History
The Great Western Railway (GWR) pioneered telegraph communication over the 13 miles (21 km) from Paddington to West Drayton on 9 April 1839 using Cooke and Wheatstone equipment. Although this early system fell into disuse after a few years, from 1850 a new contract with the Electric Telegraph Company saw double-needle telegraphs working at most stations on the line; these were replaced by single-needle machines from 1860. Although used primarily as a safety device to regulate the passage of trains, it was also used to pass messages between the staff. In order to do this quickly and accurately, a number of code words were used to replace complicated or regularly used phrases. The codes were changed from time to time to reflect current needs.
By 1922 most railways in the country had agreed on standard code words, although the GWR had an extended list of codes that could only be used within its own network. In 1943 all railways were brought into a single system of codes and the GWR special codes were discontinued.
Read more about this topic: Great Western Railway Telegraphic Codes
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)