in Virginia just before Buchanan as the railroad tracks 
run.  That location was a few miles north of your grandfathers farm.

Jim


On 11/9/2018 9:57 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> For decades I have wondered how Troutville on the Shenandoah Division 
> came to acquire the telegraph call "MJ."
>
>
> I think I may have stumbled on a clue...
>
>
> James Calder Cassell (1856-1936) had an illustrious career on the 
> Shenandoah Valley and the N&W, rising from telegraph operator to 
> Assistant to the President, and every step in between.  At age 48, he 
> left the railroad and went into business for himself.
>
>
> Cassell was born, died and is buried at Mount Joy, Pa, twenty miles 
> east of my home in Harrisburg.  His career started in 1870, as a 
> telegraph operator on the PRR, and most probably he learned to 
> telegraph by hanging around the depot in Mount Joy, on the 
> Philadelphia-Harrisburg Main Line.  The telegraph call for Mount Joy 
> is MJ.
>
>
> Cassell was working as a Train Dispatcher (and probably as Chief Train 
> Dispatcher, we are not exactly sure) on the Shenandoah Valley in 1882 
> when the lower end of the SV was completed into Roanoke.
>
>
> The Chief Train Dispatcher on every railroad had the decision on what 
> telegraph call would be assigned to every station and office on the 
> telegraph wire.
>
>
> Could it be that when a Train Order Office was established at 
> Troutville, Mr. Cassell was the Chief and assigned it the office call 
> "MJ" out of a happy remembrance of the place where he had learned 
> telegraphy, and where he enjoyed working a job close to his home?
>
>
> We will never know for sure, but it is a reasonable conjecture and 
> there are no competing theories.
>
>
> Also, I have always wondered about reasons why the Shenandoah Valley 
> manually blocked trains, almost from the beginning, and who might have 
> been the inspiration behind that.
>
>
> Jim Cassell may be the answer to that question, too.  His former 
> employer, the PRR, began blocking trains in 1875.  Jim Cassell was 
> there when the manual block system (in those days called the 
> "telegraph block system")  was put into effect, working on some of the 
> heaviest traffic territory on the PRR, and knew its merits in 
> preventing collisions.  Perhaps it was Cassell who suggested, urged, 
> argued for, etc, implementing the manual blocking of trains on the 
> Shenandoah Valley RR.  With Joseph H. Sands (another PRR graduate) 
> being the Superintendent of the SV, it probably was not a hard sell.
>
> There is a photo attached.  It shows the telegraph switchboard from 
> "MJ" Troutville, which was given to me many years ago by Troy 
> Humphries, who was working as telegraph operator at Troutville when it 
> was closed.  The switchboard now performs service on our No. 502 
> telegraph wire, which wire, just by a very curious happenstance, has 
> been for many years named "the 502 Wire" here in our operating 
> telegraph office in remembrance of the PRR Philadelphia Division Train 
> Wire between Philadelphia and Harrisburg.... Mr. Cassell's old territory.
>
>
> It would be a delight if Mr. Cassell could come and visit here for a 
> while, and sit down in the telegraph office.  I am sure he would have 
> a good time.  We could rattle the sounders and have a nice railroad 
> conversation in Morse, and a lot of questions about the early SV RR 
> might get answered.
>
>
> The second attached file is a photograph of Mr. Cassell, taken in 
> Roanoke sometime before 1912.
>
>
> History is fun...
>
>
> -- 73 SW &
>
> (abram burnett)
>
>
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>
>
>
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