Norfolk Division Telegraph Calls -- List rev 9-11-2024 - RURAL RETREAT

[NW Mailing List]

Many thanks for this latest Radford Div. despatch, Messr. Burnett!You may well convert me from a turnip-hater yet.😀
Andre Jackson


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad


On Sunday, September 15, 2024, 8:02 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

Comrade Huddlevski -

Thank yuou for your fine comments about the Turnip Vineyard and the fruit of our vines. Watch for our Autumn Sale of our fermented, bottled turnip spirits.


The telegraph call for Rural Retreat was AY. A and Y are two letters from the name Mount AirY, which was the name of the town when the railroad was constructed through there in the 1850s. It is supposed to be the highest pount between the New River at Radford, and Bristol. If you zoom in on Google Maps, you can see how streams rise on the high ground just west of the depot, and flow west.

The Rural Retreat depot has been restored to a grand place, through the efforts of its son, Mr. Frank Akers. Frank's Grandfather, J. Lacey Akers, was also the Agent/Telegraph operator there for years. As I recall, J. Lacey hired sometime around 1906.

Telegraph calls were generally keyed to several letters in the name of the station. Because railroads are old, telegraph calls often reflect name for the towns earlier than the names presently in use. As in the case of AY for Rural Retreat.

Indulge me a tale, if ye wilst...  Situated on one of the territories upon which I once worked, was a little town named Essington. (It happened to be in Pennsylvania, just a few miles north of Chester, on the old Reading RR branch from Philadelphia to Chester.) The telegraph call for Essington was RO. Now how in the world do you get RO out of the word Essington ? I stumbled across the answer one day while reading a book on county history. Essington had, in Colonial days, been called LazaRettO. A Lazaretto was a designated point at which inbound sailing ships stopped to quarantine, and there had been a government hospital and quarantine doctor at that point. (The word lazaretto is taken from the name of Lazarus, the leper who was healed. That name is Lazarro in the classical languages, so the meaning of the word lazaretto is quite apparent.) When the railroad was built through the area, the station was named Lazaretto and the call RO had been assigned.

The Chief Train Dispatcher of any Division had the decision on the assignment of office calls. The important factor, though, was that there not be duplication of office calls on a Division, or on a dispatching district. As Divisions were enlarged, or as dispatching territories were combined, office calls sometimes changed.

Rural Retreat is on the Radford Division, so I shall attach, for your amusement, my little list of Radford Division office calls. And, since you are a good customer, we shall throw in the Shenandoah Division List as well. My Virginian lists are still in Excel spreadsheets, and when I get those transferred to PDF's, I shall send them along, too.

Please tell us who your Grandfather was. Some of us who hover around Mile Post 80 (in age) probably knew him. And you will want to look up the Rural Retreat depot restoration on-line, and send them a big check to help keep the place painted !

Thank you for your patronage of our turnip vineyard. :-)

-- abram von turnipmann,
deputy assistant grand duke of rutabagas &c________________________________________
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