ssential for a train crew to reach the nearest
waystation to give or receive information.

The advantage of these siding sets is coming more and more to be
realized. With the telegraph method of dispatching, a train is ordered
to pass another train at a certain siding, let us say. It reaches this
point, and to use a railroad expression, "goes into the hole." Now, if
anything happens to the second train whereby it is delayed, the first
train remains tied up at that siding without the possibility of either
reaching the dispatcher or being reached by him. With the telephone
station at the siding, which requires no operator, this is avoided. If a
train finds itself waiting too long, the conductor goes to the siding
telephone and talks to the dispatcher, possibly getting orders which
will advance him many miles that would otherwise have been lost.

It is no longer necessary for a waystation operator to call the
dispatcher. When one of these operators wishes to talk to the
dispatcher, he merely takes his telephone receiver off the hook, presses
a button, and speaks to the dispatcher.

With the telephone it is a simple matter to arrange for provision so
that the chief dispatcher, the superintendent, or any other official may
listen in at will upon a train circuit to observe the character of the
service. The fact that this can be done and that the operators know it
can be done has a very strong tendency to improve the discipline.

The dispatchers are so relieved, by the elimination of the strain of
continuous telegraphing, and can handle their work so much more quickly
with the telephone, that in many cases it has been found possible to
increase the length of their divisions from 30 to 50 per cent.

=Railroad Conditions.= One of the main reasons that delayed the
telephone for so many years in its entrance to the dispatching field is
that the conditions in this field are like nothing which has yet been
met with in commercial telephony. There was no system developed for
meeting them, although the elements were at hand. A railroad is divided
up into a number of divisions or dispatchers' districts of varying
lengths. These lengths are dependent on the density of the traffic over
the division. In some cases a dispatcher will handle not more than 25
miles of line. In other cases this district may be 300 miles long. Over
the length of one of these divisions the telephone circuit extends, and
this circuit may have upon it 5 or 50 s